I Discovered Myself Again Through VTK: Gautham Menon

Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu (released as The Life Of Muthu in Telugu) marks the filmmaker’s big-screen collaboration with Silambarasan after six years. The coming-of-age film follows the life of Muthu (Silambarasan), a young boy who unwittingly finds himself in the middle of a gang war in Mumbai. In this 1-O-1, the filmmaker gets candid with Lahari Velicheti and talks about the film, and his reactions to box office success and failure.

Edited excerpts below

Were you convinced with the climax of Ye Maaya Chesave after the movie became a success at the box office or are you still thinking it should have had the original climax…

I am still hoping it would have been the other climax.

A Telugu movie you’d watch on any given day?

There are a lot of films but these are all films that came out in the 80s—Sagara Sangamam (1983), Swati Mutyam (1986), Sankarabharanam (1980), and Ram Gopal Verma sir’s Satya (1998).

How does your day look like when your movie works at the box office and when it doesn’t?

If the movie doesn’t work, I go into a shell. It bothers me only because you’ve lived with something and liked it, and when they tell you it’s not working, it’s difficult to get out of that immediately. I go into a sort of a shell, and I feel bad, but not like Nilambari in Padayappa (smiles).

My celebration is not very intense and loud. It’s very quiet, I’d probably listen to slightly louder music and drive around, meet the team, and thank them. There is a lot of thanksgiving and I think it’s very important. Celebration is always meeting the team and saying thanks to them.

One thing that you learned about yourself recently?

This film (Venthu Thaninthathu Kaadu) made me think, “wow do I have this in me?” I think I have matured as a filmmaker. The way I handled the film, the shots, trying to visualise it, the way the single shot sequences were staged, and a lot of other stagings in the film — I really discovered myself again through this film.

What is the fastest script you have written?

The fastest script I wrote is for Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (2010), which was in 5 days.

We all know you travel and write. Which was a beautiful place you travelled to and a beautiful movie that came out of that trip?

I think I wrote many parts of Vaaranam Aayiram (2008) and Vettaiyadu Villaiyadu (2006) when I was traveling. I wrote Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa in an apartment in Hyderabad in 5 days.

Any Telugu actor or technician you are looking forward to working with?

I want to work with all of them. I want to work with Chiranjeevi Garu for sure. I want to work with Mahesh and Allu Arjun. I have been trying to work with them. There are tremendous stars and actors to work with.

At this stage, do you watch a movie as a regular audience or only as a director?

I watch movies as a regular audience only. But if the movie ends up bringing out the director in me, then the movie hasn’t worked for me. Somewhere when the movie doesn’t work, I start thinking about the camera, what they have done, and everything. When I am able to forget that I am a director and forget the camera moving in the movie, it means I love the film as an audience.