FIRST TAKE>

Jyothi Varma

s a youngster, he binged on cinema through the day, slept cinema and dreamt cinema. He woke up every day to begin the routine all over again. When he was exposed to Hollywood movies, he often wondered why such films did not happen in Malayalam. And when his first movie was released Malayalis got to taste a different flavour of humour. Meet Siddique of the Siddique-Lal combine who debuted with the all-time super hit RamjiRao Speaking and went on reset the benchmark of comedy in Malayalam cinema. The director, who has the unique distinction of turning every movie into a smash hit at the Box Office, has now made a mark in Bollywood with the Hindi version of Bodyguard, which broke all records for 2011. In this issue of First Take, Siddique speaks at length about his films. The theme of the film could be adapted to any language. The Malayalam version was well accepted and so was Kaavalan in Tamil. But the Hindi Bodyguard broke all records in Bollywood this year. The pitching of a film is very crucial. Incidentally, all their movies have English titles. Fazil started the trend naming their debut venture RamjiRao Speaking. Since then, we have tried to provide catchy titles as a measure of drawing audiences to theatres, says Siddique. He adds that he toned down the humour quotient in the Hindi version of Bodyguard because after all audience came to see Salman Khan. On casting, he says that the scripting is done keeping a particular actor in mind. For instance, Hitler was written specifically for Mammootty. In some cases they had to go in search of a suitable casting as in Godfather where they found a match in N N Pillai for Anjooraan. Siddique-Lal started off as script writers. It was Fazil who identified their talent and asked them to try their hand in scripting. The duo went to almost everyone in the whos who of Malayalam cinema to narrate their stories and eventually it was Sathyan Anthikkad who accepted the script. However, he had

earned the first credit along with Lal for Pappan Priyappetta Pappan (1986). Fazil, Appachan and Ousepachan co-produced RamjiRao Speaking (1989). The industry could not digest the fact that two new young boys could ever make a smash hit. There was also a belief that it was a Fazil creation. With In Harihar Nagarproduced by Fazilthey struck gold again. This time, the industry was forced to accept us, laughs Siddique. There was no looking back after that. Siddique-Lal have a knack for fine-tuning mimicry artistes for the big screen. Siddique believes that mimicry artists have the sharpest skill to sense the reaction of the audiencehe himself hails from the Kalabhavan mimicry troupe .The ability to improvise on stage when audience response was flagging helped him while scripting for movies too. On making it big in Bollywood in spite of language barriers, Siddique says the language he speaks is that of cinema. Any other language has limitations. But when I speak in the language of cinema any artiste can understand. Turning a bit philosophical, he says that for that matter laughing and crying have no language. On the serial success at the BO he says: The logic is simple. Do your homework. Be confident about the subject you want to convey. I would never commence a project unless I am very sure about it. The take-away message: Never feel shy to say that you dont know. n

Bodyguard

Kaavalan

Crowd-puller nonpareil
GULF MADHYAMAM l No1 IN THE GULF

Godfather

Hitler

8 TEENTIME
JANUARY 11 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 30

CHIPS@

RamjiRao Speaking