With an impressive line-up of 22 comedians, Aintham Thalaimurai Siddha Vaidhiya Sigamani promises to be a laugh riot. But what many don’t know is that the film highlights the importance of education. “It’s imperative for every parent to send their child to school. That is the focus of this film. I have chosen to convey the message using Siddha as a backdrop, which is something new to Tamil cinema,” says director L.G. Ravichandran.
Making his debut with a comedy film, Ravichandran says assisting director Boopathy Pandian helped him immensely. “When one makes a comedy flick, it helps to have a good sense of humour,” he says, going on to add, “You just can’t think, ‘I want to do a comedy movie,’ and start making it. Then, it becomes a lot of work.”
With 22 comedians, one imagines that shooting must’ve been difficult, to ensure that each one had enough dialogue. Ravichandran agrees that it was indeed difficult. “If a film has one actor and one comedian, writing and direction become easy because the actors will have specific punch dialogues. But, in the case of my film, there were bound to be issues. Each comedian would want a dialogue and I could not afford to ignore any of them, as all the 22 are big in their own right,” he says. To make things easy, Ravichandran says they had rehearsals before each scene to determine what would precisely be each one’s dialogue. “It was just like theatre,” he adds.
Apart from being director Ravichandran’s first film, Aintham Thalaimurai Siddha Vaidhiya Sigamani is actor Bharath’s 25th film. While the movie is an out-and-out comedy, his role, the director states, will be serious. He plays a fifth-generation Siddha practitioner who is illiterate. When he seeks a wife who is educated, he lies to her about his educational background. “That is the crux of my story,” says the director.
To portray the role authentically, Ravichandran and Bharath travelled to villages down South where Siddha is still in use. “Bharath has lived the role; we met a lot of Siddha practitioner in places such as Kollimalai to get the role right,” he says.
