YAM-FanCast: Peru’s Drishyam
So… I’ve seen the Drishyam story -officially- thrice… unofficially, four times already. And while I was wondering why Tabu’s police uniform shrunk so much from her regular cop scenes to when she’s picking up her missing son’s car, I remade a Peruvian version, fan-cast and all.
Ta-da!
The first thing I did was gender-switch because– WHY NOT? Though the first half of the Hindi version feels a lot faster than the original Malayalam and the Tamil one, they managed to make the second half feel longer! So I’m cutting down characters. No spouses, single mothers. Tatiana Astengo will be my hero, single mother of two- newcomers, one to play her elder daughter, and one to play her youngest son (gender-switch!). Women don’t need to be mushy-mushy with their husbands to show they’re homely and responsible at home. Astengo’s Vijay/Georgekutty is homely with her children, whom she lives for.
Still haven’t decided what she actually does for a living, but no cable job because it’s not believable. Probably a regular 9-to-plus-5 worker who gets back home just early enough to have dinner with her children. She does watch crime shows on television in the middle of the night as she doses off to a brand new day.
Inspector General Meera/Geetha will be a widowed mother of that little monster of hers. That actually makes the disappearance of her son a lot more powerful for her, and we get to eliminate all the silly husband interludes during the interrogation sequences. First, I thought I’d give it to Vanessa Saba, but she’s too posh, so I went with Norma Martinez (who did the Nawal Marwan character in the Peruvian stage adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s Incendies), and she will not be an IG, of course.
Martinez’ character will have to be a small district authority with police connections, she’s as tough as nails as a Tiger Mama who wants to find her son, but softens her up enough to be able to look away or stop the brutal interrogations from Inspector Gaitonde/Constable Sahadevan, who will be played by Lucho Caceres. Who would’ve know, huh? This guy pulls off the tough dude with the crazy face.
Plus! We’d be all Catholics down here!
So… Astengo’s daughter goes to a spiritual retreat where she’ll have to run into Martinez’ son, who’d probably be one of those creepy spiritual retreat camp advisers. You know? Those creepy guys who would volunteer, assisting camps in their singing and other spiritual activities to pick up chicks. I’d also like if Astengo (as the mother of the girl) slaps the heck out of the boy for insinuating himself in that pivotal scene, and it all becomes a mess in a fit of rage and survival.
The mind-escape game is a little bit more tricky- I’m not sure how the actual police hideout place works out, we don’t actually lift up a whole new police station out of nowhere down here, I don’t think it even happens in small towns. I could make it a construction boom situation, but I suppose the wrap-up wouldn’t be as ‘sweet’ in concept. The car also wouldn’t be sunk in the water, but probably dismantled for pieces and left to rust.
There will also be much more media play with our nation’s security crisis, kidnaps and murders, so Martinez’ will believe her son has been kidnapped for ransom and come out on media, so the Caceres’ interrogations will have to be a lot more subtle than anything in any of the Drishyam. In my mind, I direct this– LOL! But I’ll settle for Danny Gavidia, who’s famed Reportaje a la Muerte also has similar elements with crime, action, thrill and a commentary on how the media plays on current events.
