Kaaviya Thalaivan - Vasantha Balan's 'labour of love' - Event Story

Director Vasantha Balan’s forthcoming period movie Kaaviya Thalaivan was unveiled before the media in Chennai, today in a grand event at Hotel Green Park. The highlight of the event was the presence of composer A.R.Rahman along with lead hero Siddharth, heroine Vedhika and actor Nasser. The director of the movie was also backed by his crew comprising producer Sashikanth, lyricist Pa. Vijay, editor Praveen and art director Santhanam on stage. The other hero of the movie, Prithviraj was conspicuous by his absence.

It was evident that the entire team is really passionate about the movie and has put in tremendous effort to realize this project. Director Vasantha Balan was really charged up when he spoke about how he read about the glorious days of stage musical plays in Madurai in the early part of the 20^th century and decided to make a movie regarding this. He called himself a serious film maker who doesn’t know any other trade or skill and jocularly referred himself as a terrorist.

He felt that Siddharth was a really brilliant actor and a director in the making, who can talk about any topic in the sun. Balan said that Siddharth, referred just as a ‘chocolate boy’ till now, has performed astoundingly and that he has donned about 40 get-ups in the movie and come out convincingly in each of them. Siddharth was given credit by most of the speakers for being one of the main reasons behind A.R.Rahman working in the film.
 

Balan also shared his long history with the ace composer since his days as an assistant with director Shankar in the early 90s, waiting outside Rahman’s recording studio at odd hours in the night. Special mention was made by Balan about Nasser and how he thanked him profusely on the last day of the shoots for his immense contribution towards the film.

Siddharth spoke passionately about his interactions with Vasantha Balan, his early days as an assistant director and also about how Prithviraj, despite being such a big superstar in Kerala, accepted to do this film where the title role didn’t belong to him. Balan also credited Siddharth for never having interfered with the length and weightage of the scenes which were meant for Prithviraj and the other actors. Siddharth called the movie Vasantha Balan's 'labour of love' and said that he will speak three times as much as what he did today, at the audio launch of the film.

The chemistry between all the actors in the film - Siddharth, Prithviraj, Nasser, Thambi Ramaiah and Ponvannan is apparently brilliant and each actor has competed with the other to create sheer magic in the frame. Siddharth and Prithviraj have also gone on to become really thick friends, the director said.
 

Nasser shared about how he used to talk intensely about cinema with both Siddharth and Prithviraj at the movie’s shooting spot, and that he generally doesn’t talk about cinema in such depth with other actors. Siddharth also echoed similar views when he spoke about how Nasser used to message him “Miss you Da” after the shoots of Kaaviya Thalaivan were wrapped up.

Pa Vijay said that he felt honored when he was called by Rahman and Balan, after the demise of lyricist Vaali, to complete work on the movie’s lyrics. Vaali had started writing for the movie before nature took its course. Vijay felt happy to have worked in a movie which doesn’t have meaningless duet songs and instead had music integrated into the movie itself.  

The ravishing Vedhika thanked the director for being patient and for guiding her well. She felt lucky and blessed for having worked with Rahman twice in her fledgling career, with Sakkarakatti being the earlier instance. She made a mention of all her co-actors and her technical crew and considered it a matter of pride for having worked in this film.

Producer Y NOT Sashikanth was praised by one and all for his vision in giving different films and he shared about how he was initially skeptical about working with Vasantha Balan as he had heard from his circle that Balan was a very serious man who generally overshot the budget and time limits. But Sashi was happy when he said that Balan finished the film on time.

Rahman has seemingly done a lot of research on the music of the film and the legend said that there are about 20 songs in the film, of varying lengths since the movie is a musical based on stage plays. He has also taken care to make sure that the songs don’t bore the audience since they are all woven as a musical drama.

Rahman, who was the last speaker, said that he was scared listening to all the speeches as he could feel such passion. He said that he had also worked with a lot of passion in the film and that he was inspired and proud in working with such a team.
 

Kaaviya Thalaivan sure promises to be a grand period spectacle for the audience, when it releases in the summer of 2014.