Balakumaran on Kamal
Balakumaran is another literary personality with whom Kamal has colloborated. Though not as much as Sujatha, Balakumaran too has made significant contributions. The most notable among them is Nayakan. Then, there is Guna, where his spiritual / religious inclination would have come into play.
In Balakumaran Pesukirar, a blog dedicated to him, there was a piece recently on his impressions of his work in movies. He specifically talks about Rajnikanth, Kamal and Ajith. He starts off on Kamal with:
Kamal Haasan is a wonderful artiste. Any person who sees him at close quarters for 10 minutes will certainly be astonished.
He goes onto to narrate an experience during the making of Guna. He talks about how Kamal continued a story discussion of the previous day, right from the moment he arrived (stepping out of his car), to illustrate how engrossed Kamal is in his work.
It is about creativity every moment. It is about movies every moment. That’s how Mr. Kamal Haasan thinks. Working with him is a pleasurable thing to do.
He ends saying that Kamal has high expectations of people working with him. Kamal himself admitted that he gets angry at times when he is disappointed with co-workers.
I am not an angry person. I am just fast.
Speaking about Ajith, he describes an incident when he explained a scene and Ajith refused to do it that way, saying that it was reminiscent of Kamal.
Enjoy the full post (if you can read Tamil).
[Via Ananth]
March 14th, 2008 at 1:34 am
I liked that 2 phots of KAMAL JI with Writer.
Black & white photos always like a POEM.
Kamalji is so cute & HANDSOME. Superb !!
March 16th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Balakumaran’s contribution in Guna is really commendable. Such a brilliant movie. Randramble, I have a small tidbit for you.
The film was not supposed to be called Guna. Do you know what the movie was supposed to be called in the first place? I’ll give you the answer in my next comment. That is, if you don’t know the answer. Which I think is highly unlikely.
March 16th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Madhikettaan Soalai. Krishnan, good to have such a conversation…
March 17th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Strewth mate. You’re good. Kamal actually saw that name in a milestone while going to Kodaikanal for the shoot. He immediately jumped on his seat and told Santhanabharathi that he’s found a darn good name for the movie. Kamal thought the name was perfect for the movie coz he admonishes a lot of social maladies in the movie. But then, as it’s always the case with Tamil cinema, the distributors thought the title wouldn’t go too well with the audiences and was not salable, so it was changed to Guna.
What more, they even wanted the ‘vel’ (spear) to stand upright next to the title of the movie. Kamal actually wanted that spear to point down, but the distributors again said that it was not a good ‘positive’ omen. So, it was made to stand upright. Gee; the kind of sacrifices a genius like Kamal has to do to put up with these people.