‘Urumi’ is more than a weapon that carries the identity of Kerala. It symbolises that armoury which yields to you; it need not always be a weapon, it can be the pen; one has to find one’s Urumi, one’s forte,” was how Shankar Ramakrishnan, the scriptwriter of ‘Urumi’, explained the title of Malayalam’s biggest movie till date.
The cast and crew of the film were addressing a press meet at Kesari Hall on Friday, where director Santhosh Sivan, actors Prithviraj and Genelia D’Souza, producer Shaji Nadesan, and the other major stake holder, Mumbai-based business woman Mobeena, interacted with media persons.
‘Urumi’ had hit the theatres on Thursday and cars sporting flashy posters of the movie have been roaming the city in an extravagant promotional campaign. Highlighting the sheer scope of the movie, its co-producer and lead actor Prithviraj pointed out that ‘Urumi’ is being released in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English, each with a different screenplay. “A crew of 450 had worked day in and day out to complete the shooting in 100 days and we have been able to stick to the launch date we had announced when the shoot began,” he said.
The movie, which goes with the tag line ‘The boy who wanted kill Vasco da Gama’, was shot in the interiors of Maharashtra, and Santhosh Sivan said that the choice of the locale was influenced by his desire to film it in a virgin territory. “I had been to that area during the shoot of ‘Raavan’ and had discussed about filming ‘Urumi’ there with Prithviraj.”
He said that it is not exactly a period movie and the plot journeys between different times. “If you are asked your grandfather’s name, you might know, but what about his father? That doesn’t mean that those people are not real. There were such people and they had their own ways of reacting to situations. And once upon a time, they saw the first white man on this land. So it’s about how people dealt with a peculiar situation that happened somewhere in the 15th or 16th century. It is always the history of the winner that is written, and this is the other side of that history,” he said.
Sankar Ramakrishnan, however, clarified that history is more a backdrop to the story and a fictional platform has been created for its narration. “There is the basic element of blood revenge, as the tag line says. But it is also about how he (the lead character played by Prithviraj) gets to bring people together, cutting across culture and religion.”
Mobeena, who has made a major investment in the mega-budget film, said that she came into the project since she was impressed by the story and its scope. “Santhosh (Sivan) is not only a friend, but also a mentor to me. I was impressed by the conviction the makers of the movie had in this project,” said Mobeena, who has co-produced big budget Bollywood hits like ‘Kamine’. She is also taking care of the promotion of the English version of the movie in the US and the UK.
The other language releases will be held in the coming two months, said Santhosh, who added that the film has been rehashed in English to appeal to an international audience. “The 2-hour-50 minute length of the story may not be palatable to them, so, instead of just trimming the movie, we thought we will make it in a slightly different way,” he said.
Genelia, who was keeping a tab on what was conspiring in Malayalam by consulting her co-star Prithviraj, underscored that the movie was different for her from every perspective. “It’s not just the Kalari and the horse-riding, but a mental process that one had to go through. I was never asked to smile throughout the film,” she said laughing.
trivandrum@newindianexpress.com