For a fortnight, Telugu film circles have been carrying a story about The Paradise: that Nani and director Srikanth Odela had fallen out on set. That Nani had lost his temper with the director. That Odela had shouted back. That the two were barely speaking by the end.
At the film’s press meet, Odela was asked about it. He did not deny it.
What He Said
Per ETV Bharat, Odela began by laying out what he had been reading about himself: “I read and heard many things during the filmmaking process that Nani anna got angry, that he scolded me, that I got angry, that I shouted and that I got upset.”
Then the part that makes this a story rather than a denial: “Yes, Nani anna scolding me is true. The things I said to him may also be true.”
On why none of it matters: “Nani anna and my relationship is not limited to The Paradise or Dasara. Tomorrow, we may make another film together, and our emotions should not be limited to the meter of one particular film.”
And, with the timing of a man who knows he has the room: “He definitely has to put up with me. He has no option. He has to carry me.”
Why The Confirmation Is The News
The standard response to a rift rumour in Indian cinema is a joint photograph and a statement about how the reports are baseless and the two of them are like brothers. It is a genre. It fools nobody and everybody signs off on it because the alternative is a headline.
Odela did the opposite. He confirmed the arguments, declined to characterise them as a problem, and reframed the entire thing as a description of how films get made.
That is a more sophisticated piece of communication than it looks. By confirming it, he removed the story’s value. There is nothing left to leak. And by attaching it to a working relationship that predates this film and is expected to outlast it, he made the arguments sound like evidence of investment rather than dysfunction.
The Thing Indian Cinema Will Not Say Out Loud
Directors and actors argue. Constantly. On every film worth watching and most of the ones that are not.
A film set is a room where one person has a vision, another person has to physically embody it, several hundred people are waiting, and the money is burning at a rate per hour that nobody wants stated in public. Disagreement in that room is not a failure of the relationship. It is the relationship.
The reason this never gets said is that the Indian film industry runs on a public fiction of harmony. Everyone is family. Every set is a joy. Every co-star is the most wonderful human being. The fiction exists because a rift story can affect a release, and because the star system depends on an image of effortlessness.
So a director saying “yes, he scolded me, and the things I said to him may also be true” on the record, during his own film’s promotions, is genuinely unusual. It treats the audience as adults.
The Line That Will Get Quoted
“He definitely has to put up with me. He has no option. He has to carry me.”
Read it twice. It is a joke, and it is also a statement about power that a first-time director could not have made and a third-time director might not get away with.
Odela made Dasara. Dasara worked. The Paradise has now crossed ₹100 crore worldwide in three days and beaten Dasara‘s three-day number. Two films, two results, and a director who can now say in public that the star has to carry him and have it land as confidence rather than arrogance.
That is what two hits buys you in Telugu cinema, and the speed of the transition is worth noting.
The Context It Arrives In
This press meet came in the same week that Nani publicly acknowledged the film’s mixed reviews and said he had “learnt from the flaws that critics and reviewers have pointed out”.
Two people involved in the same divisive film, both declining the defensive posture in the same week. The actor conceded the criticism. The director conceded the arguments. Neither blamed anyone.
It is a small thing and it should not be remarkable. It is remarkable because almost nobody else does it.
Bengaluru Baath Take
More of this, please.
Not the fights, which are nobody’s business and happen everywhere. The honesty about them. An industry that admits its films are made by people who disagree, sometimes loudly, would produce better filmmaking journalism and a considerably less gullible audience.
The current arrangement, where everyone is family in public and the actual working relationships are reconstructed through anonymous trade gossip, serves nobody except the people selling the gossip.
Odela took thirty seconds to kill a two-week rumour cycle by agreeing with it. Somebody should teach that technique at every PR firm in Hyderabad.
Sources
- ETV Bharat, full quotes from the press meet
- TeluguOne, confirmation of the on-set clashes
- Gulte, coverage of the reported rift and the response
- The Week, three-day box office comparison with Dasara
