Pushpaka Vimana (1987 film)

Pushpaka Vimana
Theatrical release poster in Kannada
Directed by	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
Written by	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
Produced by	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao Shringar Nagaraj
Starring	Kamal Haasan Amala Tinnu Anand
Cinematography	B. C. Gowrishankar
Edited by	D. Vasu
Music by	L. Vaidyanathan
Production company	Mandakini Chitra
Release date	27 November 1987 (1987-11-27)
Running time	131 minutes
Country	India
Language	Silent
Budget	₹ 3.5 million

Pushpaka Vimana (transl. The Flower Chariot) is a 1987 Indian comedy film written and directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, who co-produced it with Shringar Nagaraj. The film, which has no dialogue, stars Kamal Haasan, Amala and Tinnu Anand. It revolves around an unemployed graduate who encounters a drunk millionaire unconscious by the roadside and takes over his lifestyle by impersonating him. However, he does not realise the dangers into which he has brought himself because a hired hitman is trying to murder the millionaire.

Singeetam's desire to make a dialogue-less film came when he was working as an assistant director in a film where a character had to emote fear without dialogue in a scene. Once the idea for Pushpaka Vimana materialised, Singeetam wrote the screenplay within two weeks. The film was the only one produced by Nagaraj. Due to the lack of dialogue, Singeetam was able to cast actors from different parts of India. Cinematography was handled by B. C. Gowrishankar, and the background score by L. Vaidyanathan. The film was shot in Bangalore.

Pushpaka Vimana was released on 27 November 1987 with different titles for different regions such as Pesum Padam (transl. Talking Picture) and Pushpak (transl. Flower). The film received critical acclaim and became a commercial success; it film had a 35-week theatrical run in Bangalore. It later won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and in three categories at the 35th Filmfare Awards South: Best Film, Best Director – Kannada (Singeetam) and Best Actor – Kannada (Haasan).

Plot

An unemployed graduate aspires to lead a reasonably affluent livelihood free of the insecurities and humiliations he has to face because of his poverty. A girl smiles upon him when he impromptuly takes up the identity of a rich man, stoking the desire of becoming rich in him even more. After stumbling upon a drunk millionaire unconscious by the roadside, the graduate abducts and takes the millionaire into his room alongside a roof terrace in a dilapidated building. He assumes the millionaire's identity to taste the opulence and starts staying at the plush five-star hotel suite rented by the latter.

The millionaire's wife has an extramarital lover, who hires a hitman to kill the millionaire to usurp his wealth. The hitman, who has never seen the millionaire, believes the graduate is his target. The wife herself is not aware of the murder plan. Posing as the millionaire, the graduate meets the girl, who is the daughter and assistant of a magician, who is residing in the same hotel with his daughter and wife. The girl is not initially interested in the graduate and on one occasion even slaps him because of a misunderstanding where he appeared to her as being unmannered. But later, after the hotel owner suddenly dies, the two meet while paying tribute at his funeral and mend ways. They gradually get into a romantic relationship.

The hitman, in the meantime, comes up with an ingenious way of stabbing with a dagger formed from frozen water, to kill the graduate, but falls in his own trap every time he makes an attempt. All this time, the graduate remains unaware about the dangers in his life. One day, however, he realises that the hitman is in the hotel to kill someone, but is unable to find the identity of his target. Later the hitman intrudes into his suite and gets non-fatally electrocuted while trying to stab the graduate from behind. Finally he learns about the murder plan hatched by the lover of the millionaire's wife when he follows the hitman to their bungalow and eavesdrops the hitman informing the lover about his failure. The two conspirators also realise that they were targeting the wrong man all the time. At this time, the millionaire's wife learns of her lover's treachery, and has a change of heart. She ends her relationship with him.

In a montage shown about the hotel owner, the graduate realises that he was a poor man, just like him. Seeing what the hotel owner achieved by fair means, the graduate begins to question his actions. Some time later, a roadside beggar dies and municipality people come to take his dead body. However, seeing the beggar's stash, they abandon his body on the pavement and start taking the money. The graduate decides to make things right. He sets the millionaire free. He explains the situation to the millionaire in a letter. The millionaire and his wife reunite. After that, the graduate decides to come clean to the magician's daughter as well. He learns that the magician and his family are about to leave the hotel.

The graduate confesses the truth to the magician's daughter, but to his surprise she forgives him. While leaving the hotel, she writes something on a paper and drops a rose wrapped in the same paper from her car. The graduate obtains the rose, but before he can obtain the paper, a gust of wind takes it away and it rolls all the way down the gutter. Some time later, the graduate is shown standing in a line applying for a job.

Cast

• Kamal Haasan as the unemployed graduate
• Amala as the magician's daughter
• Tinnu Anand as the hitman
• Sameer Khakhar as the millionaire
• K. S. Ramesh as the magician
• Loknath as the hotel owner
• Pratap K. Pothen as the lover of the millionaire's wife
• P. L. Narayana as the beggar
• Farida Jalal as the magician's wife
• Ramya as the millionaire's wife

Production

Development

Singeetam Srinivasa Rao was an assistant director to K. V. Reddy, in a film where there was a scene requiring a character to emote fear without dialogues. Singeetam wondered, "Why not do a whole film this way?!". The idea for the film that would become Pushpaka Vimana came to Singeetam when he was in a shower, after which he wrote the screenplay within two weeks. Kamal Haasan agreed to work on the film after being impressed by the script. Pushpaka Vimana thus became the first full-length dialogue-less film in India after the "silent era" of cinema. The film however struggled to find a producer, prompting Singeetam to take over production himself.

When Kannada actor Shringar Nagaraj, a friend of Singeetam, heard that Singeetam was producing a film on his own, he asked about the subject; Singeetam narrated the same, Nagaraj showed excitement and joined as co-producer, with the film being produced under Mandakani Chitra. Pushpaka Vimana was the only film he had produced in his entire career. Cinematography was handled by B. C. Gowrishankar, editing by D. Vasu, and art direction by Thota Tharani, who had worked with Singeetam on Raja Paarvai (1981).

Casting

Since the film had no dialogue, Singeetam chose to cast actors from different parts of India. Haasan, a native of Tamil Nadu, was cast as the protagonist, an unemployed graduate. Telugu actor P. L. Narayana was cast as the beggar and Sameer Khakhar as the drunk millionaire, similar to his character in the Hindi television series Nukkad. Singeetam initially wanted Neelam Kothari to be the female lead, but she wanted to wear "glittering costumes" like in typical Bollywood films. As such inclusions would not suit the film, Singeetam did not cast her. After seeing Amala compere an awards function at Chennai, enquiring about her and getting to know about her Kalakshetra background, Singeetam approached her and she accepted.

Ramya played the drunk millionaire's wife. Pratap K. Pothen, then known mainly for portraying dark characters, portrayed a comic character in this film, the extramarital lover of Ramya's character. Tinnu Anand portrayed the hitman employed by Pothen's character. Singeetam initially wanted Bengali magician P. C. Sorcar to portray the female lead's magician father, but ultimately chose P. S. Ramesh after seeing his performance in a magic show on television in Bangalore, where the story is set. Farida Jalal, who was then visiting Bangalore, was cast as the female lead's mother. Loknath appeared as the owner of the hotel where the story is set.

Filming

Thota Tharani constructed a street set for the film, beside the Hyland Hotel in Bangalore. The little ramshackle room where Haasan lived, and the building itself, was constructed above the hotel. Most of the shooting was done in the Windsor Manor hotel in Bangalore. The management of Windsor Manor were not initially willing to let the film be shot there, but after Nagaraj told them that "the entire world will know about this hotel after the film", they agreed. The scenes where the graduate meets the beggar were shot at a bridge near Windsor Manor. The hitman's weapon of choice is a dagger formed from frozen water. For this reason, every night, an ice mould in the shape of a dagger was kept in the freezer; however, the ice dagger would often melt soon by morning because of the strong density lights being used in the shooting. Singeetam ultimately decided to use an acrylic dagger, which looked like an actual ice dagger. The entire budget of the film was ₹3.5 million (US$42,000)

Music

The film had no songs, only background score. Singeetam wanted a composer who could work as per his demands and requirements for the scenes, for this L. Vaidyanathan was chosen to compose the score. Sitar exponent Janardhan Mitta contributed to the re-recording using two other instruments apart from minimal orchestration.

Themes

Singeetam called Pushpaka Vimana a personal film because "that's the life I lead. I don't want to amass wealth. At the same time, I am not a person who romanticises poverty. Money is important, but that is not everything."

Release and reception

Pushpaka Vimana was released on 27 November 1987. The film was released under different titles for different regions: its original title in Karnataka, Pushpaka Vimanam in Andhra Pradesh, Pesum Padam in Tamil Nadu, Pushpak for Hindi-speaking regions and Pushpakvimanam in Kerala. In Andhra Pradesh, it was distributed by Sravanthi Ravi Kishore, and in Mumbai by actor Rajendra Kumar.

The film received critical acclaim. Reviewing Pesum Padam, the magazine Ananda Vikatan said that to make a silent film needs a lot of courage and the filmmaker needs to be congratulated for that, rating it 50 out of 100. N. Krishnaswamy of The Indian Express said, "For [Kamal Haasan], the film is yet another achievement. For Singeetam, always the bold experimenter [...] Pesum Padam should provide both critical and commercial mileage. It is music director L. Vaidyanathan's task to provide the 'silent' film a worthy musical foil to match its varied moods and needs: this he does with panache." Filmmaker Satyajit Ray applauded the film and told Singeetam, "You have created a love scene around a dead body", referring to the scene where the graduate and the magician's daughter walk around the hotel owner's body during his funeral several times just to spend some time together. Though no-one expected the film to succeed, it was a sleeper hit, completing a 35-week theatrical run in Bangalore.

The film premiered at the International Film Festival of India, 1988 Cannes Film Festival in the International Critics' Week, and retrospective at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and Whistling Woods International.

List of awards and nominations
Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
National Film Awards	April 1988	National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, Shringar Nagaraj	Won
Karnataka State Film Awards	1987–88	Best Editor	D. Vasu	Won
		Best Music Director	L. Vaidyanathan	Won
		Karnataka State Jury's Special Award	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, Shringar Nagaraj	Won
Filmfare Awards South	1988	Filmfare Award South for Best Film	Shringar Nagaraj	Won
		Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada	Singeetam Srinivasa Rao	Won
		Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Kannada	Kamal Haasan	Won

Legacy

Pushpaka Vimanam became a landmark of Indian cinema. According to film theorists Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, it "helped change [Kamal Haasan's] screen image." Singeetam has stated that after the film's success, many people wanted him to make more dialogue-less films but he was uninterested, saying, "My fascination was for the first one that I made." Amala listed it along with Vedham Pudhithu (1987), Agni Natchathiram (1988), Siva (1989) and Karpoora Mullai (1991) as her most memorable films. The film is listed among CNN-News18's "hundred greatest Indian films of all time". The film was listed by Rediff.com in its list "Singeetham's gems before Christ". On Haasan's birthday, 7 November 2015, Latha Srinivasan of Daily News and Analysis considered Pushpaka Vimanam to be one of the "films you must watch to grasp the breadth of Kamal Haasan's repertoire".

Bibliography

• Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul, eds. (1998) [1994]. Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema (PDF). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-563579-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Pushpaka Vimana at IMDb
• Pushpak at Bollywood Hungama