Ivan Ayr: Meel Patthar explores irony of travelling however not getting anyplace

What if you’re consistently in transit with out actually transferring ahead? That’s the thought that impressed Meel Patthar (Milestone), a contemplative and delicate portrait of a ‘tough truck driver’, says director Ivan Ayr whose movie has been the toast of the worldwide competition circuit.
The movie revolves round Ghalib, just lately bereaved, middle-aged and the one truck driver to have accomplished 500,000 kilometres in his firm. But together with the milestone comes the likelihood that he might lose his job to a youthful recruit, Pash.
“The initial idea was to kind of portray the life of somebody who is away from home so maybe feels a sense of detachment from home and also is travelling but not really travelling, moving from one place to another all the time, but not really getting anywhere, stuck inside a compartment with this feeling that ‘I’m in control’ but not necessarily in control of their life and destiny,” Ayr instructed PTI in a Zoom interview.
Ivan Ayr, who made his function movie debut with Netflix’s cop drama Soni, stated he discovered “strong irony” within the concept and determined to discover it in a poetic manner, weaving in themes about private id, grief, redemption, job nervousness and the category divide inside the working class group.
Meel Patthar, which launched on Netflix on May 7, was the official choice of the Venice and Busan worldwide movie festivals and gained the highest prize on the thirty first Singapore International Film Festival final 12 months. The movie’s lead actor Suvinder Vicky gained the award for finest efficiency.
Ayr, who studied electrical engineering earlier than his postgraduate research within the United States in English literature in addition to screenwriting and directing, felt he might join with audiences via the story.
“Essentially, the idea was that a veteran truck driver who felt things were going fine realizes what he has lost. That sense of loss kind of just dawns on him and he realises it was probably because of his own doing he kind of finds closure and comes to terms with the fact that he’s not really in control of things. These were some of the threads,” the director stated.
Ivan Ayr, a nom de plume, started his journey in cinema with the quick movie Lost and Found and Quest for a Different Outcome earlier than making his function debut with Soni.
The director stated he wished to discover the “insecurities, aspirations and opinions” of people that spent days protecting lengthy stretches of roads of their truck.
“One of the things I wanted to do with the film was to show the tender side of seemingly very tough people. Just because they drive these massive machines and have this skill of being in control all the time and driving night and day, you kind of have this perception that they’re sort of hardened and emotionless folks, which is, of course, not the reality,” Ayr stated.

The names of the first characters (performed by Suvinder Vicky and Lakshvir Saran) was deliberate and a ‘cynical decision’, stated the Chandigarh-born director. While one is called after iconic Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, the opposite recollects Avtar Singh Sandhu Pash, the influential Punjabi revolutionary poet killed by Khalistanis in 1988 on the age of 38.
“The idea was a very cynical one that nobody cares about these names anymore. So I decided that we’re just going to keep those names. I thought it’s better to have people question that decision than serving it on a plate and just explaining them … The idea was very pessimistic, one that they are just ordinary names today and they are,” he stated.
Vicky is improbable in his function of the getting older, grieving Ghalib and Ayr found him from Gurinder Singh’s Punjabi movie Chauthi Koot.
“It is difficult to find someone in that age group and I wanted a certain look and fluency with Punjabi,” the director stated, including that he satisfied Vicky to not contact his beard for a month and in addition learn to drive a truck.
One theme Ayr was eager to discover was how the extra determined persons are for work, the extra vulnerable they’re to exploitation.
“That desperation is not just physical or materialistic, It could be emotional, it could be just finding purpose in life. That’s why the younger driver refuses to take the money because it’s not money that he’s after, he’s after the dignity and the security that comes with working full time, having your own space and livelihood in a city which is kind of new to you.”

A sub-plot of the movie sees every day wagers who load and unload the cargo within the truck happening a strike for a two rupee improve of their wages, one thing the father-son house owners don’t comply with. This story, Ayr stated, helped him discover the category divide between the working-class group.
“There are classes amongst every class so it’s important to kind of make that distinction and highlight the strata within the working class. It’s an observation that I have kind of made about our society, which is that we have different levels and at every level you have oppressors. So whoever has the opportunity of oppressing the person below him, will do that,” he stated.