Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Dateline Kanchipuram: ‘Kanchivaram,’ set in the period between 1942 and 57, turns the spotlight on the first communist movement in Tamil Nadu that resulted in the setting up of the cooperative movement and brought relief to hundreds of weavers who made the most expensive silk saris but used to work as bonded labour.

Shah Rukh Khan and his production company, Red Chillies, have signed him to do the Hindi remake of the Malayalam hit ‘Katha Parayumbol’ (being made as ‘Kuselan’ with Rajnikant in Tamil by P. Vasu). For Priyadarsan, it was a fulfilment of a secret desire to direct SRK in a Hindi film. After signing the film, he flew down to Chennai to hold a sneak preview of his offbeat film in Tamil, ‘Kanchivaram.’

Having directed several mainstream movies, mostly comedies, in Malayalam and Hindi, Priyadarsan is now making a film for his own satisfaction. Critics have panned his films all these years for lack of originality and his crude style of comedy, but at the box-office all his films had turned out to be super hits, making him one of the highest paid directors in Bollywood!

Priyadarsan says: “I am happy and don’t aspire to achieve anything more in commercial cinema. ‘Kanchivaram’ is my dream project, one straight from the heart without any commercial ingredients.

A realistic film about the weavers of Kanchipuram, it is set in the period between 1942 and 1957. It turns the spotlight on the first communist movement in Tamil Nadu that resulted in the setting up of the cooperative movement and brought relief to hundreds of weavers who make the most expensive silk saris but used to work as bonded labour.”

Priyadarsan, who has been toying with the ‘Kanchivaram’ storyline for the past five years, finally found a scriptwriter in cartoonist and film critic Madan, who wrote the dialogues in association with Vijay, the director’s assistant.

‘Kanchivaram’ is Priyadarsan’s 74th film in his career spanning nearly 27 years.

Says Priyadarsan: “All these years, I made films to entertain others, for which I had to make a lot of compromises. ‘Kanchivaram’ is the first film I’m doing to satiate my creative urge.”

Prakash Raj plays Venkatam, a master weaver who ignites the spark of the revolution. He has come up with a stunning performance; Shreya Reddy as his wife Annapoorna is a revelation; a new Tamil girl from the United States, Shammu, plays the pivotal role of their daughter. Leading Malayalam playback singer M.G. Sreekumar debuts as music director with a haunting background score.

Indeed, there is plenty to appreciate in this tech-savvy film – superb camerawork by Thiru, crisp editing by Arun (‘Kanchivaram’ is a 112-minute film), Deepan Chatterjee’s sound effects and Sabu Cyril’s art work that recreates the era of 1940s complete with houses, looms, vehicles and costumes of that period.

All the artists and technicians involved in Kanchivaram have worked without any remuneration, as they wanted to help Priyadarsan realise his dream of making “a film of substance.”

The project is jointly produced by Percept Picture Company, T-series and Priyadarsan’s Four Frames Pictures, and the idea is it will be premiered at 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

Says Priyadarsan: “The cost of production is only Rs. 1.45 crore because everybody volunteered to work without pay and we shot the film in 27 days; but, technically, it is state-of-the-art, and we have done Digital Imaging for the entire film as we are looking only at niche international audiences at festivals, and may not even have a commercial release in India except for one or two shows in the metropolitan cities.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail