Brandishing an Urumi, Santosh
recreates interest in an untold
and forgotten story in our
history | By Laya
Just prior to the release of the
historical blockbuster Urumi, a freewheeling Santosh Sivan, in
an exclusive and uninterrupted
chat with Yentha. Urumi casts
Prabhu Deva, Prithviraj, Tabu,
Vidya Balan, Genelia D'Souza,
Nitya Menon, Jagathy Sreekumar and an array of other talented
artists. Y: Urumi is your much talked about movie in Indian cinema
circles for a variety of reasons.
How did you come across this
movie? And Kelu Nayanar - the
protagonist? S.S: We all know our history. About the British coming to India,
their rule, then our freedom
struggle, etc. And for us in
Kerala, we are more familiar with
Vasco De Gama landing up on our
shores, in Kozhikode as a peppertrader. That was his first
visit. During his second and third
visits, he tried to establish some
kind of a monopoly. He opposed
the Muslims who supplied pepper.
And during his third visit, he actually burnt a ship taking the
lives of 400 people including
women and children. It can be
called the Pepper War. Our film
takes off at this juncture.
So our point is that when you end up destroying 400 lives,
there is bound to be people who
have reason to react. Kelu is the
character who represents all
these people. It is not a single
person. It is a group or mass in a way - the people, their feelings.
And, Sankar Ramakrishnan, our
Script Director has done a
fantastic job in gleaning out all
relevant details.
Armed with all these, I decided to make an interesting movie. And I
love it when different cultures
meet, the period movies so to
say. Again this movie has 3
versions of which the English
version is devoid of songs. So with a good script in hand and
with almost all the cast and crew
putting in their best, it ought to
come out as a good movie. Y: How much fantasy has been added to this movie or is it
historically correct? S.S: Like I said before, we tried to tell this story from a
different angle. See, Urumi is
basically about how the people
at that time felt, rather than
how history was on a day to day
basis. It depicts the feelings of people, their emotions against
the Portuguese. It is not history
being shot like a documentary. It
is about discovering all that
happened in the lives of these
people and Kelu represents them- their feelings, as I
mentioned earlier. It is a very
story based kind of film which
connects to a lot of people and
brings them together. Y: The 'Urumi' plays an important role in the film. Is this made of
gold from ornaments worn by
the people killed on the ship? S.S: No, it is not that the Urumi is made entirely of gold taken
from the dead. It is just that
when Kelu sees the dead bodies,
he just incorporates that also
into his emotions. The Urumi in a
way represents the people. It has an emotional appeal. Y: We understand that the film was shot in the jungles of
Maharashtra - Any specific
reason? S.S: As a cinematographer, landscape is very important to
me. To me, the landscape is a
character. You can see that in
most of my movies. I shot
'Tahaan' in Kashmir, so that's the
landscape you see there. One of the most important aspects of
Urumi would be the beautiful,
untainted air. My basic intention
was to present an unpolluted,
pristine, fresh and healthy
landscape. I also wanted the people to see this in a way
where they find everything
fresh and healthy...not trying to
glamorise it... but you should feel
it. That's what I thought. I loved
the idea of capturing things that are fleeting. So I decided to set
it in a place where there were
no buildings around and they
could feel a huge expanse of
land. And that is why I shot in
Maharashtra and in Mangalore, Chennai and in Kerala. Y: How do you manage cinematography and direction?
Specifically in Urumi? S.S: I don't see it as an effort and I feel very comfortable when
I am shooting. Here we have a
combination where I should be
telling the story and I am at
liberty to make the film the way
I feel.
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