WHERE THE QUIET SPEAKS

Filmmaker Ivan Ayr’s Milestone is steeped in a sombre, insightful silence

Plots are not essential to filmmaker Ivan Ayr’s independent films. Characters, instead, take centre stage. In his acclaimed debut, Soni, a hot-headed Delhi police officer navigates a rigged system. Ghalib, the trucker protagonist of his second film, Milestone, is quieter. Writing dialogues, says Ayr, doesn’t come easily to him. He would rather let the hardened faces and drab spaces speak for themselves. The filmmaker credits Haruki Murakami as an influence, which explains his tendency to model characters as “reticent and passive”.

In Milestone—which, like Soni, is also a Netflix release—Ayr zooms in on

Ghalib, a recent widower devoted to his backbreaking work. He would easily fit into the world of Chloé Zhao’s Oscarwinning film Nomadland, a film which, in part, documents the time a widow spends in her van. “Truckers are modern nomads,” says Ayr, who interviewed many in Delhi for his research. “I like to think of them as the backbone of our capitalistic system and also as people who are the biggest victims of it.” In Milestone, Ayr wanted to highlight the paradox of men who navigate long distances but personally struggle to get “anywhere in life”. “They are stuck within the small compartment and also in life.” The pandemic has left the Chandigarh-based Ayr feeling stuck, too. After working remotely and relentlessly to finish his film in time for its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in August 2020, the writer-director has been struggling to write. “I know people say that this is the best time for writers, but it’s really hard,” he says. “There is solitude by choice and then there’s solitary confinement. Right now, it’s the latter and it’s not healthy for our minds.” What’s reassuring for indie filmmakers like Ayr is they can now find an audience on OTT platforms. The past year, however, has narrowed the divide between theatres and streaming as many mainstream films have skipped a theatrical release for a digital debut. “The big question mark looming over the future of the film industry is if the theatrical experience is going to survive,” says Ayr. “Can there be a cohabitation of mega blockbusters and smaller films on the same platform?” Ayr may not have an answer but what he does know is he would like “slightly bigger budgets” and, unlike his characters, be in control of his narrative. ■

—Suhani Singh