MUMBAI: Producer – director Ram Gopal Varma has zeroed in on his next film after Rann and Agyaat. The new film is titled Rakta Charitra (The Character of Blood).
The movie is inspired by the story of Paritala Ravi from Andhra Pradesh who got assassinated in January 2005.
Varma will film the story at one stretch and release it in two parts approximately three months from each other. Varma says that the reason he wants to make this movie in two parts is because "the sheer drama and content the story possesses is so incredibly rich and of such high magnitude that it is not possible to do justice to do it in a film, which is lesser than five hours. Also Ravi’s life can be broadly divided into two parts from the time how circumstances created his rise to how he created circumstances that felled him."
Varma writes on his blog, "Even though the actual incidents of the story happened and the related characters existed in south India, I decided to make it in Hindi because I strongly felt that the sheer uniqueness of the story deserves to be told to a much wider audience."
He further explains, "Ravi’s name sent shivers up the spines of not only his rivals but even the law enforcement agencies. He was a rebel, a feudal lord, a robin hood, a killer of hundreds and saviour of thousands till the day he was gunned down by a death squad allegedly put together by his arch rival Suri who wanted to avenge his father’s and brother’s deaths, in a bizarre déjà vu."
Varma says that he has been following Ravi’s rise to power for a long time but he first heard of Suri only after the bomb explosion at Rama Naidu Studios.
In his research for the film, Varma met various associates of Paritala Ravi and Suri and their family members. He also met Suri, who is presently lodged in Anantpur jail, on trial for the killing of Ravi.
"What I finally managed to piece together from all the various police records and eye witness accounts is the most fascinating story I have ever heard or could hope to hear in my life. This is the story of a man’s phenomenal rise to power and a story of the most intense blood curdling conflict ever heard of between two individuals and it is also the ultimate statement on the oft heard disastrous consequences of a fatal mixture of caste, crime, family feuds and politics," Varma writes.
The maverick director signs off saying, "I believe that Rakta Charitra is going to be the most defining film of my career not because of how well I will make it but only because of the material I have at my hand. To put it simply I don’t have to work hard to make it well but I have to work hard to spoil it."
Rakta Charitra is being written by Prashant Pandey, who also wrote Sarkar Raj.
