Silent scenes are more symbolic: Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan

One of my favourite films of all time is Iruvar, a 1997 film made by Mani Ratnam. Based on the lives of M Karunanidhi and MG Ramachandran, the film is about two friends and how they helped each other rise to power. They’re inseparable, but once they are in positions of power, their ego problems get in the way of their friendship, and they stop talking to each other. This is among the best political films ever made in India. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well commercially.

The climax of the film is at a wedding. They haven’t spoken to each other in a long time and when they find themselves facing each other at a marriage ceremony, they cannot speak. They manage to say a lot only by the way they look at each other. Here are two protagonists, once good friends and now bitter enemies. All they can do is sit and look at each other. But the way they look at each other is so powerful, that lines are completely unnecessary anyway. This scene is symbolic because when you have so much to say, the best way to say it is to remain quiet.
I haven’t studied filmmaking. What I know I have learnt from watching films in theatres. This scene left such an impression on me that even in my film Lahore, the last 45 minutes have only 2-3 dialogues. For the same reason: When there’s so much to be said about India and Pakistan, I found that silence was the only way to communicate. Keeping the dialogue to a minimum is more symbolic than expressing every thought that a filmmaker has. And as a filmmaker a silent scene is so much more challenging because you have to depend entirely on the actors to communicate to the audience what you want to say.

Films are a visual medium, but most filmmakers use dialogues, sometimes excessively, to communicate. It’s formulaic. We’re so used to watching films with dialogues that we almost expect that everything be said. As a filmmaker trying to experiment with a scene that requires minimal dialogues, it becomes difficult to meet the audience’s expectations for expressive dialogues that explain everything. But I think we as an audience are opening up to silent scenes too. Take There Will Be Blood for instance. The first 25 minutes of the film have no dialogues. But it’s not as if people didn’t understand what was happening.

Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan
won a national award for his film, Lahore