The Score Magazine - Archive February 2009 issue! | Page 7

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cinema
Movies
ot very often does tinsel town deal with the works of
great novelists. The few, rare times when a director
attempts a project based on a novel of a renowned
writer, he succumbs to a lot of commercial compul-
sions - the imagery and the character portrayal as experienced by
the readers of the novel are not met thoroughly. K.Balachander and
S.P. Muthuraman and a few select directors have been successful
in bringing to the screen, depictions that brought to life novels of
writers like Sivasankari, Sujatha (Rangarajan) and Jayakanthan.
Director AR Gandhi Krishna has the trust and blessings of the late
novelist Sujatha to bring one of his famous pieces to the theatres.
We recently spoke to AR Gandhi Krishna to get a glimpse of ‘Anan-
da Thandavam’, a cinematic adaptation of ‘Pirivom Sandippom’;
written over twenty years ago as a two-part novel series published
in Ananda Vikatan, a popular Tamil weekly. The movie is set to
release soon.
What is this novel about? It is about a naive girl, childish in many
ways, who falls for a young engineer whose father is employed by
the girl’s father in a hydro project in Ambasamudhram. The par-
ents agree and arrange for the wedding. But a successful Ameri-
can entrepreneur literally usurps the girl using the selfish interests
of the girl’s parents. Devastated, the boy attempts suicide, but is
saved by his father who counsels him and says he should go to the
US, attain success and marry a better girl. Determined, he reaches
the US where he meets the same girl and finds that her husband
is cheating on her. What follows, in a series of events with unex-
pected twists and turns, forms the rest of the story. The movie has
already created great expectations as the story was popular with
many readers of the magazine.
His simplicity is striking. His narrative style speaks volumes about
what a compelling story teller he is. We had a lot of questions
about the movie, crew, and challenges in making this movie as well
as about his journey this far. During our conversation, the director
shared a lot about his life, his movies in a very candid way. Accord-
ing to him, when he read the story some 20 years back for the first
time, he was thoroughly impressed and read it many more times;
in fact he almost decided right away, that if he ever were to make
movies, this would be his first!
Many years later, after he graduated from college, he started work-
ing in the film industry and landed an opportunity to work with
director Shankar in his film ‘Indian’ for which Sujatha wrote dia-
logues. This fostered a close working relationship and a personal
bond beyond between the two that was to last till the writer passed
away in 2007. His first true recognition came through a children’s
film – ‘Nilaa Kaalaam’, which won him a national award. Subse-
quently, his other venture ‘Chellame’ that projected Vishal and
Bharath as notable performers, was also a great hit, that brought
him to the notice of producers like Aascar Ravichandran. However