Set for Settai

Arya

Fun-loving Arya is always keen on pushing his boundaries as an actor. His Settai, the remake of Delhi Belly, is set for release this April.

He has to be the funniest, happiest and lightest actor in show biz in this part of the world. He’s always laughing, joking and giving his co-stars more importance than himself, not just when he’s giving interviews. He comes with absolutely none of those old-world star trappings. No name tag, ego or self-importance.

It’s been a long while since he’s had a release — his last film was Vettai that came out during Pongal 2012 — but Arya is not a wee bit worried about it. He has been working on four exciting projects. Irandaam Ulagam with Selvaraghavan, the Delhi Belly remake Settai with R. Kannan, Raja Rani with director Atlee and Vishnuvardhan's new film tentatively titled Valai with Ajith.

He’s also one of the few stars who has been supremely confident of sharing the limelight with other actors, film after film. While Boss Engira Baskaran had equal roles for him and Santhanam, he shared Bala's Avan Ivan with Vishal, Vettai with R. Madhavan and now Settai with Santhanam and Premgi and Valai with Ajith!

Double role

“I am carrying the burden all by myself in Irandaam Ulagam to make up for all that. It's a double role,” he laughs. “But seriously, as long as the script works... It's the output that matters.”

Despite coming across as full of fun and laughs, Arya is also one of those rare actors who is always keen on doing different kinds of films. If he did all these mass entertainers, he also did Vijay's period romance Madrasapattinam and Bala's gritty Naan Kadavul to experiment and push his boundaries as an actor.

He maintains that his next release Settai (releasing April first week) is a story of all three boys and Arya will once again be seen with Santhanam, who stole the show in Boss.

“You always want him to overshadow you for the joke to work. Comedy is never solo. I support him so that the punchline works. If I say my punchline has to be better, the film won't work. Santhanam will obviously stand out, but the film is about all three people. You will see a very different Premgi in this film,” says Arya.

How much of the adult comedy from Delhi Belly has been toned down for the Tamil audience? Is he worried that the film will work minus all that made it work?

“We have completely taken off the swearing parts. There is an extended role for the character played by Santhanam, and we have made Premgi's track more about friendship... Even the bedroom scene is there but we have toned it down so that family audiences and kids can watch without feeling uncomfortable,” he explains.

Settai at 130 minutes is also about half hour longer than the Hinglish original with three extra songs and extended comedy scenes. “We work in the same office unlike in the original film. We wanted to focus on friendship between the three guys living together and working for a Tamil newspaper in Mumbai.”

Why Mumbai? “Because in Chennai, for the same rent, three journalists will be able to afford a very nice place and the setting had to be dingy with a background of gangsters. It really wouldn't have worked in Triplicane. In Mumbai, the best of people live in dingy places.”

Fun factory

“I was earlier apprehensive of how Delhi Belly would work in Tamil, but once I heard Kannan's narration I was convinced. He is a very good director; he lets his actors breathe... He is always open to ideas and he got the best out of us. We rehearsed, had so much fun on the sets. Santhanam comes to the set with 10 different versions of a scene. We call him the factory. We had to control Premgi from laughing and make sure that the jokes never went overboard. Now that I have seen the film while dubbing, I can say it has come out very well.”

While Selvaraghavan's Irandaam Ulagam is a fantasy film, Atlee's Raja Rani is a romantic comedy with Nayantara and Jai, and Vishnuvardhan's film with Ajith is a stylish action entertainer.

“We just have a song shoot left for Irandaam Ulagam. So that will release midyear and the other two — Raja Rani and Valai — are about 50 per cent complete. I have been working continuously for the last year without a break.”

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Paradesi: Tea and no sympathy

Special Arrangement A still from Paradesi

Bala is so often described as "dark," "disturbing" and with other qualifiers of this ilk that we forget sometimes how funny he can be, in that twisted and macabre way of his.

In Naan Kadavul, Bala told us that life was hell, and yet, there was hope for redemption — a self-proclaimed god (even if not quite God) could come by and slice your throat and liberate your soul from further suffering. In Paradesi, his mood isn’t as hopeful. He still tells us that life is hell, but just as you think there’s a chance of escaping this hell, there’s a different hell around the corner, and in the corner beyond that, and the one beyond that. It’s a vicious vortex, and it’s no surprise that the film ends with a song set to the tune of ‘Ye theeruga nanu’, Bhadrachala Ramadasa’s mournful plea to the Lord. Even if we cry out to kadavul, is He listening?

Paradesi, which is inspired by events depicted in the novel Red Tea (about impoverished villagers duped into bonded labour on tea estates), opens in a village named Salur, in 1939 — and it incorporates everything we have come to associate with this filmmaker. The subhuman, even animalistic, hero who seems to have evolved in a cave on the outskirts of civilisation. The loosu ponnu heroine (played by Vedhika). Individuals who are torn from one family and who form new families with similarly stranded people. The casual conflation of the serious and the light-hearted, as in a wedding sequence that plays over a death. And, of course, brutal violence, portrayed with scrupulous attention to the specifics.

Then there’s the humour. Bala is so often described as “dark,” “disturbing” and with other qualifiers of this ilk that we forget sometimes how funny he can be, in that twisted and macabre way of his. Rasa (an expressive Atharva Murali) trades insults freely with his hunchbacked grandmother, and once the story shifts to the tea estate, we meet a Britisher (he lip-syncs his Tamil lines better than most of our heroines) who loves to bed Indian women, whom he then rechristens with English-sounding names.

But even with all these Bala-isms, there’s something about Paradesi that makes us feel it’s his truest film yet — for, despite these sprinklings of humour, there’s no real lightness, not much crowd-pleasing calculation. Almost all characters (including the labourer played by Dhansika) are subdued and solemn. And while there’s something to be admired in this purity of purpose, this also makes the film seem like one long stretch of the same shade, an illusion that’s furthered by the ashen cinematography.

This is perhaps easier explained with the example of Schindler’s List, a film that springs to mind the minute the new arrivals at the tea estate are given a physical examination. Paradesi, like Schindler’s List, is the depiction of the systematic brutalisation of a section of innocent people, but the Hollywood film showcased these sufferings through the doings of its hero, while this film has no use for a redeemer — and we are left with nothing but the suffering, no parallel stories, no subplots, nothing. It’s just one bad thing after another, and while this sameness can be rationalised — “the unrelenting bleakness of the movie is but a reflection of the unrelenting bleakness in these people’s lives” — it doesn’t make for a very gripping narrative.

This sense of sameness is everywhere, even in the nominal hero. Rasa is treated badly by the people in his village, and he’s treated badly at the tea estate. He has to scrounge around for food there, and it’s no different here. He works like a mule there, and he works like a mule here. Given that the things that happen to him before and after his enslavement aren’t all that varied in tone (they vary only in texture), we become numb to his suffering after a point. Is this enough in a mainstream movie?

For, finally, this is a mainstream movie. There is a love angle (with the lovely duet, ‘Avatha paiya’). And as counterpoint to this duet, there are three dirges that play over scenes of suffering. There is aural melodrama (an overbearing score that strives to amp up the tragedies tenfold). There is visual melodrama, as in the frame where the palm of a dying man rises slowly and dramatically from the bottom of the screen. And there are villains in the form of sneering, unfeeling whites, who laugh about the news that their employees are being felled by the plague. These traditional commercial-film elements are an odd fit in a film that’s attempting to be something wholly different. Paradesi is an important lesson on a forgotten chapter of history, but as cinema, Bala’s truest isn’t up there with Bala’s best.

Paradesi

Genre: Drama

Director: Bala

Cast: Atharva Murali, Vedhika, Dhansika

Storyline: The real story of villagers who suffered in the tea estates of pre-Independence India

Bottomline: Not up with Bala’s best.

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Marathi actors to take action against their fake profiles

Adinath Kothare

Marathi actors to take action against their fake profiles on social networking sites

Fake profiles of Bollywood celebrities on social networking sites may not be new but now even Marathi actors have fallen prey to this. Recently when actor Swwapnil Joshi found out about the fake profiles in his name, he appealed to his followers and friends on his real profile to report the fake one. He garnered support and those misleading profiles have now been removed by the site.

Other actors affected by this are Mukta Barve and Adinath Kothare. Their main concern is that their fans are being misled by false news and communication. Tejaswini Pandit too has a fake profile but she says, "I know about it as the person is a fan and contacted me about it. He shares updates about my work on that profile."

The others haven't been as lucky though. Swwapnil says, "Whoever created that fake profile was communicating with people in my name. A couple of girls came up to me and told me that they had even had a telephonic conversation with that person thinking it to be me! This has to stop. I even considered going to the police but fortunately things are under control now. I have only one profile and one official fan page and to avoid such a thing from occurring in the future, I have updated the address of my original fan page on the cover of my profile."

What has irked him even more is that the person behind the fake profile gave out a mobile number. "Almost all people ask for a mobile number on fan pages or a social networking profile. But no celebrity will ever share his or her contact number on a public platform. This person was sharing a mobile number and speaking to people as Swwapnil Joshi," he says.

Actress Mukta Barve says that thankfully no harm has been done yet. She prefers not giving any importance to "attention seekers" who handle such fake profiles and mislead people. It is ironic that her original profile has about 9000 followers while her fake profile has over 1 lakh followers. Well-wishers of the actress have tried their best to reach out to people through posts to make them aware about which is the original profile. "If things go out of hand, I will consider taking action against the fake profile and its handlers," says Mukta. The actors are amazed at how genuine their fake profiles look.

Adinath Kothare has consulted a few of his friends who work in the cyber cell. "I have been shooting outdoors for a while now. But once I have time, I am going to make sure that I look into the matter and sort it out," he says. The fake profiles are cheating their fans, they say. "At times, fans send messages. They pour their heart out in those messages. They think they are talking to us but somebody else is reading them and responding to them which is wrong. This matter shouldn't be taken lightly. I will be taking action against the fake fan pages as well," adds Swwapnil
.

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James Franco earns star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame

James Franco

James Franco is the latest celeb to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The 34-year-old actor was joined by his younger brother Dave Franco, their mom Betsy and his This Is The End co-star Seth Rogen at the star presentation ceremony on Thursday in Hollywood, Contactmusic reported.

The 34-year-old actor told the crowd that he wishes to put a bunch of names - of the people behind the scenes, those who have been there for him - on the star, as cinema is a collaborativebusiness.

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ENTERTAINMENT

Aamir’s make-shift gym in Rajasthan

Aamir’s make-shift gym in Rajasthan (PTI)

Mumbai: Aamir Khan who is currently shooting for Rajkumar Hirani's P.K. has been constantly hitting the headlines for his look in the film. The shoot which is underway approximately, 190 kms away from Jaipur at a location called Mandawa, has the entire cast and crew staying at a 300 year old Haveli which has been converted into a hotel.

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