Cinematographer Rathnavel speaks about finding Rangasthalam

Ram Charan and Samantha’s ‘Rangasthalam’ has turned out to be a blockbuster at the box-office. Apart from the strong star-cast, the film’s cinematography and realistic imagery from the 80s added to cinematic realism. Reportedly, the team initially thought of shooting the film in Araku valley, but cinematographer Rathnavel dismissed the idea saying, “You’ll get a beautiful scenery in Araku, but it’s very hard to depict culture there. It wasn’t until we visited areas near Kolleru lake and Godavari region that we found our Rangasthalam.”The village where the film was shot is a couple of hours' away from Rajahmundry. “All these years we have seen Godavari region filled with lush green imagery, and beautiful views of the river. When I went for a recce there, I loved the burnt out feel that the area had when the time was around 11:30 AM. That was quite different from what we are used to watching on screen all these years. Later, we found acres and acres of grasslands by the river side and that location inspired us to turn it into a ‘killing field’ in the story.It’s at the entrance of the village and everyone has to pass through it. It has an eerie feeling too because a lot of people get killed there. The grassland added a lot of character to the storytelling. Unlike today, we had a lot of festivals, fairs, folk performances, Hari Katha, Burra Katha, in our villages couple of decades ago. In the film, whenever a confrontation or an emotional scene is about to unfold, you’ll find one of these elements in the background. Showing all that in the film helped us to transport the audience back to the '80s,” says Rathnavel. “There’s no concept of savings in these places. People are content with what they make in a day and they don’t really think so much about their future. We tried working with few people from these villages but they wouldn’t show up after 3-4 days because they are happy with what they have earned in those few days,” added Sukumar, laughing.