The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Goutham Menon lets students in on what makes him tick

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 19, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Goutham Menon lets students in on what makes him tick

K. Manikandan

Inaugurates inter-college cultural festival `Aathmann 2006' at MCC Inaugurates cultural festival `Aathmann 2006' at MCC

COLOUR OF YOUTH: Students participating in the face painting contest at `Aathmann 2006', a cultural festival, in Madras Christian College on Monday. — Photo: A. Muralitharan

TAMBARAM: Film director Goutham Menon inaugurated `Aathmann 2006', a two-day inter-college cultural festival organised by the Department of Visual Communication, Madras Christian College, on Monday. But only after he replied to a barrage of questions from college students.

Visual communication students posed a range of questions to the director on his style and preferences, his technicians, techniques, and future plans.

The director of movies `Minnale', `Kaakha Kaakha' and the latest `Vettaiyadu Vilayadu' was candid in his replies.

In justification of all the gore and violence in his latest movie, `Vettaiyadu Vilayadu', the director said that the film was meant to disturb the people.

On why the relationship between the two young doctors in the film was not explicitly shown, he confessed that they did not have the guts to show certain sequences on screen.

To a series of questions on the importance of directors considering stories and screenplays adapted from books, he replied that even in adaptations it was the director who visualised each and every frame and combined the work of all the people involved in the film. "I feel that when a director is in charge of the screenplay he will be in command of the film," he said.

During the course of the interaction, the director gave some tips on technical aspects to the students, many of whom asked the director about the choice of lighting, equipment, location and background for a particular scene.

He claimed that `Vettaiyadu Vilayadu' was among the first films in recent times to have unparalleled technical finesse.

The students told Goutham Menon that while his heroes in `Minnale' and `Kaakha Kaakha' were projected as normal people, the director had ended up hero-worshipping Kamal Hassan in `Vettaiyadu Vilayadu'. "I guess the fan of Kamal in me could not be suppressed," responded the director.

On why he worked only with a particular group of technicians, he replied that the group was comfortable with one other. But, he hastened to add, that did not mean that he would work only with that particular group of technicians.

"If Ilayaraja asks me to work for him, I will definitely do it," he said.

The director will be working with cinematographer Arvind Krishna in his next venture to be titled `Pachai Kili Muthu Charam'.

Another movie of his, `Silandhi', starring Sarath Kumar, Jyothika and Milind Soman, was complete and would be released around Christmas, he said.

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