SHABIHA NUR KHATOON, OP
Director RS Prasanna, the maker of the Tamil movie ‘Kalyana Samayal Saadham’, is all set to launch his maiden venture in the Hindi film industry with ‘Shubh Mangal Saavdhan’, which is set to hit theatres September 1. While Prasanna had written and directed the original, his Bollywood debut has been written by Hitesh Kewalya. Apart from the storyline, ‘Shubh Mangal Saavdhan is an entirely different film, says the director in a telephonic interaction with Orissa POST. Excerpts from the chat:
Is it right to say that ‘Shubh Mangal Saavdhan’ is a complete remake of ‘Kalyana Samayal Saadhan’?
‘Shubh Mangal Saavdhan’ is not a complete remake of ‘Kalyana Samayal Saadhan’; in fact, I would say it’s a rebirth many things have been changed. Even when we make a remake we can’t take every scene and translate it. It is because the cultures are different and a message has to appeal to the audiences also. I think it’s more about finding the spirit and the core of it and translating it to a different body. So the scenes and the dialogues in this movie are different but the core and feel are the same.
What urged you to make a movie on the delicate subject of erectile dysfunction?
The very fact that it’s a delicate topic and not many people would approach it, gave me the confidence that it would be a unique topic. You must have something unique to say otherwise there are so many movies out there which people don’t know as the topic doesn’t stand out. So it’s very important that every movie nowadays should have some talking point.
I think as a first film when you don’t have access to high budgets and big stars you need to ensure that you have a talking point which connects and reaches out to the people. This is how I made the Tamil film and obviously in the Hindi film industry I knew that it would lend itself to a much bigger audience and mainstream platform because this is the industry which accepted movies like ‘Vicky Donor’, ‘Pink’ and ‘Piku’.
Were Ayushmaan and Bhumi your first choice for the movie?
Yes, absolutely, they were my first choice for the leads. I think they are fantastic actors and they fit the roles very well. More importantly, they loved the script and loved me a lot and these things are very important for a director to make the choice because love can’t be one-sided, it should be both ways.
How was your experience of working with them?
It’s an absolute pleasure to work with them and both of them are phenomenal actors and a director’s delight. They are thorough professionals and fantastic in their craft but also very easy going; in fact we were more like friends than professionals. One great thing about both of them was that they came from a certain fearless position where they wanted to take on the daring subject.
How was your experience of working with Anand L Rai?
Like actors, Rai saab is also a director’s delight as a producer. He is one of those rare mentors who try to clear the way for a newcomer; he brought me to Hindi filmdom with so much love and respect. I am part of his family not just professionally, I stay in his house so there’s a different emotional connection, and I think a director-producer relationship is equally important because at the end of the day if we don’t trust each other it will show in the film.
What are expectations from the movie?
To be very honest, I didn’t expect anything even when I started the movie; I just wanted to make a good film. I do know that a movie with a delicate subject if made well would definitely find mainstream success in the industry and that faith got validated when the trailer hit 14 million views, which is a big number. So, yes, my expectation from the movie is that it becomes a commercial success at the box-office and the love people have given to the trailer translates in many more people watching it in the theatres.
What about your future projects?
At every point of time a director has five subjects running in his head. Likewise, I am buzzing with ideas and it’s been three-four years since I started this journey. Hopefully from now, the gap will not be the same as I have formed a good team. I am looking forward to telling different kinds of stories. I want to do stories which other directors would be afraid to handle.