• SUDA MING’S CHANNEL
  • TALKING FILMS
  • Good Night | Good Morning
  • My Talk Show
  • PROFILE

MADRAS INK.

Menu

  • Archives
  • Columns
  • Diary
  • Interviews
  • My Films
  • Reviews
  • Good Night | Good Morning

  • Word thru the bird

    Tweets by SudhishKamath
  • Connect with GNGM

    Connect with GNGM
  • About GNGM

    Reviews

    “A cerebral joyride”
    Karan Johar, filmmaker on REDIFF

    “Among the most charming and creative Indian independent films”
    J Hurtado, TWITCH

    ★★★★✩
    “You don’t really need a big star cast… you don’t even need a big budget to get the techniques of filmmaking bang on…”
    Allen O Brien, TIMES OF INDIA

    ★★★★✩
    “An outstanding experience that doesn’t come by too often out of Indian cinema!”
    Shakti Salgaokar, DNA

    ★★★
    “This film can reach out the young, urban, upwardly mobile, but lonely, disconnected souls living anywhere in the world, not just India.”
    Namrata Joshi, OUTLOOK

    “I was blown away!”
    Aseem Chhabra, MUMBAI MIRROR

    “Good Night Good Morning is brilliant!”
    Rohit Vats, IBN-LIVE

    ★★★✩✩
    “Watch it because it’s a smart film.”
    Shubha Shetty Saha, MIDDAY

    ★★★✩✩
    “A small gem of a movie.”
    Sonia Chopra, SIFY

    ★★★✩✩
    “A charming flirtation to watch.”
    Shalini Langer, INDIAN EXPRESS

    “Interesting, intelligent & innovative”
    Pragya Tiwari, TEHELKA

    “Beyond good. Original, engrossing and entertaining”
    Roshni Mulchandani, BOLLYSPICE

    * * * * *
    Synopsis

    ‘Good Night Good Morning’ is a black and white, split-screen, conversation film about two strangers sharing an all-night phone call on New Year's night.

    Writer-Director Sudhish Kamath attempts to discover good old-fashioned romance in a technology-driven mobile world as the boy Turiya, driving from New York to Philadelphia with buddies, calls the enigmatic girl staying alone in her hotel room, after a brief encounter at the bar earlier in the night.

    The boy has his baggage of an eight-year-old failed relationship and the girl has her own demons to fight. Scarred by unpleasant memories, she prefers to travel on New Year's Eve.

    Anonymity could be comforting and such a situation could lead to an almost romance as two strangers go through the eight stages of a relationship – The Icebreaker, The Honeymoon, The Reality Check, The Break-up, The Patch-up, The Confiding, The Great Friendship, The Killing Confusion - all over one phone conversation.

    As they get closer to each other over the phone, they find themselves miles apart geographically when the film ends and it is time for her to board her flight. Will they just let it be a night they would cherish for the rest of their lives or do they want more?

    Good Night | Good Morning, starring Manu Narayan (Bombay Dreams, The Love Guru, Quarter Life Crisis) and Seema Rahmani (Loins of Punjab, Sins and Missed Call) also features New York based theatre actor Vasanth Santosham (Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain), screenwriter and film critic Raja Sen and adman Abhishek D Shah.

    Shot in black and white as a tribute to the era of talkies of the fifties, the film set to a jazzy score by musicians from UK (Jazz composer Ray Guntrip and singer Tina May collaborated for the song ‘Out of the Blue), the US (Manu Narayan and his creative partner Radovan scored two songs for the film – All That’s Beautiful Must Die and Fire while Gregory Generet provided his versions of two popular jazz standards – Once You’ve Been In Love and Moon Dance) and India (Sudeep and Jerry came up with a new live version of Strangers in the Night) was met with rave reviews from leading film critics.

    The film was released under the PVR Director’s Rare banner on January 20, 2012.

    Festivals & Screenings

    Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI), Mumbai 2010 World Premiere
    South Asian Intl Film Festival, New York, 2010 Intl Premiere
    Goa Film Alliance-IFFI, Goa, 2010 Spl Screening
    Chennai Intl Film Festival, Chennai, 2010 Official Selection
    Habitat Film Festival, New Delhi, 2011 Official Selection
    Transilvania Intl Film Festival, Cluj, 2011 Official Selection, 3.97/5 Audience Barometer
    International Film Festival, Delhi, 2011 Official Selection
    Noordelijk Film Festival, Netherlands, 2011 Official Selection, 7.11/10 Audience Barometer
    Mumbai Film Mart, Mumbai 2011, Market Screening
    Film Bazaar, IFFI-Goa, 2011, Market Screening
    Saarang Film Festival, IIT-Madras, 2012, Official Selection, 7.7/10 Audience Barometer

    Theatrical Release, January 20, 2012 through PVR

    Mumbai
    Delhi
    Gurgaon
    Ahmedabad
    Bangalore
    Chennai
    Hyderabad (January 27)

    * * * * *

    More information: IMDB | Facebook | Youtube | Wikipedia | Website

  • Browse: Categories

  • October 2008
    M T W T F S S
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    2728293031  
    « Sep   Nov »
  • Recent Posts

    • Simmba: A departure from the formula
    • Zero: The hero who wasn’t
    • Protected: AndhaDhun: What did that end mean?
    • Love and other cliches
    • October: Where is Dan?

Archive For October, 2008

Karzzz: He, He He, Himesh… Ha Ha Ha Ha

October 24, 2008 · by sudhishkamath

Genre: Comedy
Director: Satish Kaushik
Cast: Himesbhai, Indra Kumar’s not so lucky production – Beti – Shweta who ought to take up toothpaste modelling, Urmila Matondkar, Danny Danzongpa and Gulshan Grover looking every bit like Feroze Khan’s duplicate as Sir Judah.
Storyline: Many years ago, there was a siren, there was a moron… She killed him. To scare her to death, he’s re-born… ugly as hell.
Bottomline: Watch Om Shanti Om on DVD if you want a Karz tribute, for a spoof watch this one.

“Tum subah jab breakfast nahin karti ho, toh tumhe acidity ho jaati hai,” (When you don’t do breakfast, you get acidity in the stomach) says Monty (Himesbhai) trying to convince Princess Kamini (please note the smarty pants pun – Kameeni, also means very bad woman) that he knows her from last birth.

When the Princess dismisses this bit of trivia saying it’s part of general knowledge, Monty comes up with the sucker punch: “Jab tum kiss karti ho Kamini, toh tum aankhen bandh kar leti ho.” (I know that when you kiss, you close your eyes, Kamini) Now, Kamini is stumped and shell-shocked. How did he know? How did he know this unique quirky little habit of hers when the rest of the world usually plays dandiya on the occasion.

Besides when your boyfriend is Himesbhai, keeping your eyes closed all the time sounds like a good idea too. But actually, what Himesbhai is also trying to tell you is that he used to look once look like Dino Morea – he didn’t always look like Emraan Hashmi’s chubby twin with a wig, with a nasal voice, flabby cleavage and twiggy arms, you know.

If you walked in to watch the new Karzzzz, you have only yourself to blame. For starters, the smarty pants producers have expressly titled it Karz with the extra zees. They have put up Himesbhai’s ‘fotu’ on the poster to caution you further that vengeance is back (you made fun of him when he hid behind a cap in Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee – The Real Luv Story, look who’s back now – without it!) and for the benefit of those who aren’t wearing their smarty pants to the theatre, 15 minutes into the film, Himesbhai himself tells you, singing “Hurry Home Hurry, ” the anthem that replaces “Om Shanti Om” from the original.

I have to be honest though, I’m now a fan of Himesbhai and I am not ashamed of it. I have never cared much for his songs or his style of singing because I knew there was a good enough reason for him to hide his face. But to expose yourself like this, you need to be made of steel and concrete. And his facial expressions prove what he’s made of.

But, when he screams ‘Nahiiiiiin,’ it’s pure movie magic. My to-do list has a new entry right on top: To buy the Karzzzz DVD and cut a montage of Himesbhai’s screams. Some day, it will be useful to stop kids from crying.

Him apart, there are a few other reasons why Karzzz will be recommended as part of laughter therapy. The goon who wears lavender-pink satin tights as an underwear, the producer-beti heroine whose smile is so big that her mouth seems to begin from her ear, the villain who types out musical notes with his metallic arm which are then decoded and relayed across almost instantly and not to forget Dino Morea’s coming of age as an actor. Finally here’s a movie that will have critics writing: Dino Morea was the saving grace of the film. But the grace doesn’t last too long.

Like Sharon Stone did Basic Instinct 2, Urmila must do a Rangeela 2 (Smarty pants suggestion for sequel: Geela – Urmila wetter than before). But seriously, the best actress of the year has to go to Urmila Matondkar. Who else could’ve pulled off that surprise expression when Himesbhai tells her what she usually does during a kiss?

FREE: Watch my feature film That Four Letter Word online

October 14, 2008 · by sudhishkamath

Update:

Those who have been trying to watch the movie from India and been unable to because of slow streaming, I think I fixed the problem by also hosting the files on blip.tv. So just head here for everything you wanted to/ never wanted to know about That Four Letter Word and also watch the film. Since it’s the world’s first film to be given away free online, I think it’s time it had a home of its own.

Dear People Unfortunate Enough To Be Reading My Blog,

I have subjected some of you to my film already but this is for all those of you who got away without watching my first feature film That Four Letter Word which released a couple of years ago.

After a couple of weeks of testing, I have finally hosted my film on my blog and I think the picture quality too isn’t too bad considering the whole film can be watched online.

So whenever you have a couple of hours to spare, go here.

The password is: ipromisenottohateit

Please note that the password is subject to change. So, if you are unable to load the page using this password, please mail me at madeinmadras at gmail dot com and I will send you the new password in case of change.

Before you can watch it, here are the disclaimers:
1. This is a beta version of the digital print. Given limitations of streaming video online, this is the best size we could manage for a wordpress blog. Please watch with headphones for better audio quality.
If you are not happy with this picture quality, the film will be able on home video in India (through Moser Baer) and through video on demand (through Tata Sky) from mid-February 2009. Thank you again for your interest.

2. This is a low budget independent film made with a budget of Rs. three and a half lakhs and resources available at that point of time. At best, it’s a half decent effort, a five on ten film, which is also the reason you get to watch it free. You can read more on the making of the film at http://that4letterword.com

3. Play and Pause immediately to let the page load (Just like how you watch videos on Youtube). Depending on your internet connection, it may take around 10-40 minutes for you to load each of the two parts and you can start watching even if has buffering suggests only half of it is over because by the time you get to the halfway mark, the rest of it would have loaded too. So I suggest you let Part 2 load as you are watching Part 1. Part 3 is just the end credits, goofs and outtakes – and it’s three minutes long only because we have a long list of people to thank. So if you want to make a hit-list of all people responsible for this misadventure, don’t miss Part 3.

Do feel free to report any errors or problems faced in loading the page and I will do my best to assist you.
And those of you who have blogs, please feel free to spread the word and inflict it on the world. And please tell your friends not to embed the videos on to their blogs because as producers, we could flag the sites and report copyright violation. A link to this, however, will be appreciated.

This is probably for the first time here in India that a filmmaker is showing his entire feature length film online and free. And that’s because I want more people to have heard about the film and I hope that the word of mouth will help boost the DVD and home video sales in February 2009. Those who will download will anyway do so anyway and those who want to support the film will anyway buy DVDs… So I’m guessing no harm done here by this experiment. 🙂

Feedback on the film is welcome too. But remember what you typed as the password. 🙂

Have a that-four-letter-word-in’ time!
Cheers!
Sudhish Kamath

Hello: When nature calls, take it. Don’t make a movie.

October 13, 2008 · by sudhishkamath

Disclaimers: Spoilers ahead. So unless you’ve read the book already, proceed at your own risk. Actually, who am I kidding… I can’t spoil it for you even if I tried. Besides, it’s not like I want you to watch the film.

Hello plays out as the story of six… janitors, we think, considering these folks spend more time inside the bathroom than on the phone, at a call centre. Maybe their nocturnal junk-food routine has taken a toll on their domestic lives and had also upset their stomach.

Poor slobs. Their American ass-licking boss who himself works double-shift actually expects them to work on a rainy night! Oooh, Pure Evil!

I mean who in India ever goes to work when it rains? Especially, when your office is sending you a stupid chauffer-driven air-conditioned SUV to fetch you and your entire team. Besides, talking on the phone is such a tough job. Only those freak teens manage to do it full-time.

This particular night, things were all set to hit rock bottom.

If you hear a loud noise when you’re on the job, you know you need to use the bathroom. The girls head to the loo together to discuss men, cars and their salaries as the two single boys (both rejected by their women in office) decide to take matter in their own hands… only to be busted by the boss who catches one atop the other going: Whooo-hoo. Thankfully, the open-minded boss doesn’t mind as long as they leave him out of it. They then swoop down on the Big Boss as he feeds the urinal, probably thinking it’s the most opportune time to tell him about a website they’ve put together. Ahem!

Meanwhile, Military Uncle is busy surfing wild life on the internet and forwards clips of those horny beasts to his little grandson. We really wonder why the spamming goes unappreciated by his son.

The rest spend most of the night in the bathroom so much that at one point, Sallu thought the term call centre was actually a nasty little pun on the place where people answered nature’s calls. He suggested to Chetan that he could be shirtless in a Jacuzzi, have a mystic masseuse stroke more than just his ego, while listening to this story. A story that, for a reason he couldn’t immediately fathom, urgently had to be told… But then, it was only natural in his surroundings that uncontrollable objects be dropped and promptly flushed.

So after another one of the many breaks they get that night, the boys then do what dejected lovers do. One of them fondly remembers the sex they had when things were good (and the bitter-sweet pangs of negotiating a D-Cup inside an SUV) and taps her phone to find out all about her honeymoon plans (The director employs a ‘horny conscience’ as his inside voice).

The other guy breaks the office wash-basin and other canteen props on finding out that someone else beat him to the post and got it cheap.

To illustrate that they are all going through the same shit, the team leader breaks it to the only happily married girl in the office that her husband’s been cheating on her.

The last straw is when they eavesdrop into their boss’s phone line and find out that they’re going to be sacked because apparently, productivity record should never show a clean slate. What’s worse is that their boss has passed off the website idea as his own and was all set to leave to the US.

To cut a long story short, an item song and drunken driving later, they find themselves between life and death as their car delicately dangles over a construction site, with only a sheet of iron bars to hold their weight. That’s when they get a call from the voice talent who used to make a living when Mahabharath was on air.

The phone helpfully flashes the caller ID as God and a brief sermon about the need to accept failure later, they are almost rescued but then Amrita Arora over-acts with so much excitement that she could’ve probably killed them that night jumping in her seat.

After surviving the night, they decide to do what it takes for survival. They sneak into their boss’s office, send off a mail to one of the girls who sleeps cheap anyway, blackmail him for sexual harassment and then web-cast the negotiation live to the US. They then indulge in cyber-terrorism to keep their jobs by spreading a hoax virus alert to their database of dumbkopfs… the poor unsuspecting kinds who assume their bras can be washed in a dishwasher just because their lovers told them that the contents were so edible just the previous night.

* * *

Well, that’s what the film version translates a not-so-great-but-entertaining book into.

While the book showed at least an iota of character depth and a little detail that made a mediocre plot barely readable, Chetan Bhagat and Atul Agnihotri have dumbed it down to a ridiculous extent… especially the virus-alert scam.

In the book, when Priyanka breaks the news of her impending engagement, the girls are happy for her and so is she… She laughs out loud while talking to the prospective groom and seems to have clearly moved on from her previous relationship. Here, the filmy friends mourn in silence when she announces her plans for marriage and it is made amply clear that Priyanka hasn’t moved on at all.

The love story is largely unconvincing and plain, in spite of the fact that Sharman and Gul are the best of the lot. They breathe quite a bit of life in these underwritten roles. Sohail is a riot all right. He begins on a sober understated note and realises he’s more at home with his signature snide remarks, quirks and animated expressions and thankfully, manages to provide some comic relief in this otherwise boring film.

Katrina seems to read from a teleprompter and Salman’s ‘listening’ expression is a lot like the one he would have if he were picturing her naked.

Well, so yes Hello is loyal to ‘One Night’ in terms of story but does it capture the call centre culture as credibly?

The accent of Hello (literally too) completely misses the point. The director lets go of so many places where he could’ve built tension and there’s plenty of scope for that: Whether one’s tapping a phone, or hiding to eavesdrop, or sneaking into your boss’s room and of course, the build up to the conversation with God.
Hang on, the conversation was a little cheesy even in the book. Here, though it’s brief, the gyaan is too general and the filmmaker never puts us into the shoes of every individual and their internal conflicts when they absolutely must introspect.

Given that is the big point the book was trying to make (remember Bhagat’s little exercise at the beginning of the book where he asks you to write down what you fear, what makes you angry and what you don’t like about yourself), the film never quite gets you into that zone or its vicinity.

Remember that last conversation where the narrator tells the storyteller that people want logic and may find it difficult to believe that it was God who called…

Well, in this case, it’s like Sallu after the narration, probably told the makers he would agree if they did exactly the opposite:
“Don’t try to make it realistic, people don’t like logic. They want to see me without a shirt. And Katrina too (but the Censors may not allow that), they want Sajid Wajid ka music, one item song after interval, make out scenes for the multiplex audience… the rest Sohail will take care… Let’s roll.”
*Begins to take his shirt off, humming Just Chill, Chill, Just Chill*

Drona: A stoner film with plenty of substance

October 12, 2008 · by sudhishkamath

Far, far away in a European town near Saawariya-pur where even firang folk speak Hindi, a little boy often ridiculed by his step mom and Yo-bro, begins to find solace in the blue stuff that grew around the area.

One day, the kind foster Dad realising that the kid was going bonkers, gives him a towel to keep the blue stuff by telling him: You are not like us. You are special.

Little does the poor lil boy know that ‘special’ was the politically correct usage for being mentally ill. So he continues to find more of the blue stuff every time he’s depressed and soon, the effects began to show.
At first, the hallucinations are small and ordinary… It just makes him feel tickled by a petal. But then as he grows up, things begin to get a little crazy gradually. He can feel the petal talk to him. The petal also plays hide and seek with him and even wipes his ass eyes every time shit happens.

It makes him sweep the pavement (after goons break the display panes of his brother’s store) and soon, he hallucinates that the blue stuff gifts him a heavy-duty gold bracelet. He gets visions of a Gothic-styled Kay Kay Menon talking Urdu-laced Hindi to a gooey clone as the two face off for a facial contortion competition along with a few visual effects he had seen on DVD in recent fantasy films… and the hallucinations soon get a little more wilder when he begins to fantasise about Priyanka Chopra in a turban, driving a yellow Alfa Romeo and kicking ass flaunting cleavage.

After the kind father kicks the bucket, ironically, it’s just the mother who really understands him for who he is. “Druggie kahin ka,” she refers to him affectionately for the benefit of the front-benchers. This is one of the rare few times that director Goldie Behl spells out what’s actually going on.

Otherwise, Drona is like Anurag Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’ on hash… Or possibly acid, since they seem to call it the ‘Amrit’.

Whatever it is, it’s the good stuff that’s responsible for the screenplay (the same stuff that should rightfully get writing credits for Baba, specifically that thrilling kite-sequence) and substance has led to a lesser known genre going mainstream. It would’ve been unimaginable a few years ago that a mainstream star like Abhishek Bachchan would be sport enough to do a full blown stoner film.

Drona looks like something only David Lynch would’ve got away doing in recent times – nothing is what it seems like at the surface.

Abhishek seems like he’s serious but he’s not.

Kay Kay Menon at the surface may seem like a great actor but then his facial muscles go berserk all through.
Priyanka too has no direct lines of her own in the movie and hence uses the indirect way of expression, starting every sentence with “Babuji kehtey the…”

There are plenty of signifiers and unless you have passed the basic test and successfully deconstructed No Smoking, it is unlikely that you will realise that Priyanka’s attribution is all about the subconscious reminding you of your upbringing and values with which you were brought up with.

Even when you do drugs, the subconscious likes to remind you like a guardian angel manifesting itself through things you have ordinarily liked – curves and cars. But the more addicted you get, the more rebellious you become and start craving to face your fears… Like the young Bruce Wayne from Batman Begins.

Some may even begin to explore alternative sexuality and wear kohl around the eyes and want to spend your birthdays with Riz Raizada (an adequately effeminate Kay Kay Menon), clearly seduced by the charm of evil only to realise that pure evil will stop at nothing to get the pill away from you. Goldie does this with a beautiful scene around interval when Kay Kay Menon makes Abhishek give him the pill – this is also a literal scene where Goldie spells it out visually. And you thought only the Wachowski Brothers would have thought of something like that.

But if you want your freedom, you have to protect the stuff… the Amrit that everybody wants. Crazy wizards to Seven-footer-WWF champions in prosthetics to albino monks from Opus Dei… everybody wants it.

Drona is about protecting your stuff. Marijuana is a legacy left behind by our forefathers and there’s always a Chosen One who has to fight evil forces that want to confiscate it for their own consumption.

I haven’t seen Pineapple Express, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be half as funny or profound as Drona.

Go for Drona adequately stoned. There’s not a chance in hell your stupid brain would understand any of it otherwise. And if you are a No Smoking fan, be warned. You may die of overdose.

Kidnap: Could nap during this chiller

October 5, 2008 · by sudhishkamath

Genre: Thriller
Director: Sanjay Gadhvi
Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Imran Khan, Minnisha Lamba, Vidya Malavade
Storyline: A young man holds the richest Indian’s daughter captive and gives him a set of tasks and deadlines
Bottomline: Reveals way too much to keep you guessing

“This is a kidnapping. Maine tumhe kidnap kiya hai,” announces Imran trying hard to look like a badass. Minissha giggles in response and so do we.

First, the basic premise of the film is covered in a bikini for most part. So there’s nothing much to guess there but it is fun nonetheless to watch Minissha cavort around in water.

Secondly, the guy holding the basic premise of the film captive hardly looks like he could do serious damage. So there’s nothing to fear when he says ‘Mujhe Revenge Chahiye’ like it’s some new cocktail at the bar.

Finally, the father of the basic premise of the film is the richest Indian alive, which means it shouldn’t be that hard for him to get away even with murder. So it hardly seems like a challenge when he is asked to get to Panvel in 40 minutes because he could’ve easily taken his private chopper or better still, had the lady he’s asked to meet air-lifted.

This film ought to have been called Charity instead of Kidnap for more reasons than Minissha’s service to the deprived. What do you call a man who cooks for you, does your dishes, takes you to pristine beaches for a swim, makes you revisit your childhood home, gets you designer clothes and even cuts your finger nails (and Gadhvi accompanies this with tense music so that we’re scared), brings your divorced parents together and reunites you with your father over the phone, without any financial motivation? In some countries, he’s called the husband.

So when Imran does all of this and you are expected to believe he’s some mean kidnapper, you can’t smile at the innocence of this good Samaritan.

The rat giving the cat something to run for may sound like an exciting sequence but not if you consider that the stuntmen, for the sake of creating a chase, decide that instead of just having one run after the other, have both of them climb a building under construction. For what joy? For a parkour demonstration, of course.

In between these tickles, there’s Vidya Malavade deciding to test our willing suspension of disbelief skills. As Yummy Mummy to Minissha, she also tries to convince us that she can go to a prison all alone in the middle of the night and pass off as a human rights activist on a surprise check. With those clothes, she’s probably fighting for the prisoner’s need for glamour.

For those who care, the storyline goes that a former juvenile delinquent gives a set of tasks accompanied with clues written as bad puns to nursery rhymes for an old man with a paunch. The script thus solely relies on these tasks for the thrills.

The tasks include robbery, jailbreak and murder, all excuses for set-piece action sequences.

At no point does it seem like the situation would chaotically spiral out of control. In fact, evil is conspicuous by absence in this film that doesn’t really want to let its characters slip into dark territory. There’s sexual assault that’s withheld, an interesting premeditated murder twist that gets cancelled as an afterthought, a romance that the makers are scared to explore and a divorce that gets conveniently resolved.

It’s like Gadhvi and Shibani Bhatija do not want to get the drama to get too loud where characters yell ‘Bloody Bastard’ (honestly, that would’ve actually worked in this film because ‘You Arrogant Man’ hardly reflects any serious emotion) nor do they want the drama to get too complex and messy with shades of grey.

Dutt is supposed to be grey because he’s arrogant and Imran is grey because he wants revenge is all that they can come up with and that is certainly not enough to create even an iota of drama or intrigue. Certainly the half-hearted Zinda, though shamelessly ripped off from ‘Oldboy,’ has more character than this wannabe thriller.

Yes, the attempts at slickness by use of English punch lines do sort of make it sound like a bad Hollywood film. Must we add, spoof.

Imran Khan is all right in a few scenes where he has to look menacing but comes across as outright silly when he’s trying to sound threatening. Dutt like always acquits his part with great sincerity but prison life seems to have taken a toll on his fitness. Minissha, for a girl who has to carry the film, gets by with very little.

Maybe at gunpoint, Kidnap will hold you captive.

Gautham Vasudev Menon: On being the man you want to be (Uncut)

October 3, 2008 · by sudhishkamath
Kunal Daswani
Pic: Kunal Daswani

In an orthodox old-fashioned film industry that thrives on star-worship, one man has the spine to call a spade a spade.

Gautham Vasudev Menon has to be the gutsiest of our filmmakers. He’s also the rare professional who is man enough to take criticism with all sincerity.

Yes, man is the word because Vaarnam Aayiram is all about the essence of being the man you look up to, being the man who can sweep the girl off her feet with his strength, poise and courage.

It’s an emotional personal film straight from the heart for Gautham considering it was born out of his father’s death. “Three days after he passed away, I decided I must do this film,” he says.

He had initially pitched the idea of a coming of age tale about a youngster on the verge of life and Suriya was like, “Yeah, but is that it?” Gautham however was confident of convincing him with the screenplay but he just couldn’t focus on writing with his father’s deteriorating health. “We knew we were losing him. I had made Suriya wait really long. So when I finished Pachaikili, I thought I’ll take off for a week just to write because the doctors said my father was going to be Okay. I couldn’t ask the producer if I could show only my Dad the film one week ahead of the release. So I asked if we could have the premiere for the cast and crew and friends. I showed him the film and I left that night to write. Three days later, he passed away.”

“I experienced something when I came back for the funeral. I went through a lot of emotions and when I sat to write the film a week later, I thought I could put all that into the film as a tribute to my father.”

Vaarnam Ayiram, he insists, is not an action film, it’s a coming-of-age drama where boy becomes man.

“Because at every point, when you are young and discovering life and what it’s like… with the evil lurking around the corner or a love that hits you and at every point, I thought that the father could be the inspiration which is how it was for me in my life. I put it together with 75 per cent from my life and 25 per cent from everybody’s life.”

There is no commercial thought that dictated the content, he says. “If you walk out of the film and if it reminds you of your Dad, then I think that’s the success of the film.”

“This is a very meaningful film. It’s high time I made something like that. Pachaikili had a climax for the hero. For Kamal Sir, we gave him a 20 minute intro which wasn’t there in the first script… Everywhere, I was toeing the line. This time, I thought let me make a film that deserves what it needs and nothing more. So I was thankful for someone like Suriya who straightaway said Yes, I love it. This is perfect. I relate to the story.

I am reminded of my Dad. At the Filmfare awards, I remember him calling me and saying: I hugged my Dad on stage after a long time after I worked on this project. I knew people would think it’s for show but I realised it was a great moment to hug him because at home, I’ve never hugged him. So it works for him, it works for me.”

Any influences in making the film?

“If you say it reminds you of Autograph, I would be happy because I love that film and I like Cheran as a filmmaker. I’ve grown up watching Raj Kapoor films because my Dad asked me to watch them. I like the way music wasn’t thrown in and takes the story forward. So those are influences but I’ve not copied any scene from any film. But just like Forrest Gump sits and talks about his past, this is also like that… when a set of memories are triggered off because of an incident and his whole life unfolds before him.”

This is his most realistic film till date. Did he make Suriya starve for the six-pack?

“Definitely not,” he laughs. “When I narrated the script, I said I also wanted to give a small message to youngsters that if at all you are going through a low phase in life,  working out and pushing yourself to the limit might be a good way to overcome anything instead of smoking and drinking. So Suriya said he’ll do a six-pack. But when I saw what he was doing, I told him Don’t do it. There were times he wasn’t eating breakfast and skipping meals. He pushed himself.”

He’s all praise for the actor. “Seriously, the things he does for the director and the film. I have worked with Kamal Sir, so I know what that man is capable of and I can say this… Suriya is there and nobody else is capable of performing like him.”

Gautham also shares a special relationship with Harris Jayaraj. “When I take a project with him, I take it to him from scratch. When I took Pachaikili, he said Don’t do it. Your audience are expecting a big film. This time, we’ve done a Gaana. It’s a first for us. I got up and danced like how Suriya would dance (we hadn’t shot the song) and so I danced like for one minute. He laughed his guts out and then worked the groove out. He trusts me completely and I trust him. We’ve done 35 songs and not even once, have I said I don’t want the song after listening to it.”

Being a successful filmmaker, he has to deal with escalating expectations and uncontrollable hype.
“I don’t think I have a fan base but Pachaikili proved that people have certain expectations from me. That’s when I started thinking maybe you should be careful but then, that’s bad. Because you start writing for the audience and you can’t make a film you want to make. So somewhere you have to balance that.”

Candour and controversy

“My friends tell me don’t talk because the industry doesn’t understand. Maybe they have a point. Like, Vijay doesn’t talk to me now because of the Tamil magazine thing…

I was misquoted. This journalist asked me why I work only with Suriya. So I said that’s not true, I narrated a story to Vijay. He loved it. He laughed as I was narrating it and he said: You know what Gautham, can you put stuff like what I do in the film? Have you seen my films, he asked and gave me a few DVDs for reference?

I had seen those Perarasu’s films. So I immediately I said ‘Vijay, that wont work in the film I narrated because this was meant to be a refreshing love story’. There would’ve been a sensibility disconnect. So I told the journalist I was disappointed when I got home but he went on name Perarasu’s films and made it sound like I was degrading Perarasu’s films, which I was not. I tried to call Vijay to explain but he didn’t see the bigger picture. So sometimes, it is better to keep quiet.

If I don’t like a film, I say it but that wasn’t even the case with the Vijay episode. Even when I said I didn’t like Bheema, it was not about Vikram, it wasn’t meant to be personal. I called Lingusamy to invite him for the audio launch party of Vaarnam and he said he was angry with me. I said it’s okay to be angry but please come. And he said: Okay, I’m coming with a gun. So, he came and we had a good time.”

Read the last interview I did with Gautham before Vettaiaadu Vilayaadu here.

  • Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • MADRAS INK.
    • Join 483 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • MADRAS INK.
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...