Menon Says...
Rediff has an interview with Rajiv Menon, who has worked as cinematographer for a few movies(including Manirathnam's Bombay and Guru), apart from directing Minsaara Kanavu and Kandukonden Kandukonden. He's talked about his favorite scenes and not just in his own movies. But the interview made me ask a couple of questions of my own...
A: On Minsaara Kanavu - "If I could change something about the film, it would be the climax when Kajol leaves both Arvind Swamy and Prabhu Deva and becomes a nun."
Q: Its been a while since I saw Minsaara Kanavu but I distinctly remember Kajol and Prabhu Deva pairing up at the end while Arvind Swamy became a priest. So is this one of those movies where the climax was changed due to public pressure or has Menon forgotten his own film?
A: "I dubbed Minsara Kanavu as Sapnay because it was easy. I didn't do that with Kandukondain because remaking or dubbing humour is very difficult. One can dub actions and emotions but humour cannot be dubbed."
Q: So Kandukonden Kandukonden was a comedy?
A: On Devar Magan - "It was such a great film that it was dubbed in Hindi as Virasat, starring Anil Kapoor, Amrish Puri, Tabu and Pooja Batra."
Q: Did Menon really not know the difference between dubbing and remaking?
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16 Comments:
I read that article too. It didn't look like a coherent interview at all. It looks more rediff had "made" the interview out of some casual out of context remarks! In the name of interview....
I read this interview too, and didn't "get" what he wanted to say about Thevar Magan; didn't really read the snippets about Minsara Kanavu and Kandukonden Kandukonden.
Was he sarcastically remarking about the way Priyadarshan "remade" that film by referring to it as "dubbed?" And, do Tamil films (films in any other language for that matter) have to be so great to be "dubbed" in Hindi?
On the other note, is it the case that Sapnay (though it was only a dubbed version) had a different ending, and not the one we saw in Minsara Kanavu?
I remember Rajiv comment in an interview when KK was released, the reason for KK not being dubbed in Hindi was it had songs/sequences for which Bharathiyar's writing were used.. Translating and getting the same effect would be difficult in Hindi.
bart, yeah i know. incoherent sounds about the right way to describe the interview :)
zero, long time no see!
considering the quality of the rest of the interview, i don't see that as sarcasm. valid point on 'sapnay' having a diff. ending. but though the slide title said 'sapnay', he specifically referred to 'minsaara kanavu' in what he said and hence my question :)
prabhu, that actually makes more sense than this reason of humor. sounds like he was talking about a crazy mohan film rather than KK :)
rajiv menon sounds confused. Looks like he just used the money and ARR given to him.
On KK< they were able to dub it in Telugu substituting Bharathiyaar with I think Athreya. Now, if thats possible why not use Gulzar fr the hindi version?
Secondly, damn it, it is so great that it was dubbed into hindi. Bloody greatness is defined as worth being dubbed in Hindi? This guy sounds a shallow, mindless person.
Given the quality of movie critics and "journalists" that Rediff has, I have to agree with Bart. It looks like Rediff made this one up. I have seen interviews with Rajeev Menon on tv before and he always seemed articulate and level-headed.
Kumar
Rediff is notorious in mangling facts like this.
In anycase, both his movies are too annoying for me to pause and reflect.
i could not care much bout "Minsara kanavu" and only thing liked about was the songs and SP Bala's performance. "KK" was nice and the ending was superb.
Its funny, I had exactly the same set of questions while viewing the slide show on rediff. LOL. But maybe like everyone on the blog says, the reported just rediffed Menon's answers.
Shwetha
Minsara Kanavu had 2 endings. During the first few days it was Kajol becoming nun and later changed to ArvindSamy becoming a priest!!
Thats kinda how van damme gave interviews back in those days when he was addicted to cocaine; hope menon doesnt have issues...
anon, the consensus seems to be that rediff messed things up. so not sure how much of the blame belongs to menon :)
kumar, that's what I remember too from the little i've read/seen of menon :)
ttgiant, lol. i agree with u on 'minsaara kanavu' though i liked KK quite a bit :)
skanda, feel exactly the same about both movies :)
shwetha, "rediffed" - u might've just added a new verb to our language :)
yaadayaada, didn't know that. i saw it in the US when i think it was a simultaneous release with back home and it had arvind swamy turning priest :)
anon, lol. even if van damme wasn't on drugs, the reporters probably didn't understand what he was saying :)
Rajiv Me'NUN'.
did i see a different minsara kanavu? I remember it as kajol becoming a num. Did they change the ending?
kumar, :)
hawkeye, looks like they did cos the version I watched had arvind swamy become the priest :)
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