Magic Bricks

Bharadwaj Rangan has written about a long, very interesting interview with Gautham, the director of Minnale, Kaakka Kaakka and Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu. Rangan always lets the person do the talking, with only a few comments here and there. So we get almost a monologue by the person instead of the usual, restrictive Q & A format. That’s the way he has done it with Gautham too and it has led the director to open up about a lot of things.

Some interesting tidbits from the interview…

Gautham Menon had to drop the Menon from his name since the Minnale producer said that there was something against Malayalis in the Tamil film industry!

He talks a lot about his next film Pachaikkili Muthucharam, with Sarathkumar (who is cast against type) and Jo. He calls it an adaptation of Derailed but the book and not the movie(hope the book was good then since the movie sucked!). He did want to do it with Kamal first but approached Sarath after Kamal said no. He explains the very poetic title as pearls falling off and scattering being similar to what happens in life when someone comes in and scatters the lives of a happy family. He calls it a “Balu Mahendra-meets-Quentin Tarantino kind of film.”

He apparently labelled at least one leading actor as “stupid” and said another star’s films are “idiotic.” Wish Rangan could tell me who those actors are

He worked as an assistant director to Rajiv Menon in Minsaara Kanavu.

His original script for Minnale was very different and was about 2 friends falling for the same girl. He now calls the film juvenile and cliched!

He approached Maddy, Ajith and Vikram for the lead role in Kaakka Kaakka. Turns out it was Jo who recommended Surya to Gautham. He is interested in making a trilogy of cop films and says he may make a third film with Vikram in the future.

Kamal is probably the most experimental among our heroes today. But Gautham says he had to make concessions for Kamal too in Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu. He wasn’t even there when they shot the sequences for Uyirile… and Neruppe…!

He says his appearance in his films so far was because of circumstances and that he may not make it a trend.

He gives a broad outline of Vaaranam Aayiram, his next film with Surya. Looks like it might be a message-oriented film with patriotic shades.