Locations in Europe: Slovenia: Hotel Bor, Preddvor, Upper Carniola; The Church of St. Primus and Felician Bulgaria: Dzhumaya Mosque; Glavna Street; Tsankov Kamak Dam in Plovdiv Serbia: Stara Planina Mountain National Park, Museum of Aviation, Batajnice Air Base in Belgrade, Cotton Combine, Downtown Railway Tunnel, Belgrade Beer Fest in Belgrade City
Storyline
Director/Producer: Siva (Director), T.G Thyagarajan, Sendhil Thyagarajan, Arjun Thyagarajan (Producers)
Line Producer/Executive Producer/Associate Producer: Raahul (Executive Producer); Alek Conic, KS Jairam, (Line Producers)
Star(s): Ajith Kumar, Vivek Oberoi, Kajal Aggarwal, Akshara Haasan
Songs/Dance: Shot across different locations of Eastern Europe
Indian/ International Crew:- Amila Terzimehic as Rachael, who is part of the counter terror squad
- Hollywood stunt artist of Casino Royale fame Serge Crozon-Cazin as Michael
- Yogi B, Malaysian rapper sang the first song “Surviva”
Language: Tamil, Dubbed into Telugu, Hindi, also released in Kannada as Commando
Film Location Analysis
By Veena Hariharan
This film is about an Interpol agent betrayed by his friends who then sets out to take revenge against these friends, aspires to be a hi-tech international spy thriller, a sort of Matrix meets Nolan meets Bond. Its improbable plotline is merely a ruse as the film is set up as a star vehicle for Ajith’s new box-office avatar as an action hero. While fans lapped this up, the film itself sank at the box office. However, the film has several spectacular scenes set against the backdrop of exotic Eastern European locations including Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Each of these scenes could be analysed in detail. As an example, here’s an analysis of the opening scene:
The opening scene begins in the Vinatavoca forest, Serbia, where a security force moves in stealthily, shifts to the Tsankov Kamak Dam, Bulgaria, where AK finds himself cornered from all sides and delivers the film’s punch line: “Believe in yourself even if no one else does. Never ever give up” and culminates in the river into which he does a high-voltage somersault, emerging thereafter to freedom and the opening credits.
The scene alternates between long shots especially of the action scenes and close-ups of the conversations between the villains in the interiors. High angles capture the movements of the security forces through the forest while low angles are reserved for the two villains (heads of Europol and a Russian mafia gang) who are negotiating the sale of a high-power weapon drive. The camera moves dynamically capturing the stealthy movements of the security forces as they navigate the hauntingly beautiful if dense forest foliage captured in its pristine greenness as a silvery light streaks through the beech trees. Several 360-degree pans, helicam shots and fish-eye lens shots capture these actions.
A high angle shot of the trees merges into a VFX of the forest and cuts to a mop of grey hair. This is how AK makes his entry as he is dressed in commando costume and slinging not one but two guns, wields a disc (just like the Hindu God Vishnu’s Brahmastra) that cuts the trees and paves a way for him to escape the security forces that guard the villains. AK, the film’s Bond-like protagonist, makes his dramatic entry into the villains’ den in a splendid close-up. After one of them has just boasted that they are in the safe zone where not even the wind can enter without his permission, AK takes less than a few seconds to shoot out at them. He is framed in a silhouette that cuts to close-ups of his biceps, his taut musculature and handsome profile that are attenuated to introduce us to the action hero.
Several gadgets including hi-tech weapons, body clocks, laptops, biometric devices, weapon drives, and surveillance equipment make their presence in the scene announcing the overall hi-tech aspirations of this spy thriller.
The colour palette of the scene moves from cool tones of the exteriors to the warm tones of the interiors (in an imitation of Christopher Nolan’s Inception). The blue-green exteriors of forests and rivers cuts to the warm, almost fiery orange tones of the interior where the diegetic light of the fireplace lights the faces of the two villains as they plot an international conspiracy signified by a close-up of a map that hangs menacingly on the wall. The film deftly cuts between the two maintaining this tonal rhythm until an explosion anticipated by the yellow-orange light that lights the windows that was until now framed by foliage and trees, breaks this distinction of inside/outside.
But the way out is more difficult, as AK finds himself trying to escape a security alert that has cornered him from all possible sides. As he runs across the bridge in slow motion and freeze frames, a helicam shot provides a gorgeous view of the Tsankov Kamak Dam and several helicopters provide a spectacular display of their virtuoso in the skies.
The scene works through a series of cheats where the ostensible location of the film is actually set elsewhere. The scene is set in the Vinatavova forest as announced by the film’s establishment title including the precise GPS details of its latitude and longitude. A protected rainforest in Serbia, permissions were rare to come by so the film was shot instead in the Stara Planina Mountain National Park where they got their beech trees, dense forest foliage, and snows similar to the Vinatavoca forest.
While the dam sequence is a nod to the famous Bond movie Golden Eye, the dam here is the Tsankov Kamak Dam, Bulgaria, and the Vacha river that the hero jumps into was actually shot in Chennai.
Additional Information & Links
Promos:
https://www.hotstar.com/in/vivegam-promo/1000229541
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arje9Cn5rjs
Tourism
The film spawned a wave of film tourism to Eastern Europe as Georgia, Serbia, and Bulgaria became new hot destinations for filmmakers. Incentives such as visa on arrival made it easy for the average Indian tourist to hop over to Eastern Europe while vacationing in Europe.
