V.Shekar’s dilemma
If I say the name of director V.Shekar or his production house – Thiruvalluvar kalai koodam(திரà¯à®µà®³à¯à®³à¯à®µà®°à¯ கலைகà¯à®•à¯‚டமà¯), most cine lovers would blink for a while – except for those ardent Vadivelu, Goundamani and Senthil fans. He is one director who had at one point of time in thamizh cinema successfully reinvented small budget neighborhood movies. He was one director who always made he best possible use of underrated and misused treasure cove of character artistes and comedians in thamizh cinema to a great effect. His craft and style is one that is totally unique to thamizh cinema (to an extent telugu cinema) and is on the brink of extinction for he was let down by his audience – his target audience – the ‘thaaikulams’ or ladies to be more clear of thamizh nadu. Here was a director who made movie after movie on themes of daily occurrence, inside your four walls, affecting your monthly budget and on your issues(issues plaguing women)and yet you people let him down. It has been about 2 years since I last heard of a V.Shekar movie – a brand I cherish for its unsophisticated, matter of fact story telling on daily life of a lower middle class thamizh(தமிழà¯) citizen.
When V.Shekar made his debut with ‘Neengalum hero dhaan’ (நீஙà¯à®•à®³à¯à®®à¯ ஹீரோ தானà¯) – what struck me was the audacity to make a movie against the star system (should i say super star system) prevalent in Thamizh cinema. He made the movie on a shoe string budget with a good – underused and mostly misused character artiste ‘NizhalgaL Ravi’ (நிழலà¯à®•à®³à¯ ரவி) as the lead and all familiar faces like the veteran Nambiyar (நமà¯à®ªà®¿à®¯à®¾à®°à¯ – the most scary villain onscreen), Chinni Jayanth and many others. The movie also had ‘Silk’ Smitha in a dignified and deglamourized role as a leading lady having to bear ill treatment by public. The story is very simple. There is a village where the protagonist Kaalingan (played by a new face kalidasan – I hope I am right) who is a die hard fan of a star hero and heads the fan club of the village – doing nothing worthwhile about his life apart from getting into fights over his hero. The entire village that seems to dislike Kaalingan for being a fan is in for a surprise as the hero’s next film is being shot there. The situation turns upside down in the next 2 hours as Kaalingan realizes the dark side of the hero(played to great suave and swagger by Ravi) he idolized while the village punishes him for speaking against the hero. The film is a scathing attack on the star system and cinema craze of common public of thamizh nadu(தமிழ௠நாட௠) while dispelling most common myths on films and film making process. The comedy track of Senthil and Goundamani who aspire for a role in the film being shot and in their comic antics brought the house down. The movie was an instant success in B and C centers to the surprise of pundits and a new story teller had arrived in Thamizh film world. His style was very close to that of the malayalam films – the capture of innocence and contrasting vileness in characters was done in a very straightforward fashion. The message was conveyed in the most emphatic manner and with no ambiguity. This was the contrasting style – no matter what happened, the film never veered out of control from the central message – even in the comedy tracks!
The next movie he hit the marquee was a googly again – This time it was ‘Naan pudicha maaple’ (நான௠பà¯à®Ÿà®¿à®šà¯à®š மாபà¯à®³) meaning The son in law I found. There never was a movie that dealt in depth about the relationship between the son in law and father in law in thamizh. This film filled the gap and provided an awesome canvas for the much talented Janagaraj (ஜனகராஜ௠– the guy who played lucca brazi mirror – Selvam in Naayagan) as the father in law and nizhalgaL Ravi once again as the lead. The story format and execution were simple throwback to the olden days of Bhimsingh (பீமà¯à®šà®¿à®™à¯) a family movie with a lot of heart. Janagaraj’s characterization was totally new one to thamizh cinema – an innocent, poor do gooder who captures the heart of a dignified man who agrees to marry his daughter and when the daughter dies – the relationship between the Son in law and father in law is put through a test which is the climax. V.Shekar cleverly uses the veteran – star comedian Goundamani as the eveil counterpart to Janagaraj’s innocent father in law and assuredly Goundamani and Senthil (as the resident beggar in goundamani’s house) ensured that the audience kept laughing while a serious and heart tugging story was enfolding in parallel. V.Shekar surprisingly had not increased the budget or his salary and made sure that the craft was always minimalistic and the characters were in the foreground. The low budget movie went on to do good business and the distributors and producers rejoiced at the comeback of ‘Visu’ days in thamizh cinema. The movie had no big name technically involved and the artistes involved appreciated the effort of the director to take actors and actresses slotted in stereotypes and cast them in earthy and lively roles that gave them much needed creative liberation.
If the first two movie had become sleeper hits, he would create earth shattering mark in thamizh films with his monster hit made at miniscule price – ‘Pondaatti sonnaa Kaettukanum’ (பொணà¯à®Ÿà®¾à®Ÿà¯à®Ÿà®¿ சொனà¯à®©à®¾ கேடà¯à®Ÿà¯à®•à¯à®•à®£à¯à®®à¯). In this movie that had melodrama and comedy mixed in equal proportions – he rewrote all cinematic rules of casting and got handsome rewards for that too. More on that movie and other interesting movies made by V.Shekar in the next post….
Tags: Goundamani, Janagaraj, low budget superhits, nizhalgaL Ravi, Sendhil, Senthil, Tamil Cinema, Tamil Films, Thamizh cinema, Thiruvalluvar kalai koodam, V.Shekar
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Jai- V.Sekhar must thank you for remembering him even now.yes he made simple films in the mould of a Visu.I still remember the “deepavali deepavali” song from Naan Pudicha Mappillai.So good was his success ratio that even people like Ramanarayan who used to make movies with animals ( Thevar films style) also started making movies like V.Sekhar.I’m sure you’ll be writing about movies like Viralukketha Veekum, Varavu Ettanna Selavu Pathanna,Onna Irruka Kathukonam & many more
The comedy was the best part of his movies according to me!!!
But Jai Thiruvalluvar Kalaikoodam also produced Aei- the Sarath Kumar, Namitha ,Vadivelu movie which was made popular for the comedy & oomph factor!!!
oh yes- i am going to write about the degeneration as well. where things started going wrong…
Hi Jaiganesh
That was an unusual area you have written on.
I shall reserve my comments once i have read part 2. eagerly awaiting that.
V.Sekar tried hands at serials – which is the refuge of lower middle class family drama makers now – but failed miserably.
Sekar also did Parvathi Ennai Paaradi with Saravanan in a romantic lead role.
Varavu Ettana was remade with Govinda, Juhi, Tabu etc in hindi via telugu
Nice post Jai. I think V Shekar was recently making a megaserial called porandha veeda pugundha veeda for some channel last year. I dont know if it is still being telecast.