Director Julian Karikalan chats up Rajeshwari Swaminathan on Love and Love Only, which talks about love and its ability to supersede cultures with Ilaayaraja’s music composition giving a leg up to the film.
Julian Karikalan always knew that love was universal. He just needed a way to show it on film. And that's exactly what he did in his debut feature film Love and Love Only. Karikalan, who is the producer, director and writer of the film has portrayed a love story between an Indian International student and a working class Australian girl, set in contemporary Australia. Explaining his journey, Julian says, “I was born and brought up in Madurai where my real educational institutions happened in the theatres — where I would watch two shows in a day (Morning and Matinee), whenever I felt like bunking college.”
Love and Love Only follows the story of Kris (played by Mr India Australia 2014, Rohit), a boy from a wealthy Indian family who goes to Australia as an international student. While there, he meets Stacey, a school drop-out with a difficult family life. The film deals with the universality of human emotions and love, despite the cultural differences. Studying in Australia opened his eyes to a new genre of films, “Through my screen writing education here, I was exposed to another kind of Hollywood films that would never get released in India, but were commercially very successful in the western world. Those films had no visual effects or expensive anything. Films like Dhavamaai Dhavamirunthu from director Cheran further strengthened my belief in the power of the script. These projects inspired me to write a strong script that could be made on a shoestring budget, and thus came “Love and Love Only.”
Casting was a series of happy accidents, “Rohit, a well-trained stage actor, was actually chosen for another role in this film. But then, he himself suggested that he could do the lead role and performed the whole script and filmed it on his mobile phone, and gave it to me. I really liked his perseverance and decided to go with him. For the female role, there were around 180 applications from well-trained actors, as it was an Australian girl. I found this girl in a list of extras (we call them Junior artists in India), whose role is to appear in the background when other actors are performing. I liked her and did a test shoot. Everyone who saw that footage laughed at me. But I still liked her looks and took it as a challenge and trained her personally for some time, before the shooting. I have annoyed her sometimes with my control because I wouldn't even let her smile an inch more than I wanted. I would re-shoot!”
And then there was the 'Raja' factor. Maestro Ilaiyaraaja was roped in to compose music for the film, and that made all the difference, said Julian, "He told me that my approach was very different and if it were the usual style of film, he would have just done it immediately. 'But for this, I don't know what music I should give. I just know that it should be very special. From the tone of the music, to the voice of the singers, it should have a very special feel. I just couldn't figure out what that is. I will call you as soon as that idea strikes my mind.' I felt very honoured to hear that from a composer who is well known to finish every project spontaneously."
One incident that stood out was when they filmed a scene inside the Sydney Murugan Temple,"They don't allow cameras inside. So, we had to shoot from the outside through the windows while the actors were performing inside. Once we finished it, the girl came out and was chatting with me. An elderly Indian lady came out with her family and called the girl aside. She blessed her and applied some saffron on her forehead and congratulated her for choosing an Indian boy! As there were no crew inside, the lady totally believed that the incident was actually real! And this was our very first day of shooting, which was kind of a blessing for the whole team.”
The movie premiered at the San Francisco Global Movie Festival in August, 2015. Karikalan adds, “Everyone who watched the film loved it. This included Americans and Asians as well, which was kind of cool.” Recalling the challenges, Julian shares that the film, which was shot in 30 days, had shoots running as long as 20 hours. And then there was the funding, “I funded the whole film myself with my credit cards, personal loans and equity from our house.”
Ilayaraaja wanted an Australian accent and voice for the song, so the director advertised for the gig and got around 50 applications. Rachael Leahcar was one of them. When he saw her profile, he found that it was her birthday. She didn't have just an angelic voice but she also had the right attitude and passion. He liked her rendition very much and approved her immediately. Rachael was so excited to hear that she would be singing in Ilaiyaraaja's first ever English song for an English film.
The film was shot with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera in 2.5K RAW resolution. The film is graded in Davinci Resolve which is the industry standard colour grading tool used by major Hollywood studios. The cinematography was done by Australian cinematographer Dion Wilton, who chose to use a pair of industrial lights for this film.