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The stamp of reality

Candour is Gautham Menon's middle name. SUDHISH KAMATH catches up with the director, whose "Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu" is set for release on May 5

A COP STORY Kamal Hassan and Jyotika in "Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu"

There's a certain amount of honesty in the characters he creates. Be it Rajiv Samuel (Abbas) not forgiving his arch rival Rajesh Subramanium (Madhavan) for stealing his girl even towards the end, or the subtlety of Reena Joseph's (Reema Sen) reaction when she learns about her fiancé-impersonator Rajesh in Minnale or the romance between Anbuselvan (Suriya) and Maya (Jyotika) in Kaakha Kaakha, there is a streak of the real world and real people running through.

It's that stamp of candour in the frames that makes Gautham one of the most genuine storytellers around. Even outside the canvas of 35mm, he retains that consistency in signature. He speaks from the heart and is matter of fact about what he's achieved and what he has not even as he talks about his forthcoming release, the Kamal Hassan starrer, Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu.

A sequel

Is it a sequel in spirit to Kaakha Kaakha?

"I would like to treat it as another episode in a police officer's life. Something as an extension of Kaakha Kaakha. But then, I thought the genre should be slightly different. I thought I'll make it like a thriller and then shift to the Kaakha Kaakha mould in the second half. That's how it's come out. Very involuntary also, I think. Like Ram Gopal Varma makes a trilogy on gangster films, I thought I'd make a trilogy of cop films. I'm not equating myself to Ram Gopal Varma here... "

The cop-versus-killer cat-and-mouse game leads to the same problem as in Kaakha Kaakha, when the cop's personal life gets affected in the course of the investigation. The classic serial-killer mystery in the mould of Silence of the Lambs and Seven soon gives way to a full-fledged commercial action film, which will be out on May 5, says Gautham.

Apparently, the script demanded a place outside India. "It could have been China but I thought New York would be nice. Any place you put your camera, you get a beautiful frame. It looks like an English film."

How difficult was it directing a director?

"I was directing a super actor. A lot of stuff happened between Kamal and me because of the production delay. He was unhappy and hesitant, initially. He kept to himself. So I'd give him the scene, he'd take a look at it and act. He'd make a couple of changes. Simple ones like "Can I hook this line and this line?" I can and will never say he bossed over. He totally understood what I wanted. I wanted a subtle performance from him, the character demanded that and he went for the right variations."

Did he manage to break the ice with the actor subsequently?

"Well, as much as ice could be broken, we broke. It can't get beyond that ever, I think. When you write something on paper, and when you see somebody performing that to the hilt... To a T... you realise it's awesome. And, he gives you much more than that. Certain expressions of his, you can never write. He would do something different for every scene. It was a beautiful experience working with him because I learnt a lot in terms of how my writing should be. Like, how an actor's expression should be written." Soon, he opens up to tell us more about Kamal's character. "He's a deputy commissioner of police.

He's 40-plus in the film, he knows what he wants. He's instinctive. He's a super-cop. He's not allowed officially but he goes to another country to check out what happened to somebody he knew. And he unravels something."

Who's playing the villain, we ask.

"I can't reveal that," he says with a straight face.

What can people expect from Vettaiyaadu... ?

"A good film, nothing else. No problem if they call it another Kaakha Kaakha. That is a good film. It made for good viewing, good value for money. This is definitely that.

It's got good songs; it's got Kamal Hassan. I wanted to go one step beyond that, which I'm not sure. Especially with Kamal, I would have loved to do something like Nayagan. I didn't do that. I didn't have that kind of time. So, I thought let me make a commercial film."

Gautham is already on to his next film, Silandhi, working double shift.

How's life been?

"Haywire... because I work 20 hours these days. I've gone on to Silandhi with Sarath Kumar, Jyotika, Tabu and Milind Soman. I have lost weight. I haven't spent time with my family. But that's something I've brought upon myself. It's just that I haven't done a film in more than one and a half years. And I had a script ready and people were tearing it to bits.

I just wanted to do the script. I wanted to get going on another film. I shoot for Silandhi in the morning and from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. in the night, I work on post-production for Vettaiyaadu... and then sleep for four hours. We've shot for 20 days already. It should release two months after Vettaiyaadu... I'm also starting Suriya's film in June. That will come out on Diwali."

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