Director Santhakumar is back after almost a decade and this time, with a fast plot starring Arya, Indhuja Ravichandran and Mahima Nambiar in lead roles. “It’s a story that will make the audience think,” he says.
The director, who has assisted in movies like Gilli , Dil , and Dhool , made his début in 2011 with Mounaguru , the story of an angry young man played by Arulnidhi. Santhakumar believes in the strength of a good story than anything else. “My movies rely on the story; I don’t believe in giving them an overtly commercial treatment. I would rather call them evolved commercial cinema, where in I make people emote, laugh and cry, and also impact their psyche. I believe that’s where I make a difference as a director,” he says.
Magamuni is different from Mounaguru , according to Santhakumar. “I have kept away from anything similar and have consciously made it look and feel different from my previous make. The movie is about the everyday struggles of a family man. It’s a character-based story. Every character is unique and contributes to the plot. The female protagonists are unlike the heroines you see on screen. Though there are three songs, they are in relevance to the plot and will not stand out.” He adds, “Though it’s a movie for the family audience, I doubt if children will connect with it. There’s much tension that builds up through the plot.”
“Arya plays a family man who does odd jobs to make a living. Indhuja plays his wife and mother of a five-year-old boy. The crux of the story is how these characters tackle challenging and life-threatening times in their lives. Mahima Nambiar plays a journalism student,” reveals the director. The film, being produced by Studio Green K E Gnanavel Raja, also has big names like Ilavarasu and Jeyaprakash, Rohini, and Kali Venkat. Music is by S S Thaman, who also worked in Mounaguru . “He is highly talented, understands the soul of the movie,” adds Santhakumar.
Santhakumar says that Arya has done a dual role and appears in three different looks in the movie. “That was partly why it took us 55 days of shooting. He had to grow a lot of hair for a particular look. We have shot in the plains of Kanchipuram and the raised terrains of Erode district.”
“Arya was among the first actors who came to my mind once I finished the story. When I approached him, he also believed he could do it. He has done a lot of hard work and that can be seen on the screen,” he adds. “On the choice for the female leads, I wanted someone who is not particular about the glamour heroine image. I liked Indhuja’s on-screen presence in Meyadha maan. And even Mahima can be seen in a different role.”
There’s a reason why it took the man eight years to start work on his second film. He often goes on extensive solo travels to do some soul searching and writes his stories during these trips. “I took 14 years to do my first movie. I like solitude and that’s when I sit and conceive stories. Travelling opens up the horizon for me. In the future, I may do a movie entirely on travel. I believe I have also grown in these many years on the inside. I feel Magamuni has come out better than Mounaguru .”
Santhakumar, who grew up in Tiruppuvanam near Madurai, says that his formative years of living in a large joint family shaped the director in him. “I studied in half a dozen schools, some in remote villages before moving to Madurai to study in The American College. Later, moving to Chennai opened up a whole new world for me. Wherever I am, I try to observe the place and its people from an outsider’s perspective. That keeps the traveller in me alive. I belong to nowhere but I take in something from everywhere.”
