April 30, 2012 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
Director Balaji Sakthivel (Premisthe/Kadhal) is known for weaving ordinary lives of a common man and the downtrodden into all his scripts and this time too he portrays the love story of a street vendor and a servant maid in an apartment in the film Premalo Padithe releasing on May 4th, the original (Vazhakku Enn 18/9 which means case no: 18/9) too will have a simultaneous release.
The director says, "Ninety percent of people fall under poverty line, their struggles, anger needs a voice and it is my duty as a director to bring their issues to notice. We have regular commercial heroes masquerading as common man but they represent problems only on a surface and a superficial level, whereas I go to the depths."
After Premisthe, none of his films succeeded, ask him the reason and he confesses, "Kalloori or Kalasala's climax was an incident that took place in Tamil Nadu so the Andhra audience couldn't relate to it and moreover I humbly accept my mistake. My screenplay was difficult to comprehend but this time I took care. I can say the ending of the film is brave and I can say 100 percent women, all strata will love the film. The first part caters to the common man and the second to multiplex crowds."
Balaji has an interesting history, he comes from Dindigul in Madurai that is famous for betelnut. His dream was to get into acting like all and when he saw Ben-Hur in college he decided to move to films. A friend of his was studying D.F.Tech in Chennai and since he couldn't afford to study like him, he attended the classes with his friend on the sly and got exposed to world cinema.
He quips, "I managed to do small roles like that of a rickshaw puller, etc., and worked as production assistants in short film assignments, struck friendships and my career took off and continued."
The director adds all his subjects come from an observation of life and in this movie though the screenplay has a bit of fiction, the story as such and the climax is real, one scene has been based on an incident that took place in Bihar. The story is told from an inspector's point of view and reflects the psyche and the state of mind of youngsters of this generation.
He signs off, "We find stories in newspapers every day, on day one the issue is splashed on page one and every successive day it is relegated to the inside pages and on the fourth day the issue is forgotten. If such issues are made into films, it will compel notice.
I'm introducing music director Prasanna, he scored the 2009 Oscar-winning documentary Smile Pinki, and he orchestrated AR Rahman's title score for the Oscar-nominated film Lagaan. The cast are all entirely new and one Urmila Mahanta is from Assam, a student of film institute."
|
