Interview with Jeeva Shankar; Director of Amara Kaaviyam

You could easily mistake Jeeva Shankar’s “Amara Kaaviyam” as the remake of 1981 Tamil film “Panneer Pushpangal”. When I ask Jeeva whether his film has any connection to the popular classic, pat comes the reply with a laugh “absolutely not”. Maybe the only striking similarity between these two films is the common backdrop, Ooty, where about “80 percent” of “Amara Kaaviyam” is shot, while the rest in “Coimbatore”.

It’s the season of romantic-comedies, yet you seemed to have made an emotional teenage love story. Do you feel audiences will accept it?

In the last few years, the new age filmmakers have been constantly trying something different in Tamil cinema. While films such as Pizza, Soodhu Kavvum and Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kannum have worked at the box-office, I strongly feel there’s always a market for love stories which are universally accepted across all seasons. Love stories are time immemorial and my film will definitely pass the test of time. In fact, I had written the story of ‘Amara Kaaviyam’ even before ‘Naan’, but I didn’t do it as my first film because I didn’t want to start my career with an easy film. What’s fascinating about ‘Amara Kaaviyam’ is the fact that I’ve attempted to present a teenage romantic tale from the perspective of a society. Audiences will not find this as a film but as a real-life experience of a teenage couple and the life around them. When you watch the film, you’ll definitely reminisce moments from your own first love.

But why a love story in 1980s? You could’ve made a modern-day romantic tale. What was the need to go back in time to narrate this story?

Romance today has become very easy. Two individuals who are in love in two different countries are united by a single Skype call. The distance factor between lovers has been bridged with the help of technology. It was not the same when I was growing up in the 80s. Two students from the same class living in adjacent streets couldn’t meet outside back then. I wanted to capture that difficulty with which people experienced real love and struggled to even meet. I thought that experience would be something different to portray on screen. Moreover, this story is based on a small incident that happened in my life in Tanjore in early 80s.  I wanted to capture that era in which the real story happened and present it as differently as possible.  I felt it would be a refreshing experience for the teenagers and a nostalgic peek into the past for middle-aged audiences.

How challenging was it to recreate a long forgotten era?

My producer Arya and art director Selvakumar deserve to be credited for helping recreate 1980s era to perfection. Selva had already worked on films such as ‘Madraspattinam’ and ‘Iyarkai’ and his experience had come very handy while shooting. The Ooty I had presumed while writing the story is far different from the Ooty I saw with my own eyes when I went for location hunting. The serenity Ooty is popular for, can’t be found there anymore because it has changed a lot. To narrate a love story that takes places in late 1980s against the backdrop of Ooty, that has changed so much today was challenging. The time zone was important to my story. Since Ooty had changed so much, I had to look into a lot of details to make sure that the place resembled the era in which the story is set. We had to re-paint and reconstruct a few houses to shoot some important scenes. In fact, the houses of the hero and the heroine along with Thambi Ramaiah’s tea shop had to be recreated from the scratch. Selva had created them so perfectly that the owners of the houses requested us to leave the place as it is when we finished shooting.

How did you convince Arya to produce your film?

Impressed with ‘Naan’, Arya had expressed his interest to work with me. I’ve known Arya from his first film ‘Ullam Ketukame’, in which I worked as an operative cameraman. We stay in the same street and we’ve been thickest of friends for many years. When I told him I had plans to make “Amara Kaaviyam”, he casually agreed to produce it. I thought he was joking but he actually meant it when he called me one fine day and asked me to come meet him with the story. He heard the story for about two and a half hours and got really excited. He felt if I do justice to the story, the film will be remembered for a few years. I was confident that he was convinced with my story. I’m extremely happy with the film’s output today and Arya needs to be credited for it completely.

Didn’t you feel familiar faces would’ve been more suitable for your story? Why did you choose two almost unfamiliar faces?

Since this is a teenage love story, I chose to work with unfamiliar faces. Had I cast a hero then I should have to do justice to his on screen persona. That would’ve been unwanted pressure and expectations. I strongly felt that wouldn’t have worked in favour of my film. For some other story, a hero’s presence would’ve worked but not for this story. It would look realistic when an 18-year old boy does everything he could to protect his love. If I have a hero, then audiences would expect him to fight for his love and girlfriend. I wanted to avoid such clichés and that’s why was hell bent on working with relatively newcomers. Since this is a performance-oriented subject, I decided to work with someone who at least worked in a couple of films. Sathya’s experience of working two films was apt for me to handle him in the lead role. Mia too had done a few films in Malayalam, so her experience also came in very handy. Both have done fabulous job in their respective roles. Sathya even lost lot of weight to play his role. Before we went on floors, both of them did a lot of homework with their dialogues and some scenes because wanted the chemistry between them to work on screen.

How challenging was it to shift from thriller genre to romance?

Romance was tough because when you’re dealing with thriller genre, there’s a dark space you can use it against the audiences to keep them hooked. But audiences have to feel the romance in a story in order to appreciate it. If romance doesn’t tug at their heart strings, a love story won’t work. I was very particular about these things even while I was writing the story. The chemistry between my lead characters was very important to make audiences develop an emotional connect with my story. I concentrated a lot on writing the romantic scenes and there are a few in the film that will totally stand out. When audiences will watch the film, they’ll unknowingly smile as they leave the theatre.

After “Amara Kaaviyam”, Jeeva will collaborate with Arya again. “I haven’t decided between Arya and Sathya. I can only do that after I finish my script to see who will be more suitable to play the lead,” he said.