A Direct Hit - Director Kathir talks of his first film some dream sequences in real life

37-year-old Kathir has not been bitten by the Kadhal Virus him­self. As yet. Success came early to this small town boy who arrived in Chennai in search of a career in the arts, as a sculp­tor or an artist, perhaps. The artist in him remains, dormant maybe, but has re-invented the spirit behind the camera, as a director of feature films.

Idhayam(Heart), his first take, went on to become a runaway success. Starring Murali and Heera, the film talked of a love that the hero nurses, in secret, unvoiced till the very end. Since then, love has been the dominant theme of his films. With titles like Kadhal Desam, Kadhalar Dhinam and the yet to be released Kadhal Virus, you may dismiss him as yet another pur­veyor of trite, adolescent love. If it were not for the rather low-key Uzhavan that speaks of love of a different kind.

Kathir laughs when you ask him about it. “It was a risk to take making a film of that kind,” he admits, “Banking on the success of just my first film.” Uzhavan, that talks of the passionate love of a man for his land, did not catch the imagination of the industry. True fulfillment was not to be. “It was a film on a rather simple premise,” says the director, “But I made the mis­take of casting a star, and then, as you know, other considera­tions took over. The star re-thought about his role, we had to change things to suit his image and so on...”

Meeting Kathir in his office is a revelation. Of course, there are the trappings of filmdom. DVDs of English films scattered around, an impressive television and video console, a couple of paintings by Kathir himself... and then, bookshelves piled high with an eclectic collection of reading material. “I read a lot,” says Kathir, “I am also writing a lot.”

It’s a highly self-critical director who’s mapping his creative chart. “The moment I think I am intelligent,” he says, “My journey has ended.” So it is that he thinks that every film that he has made could have been better. His ideal film subject, he says, would be the biography of a great man who changed life, who changed history. Perhaps, like Edison or Galileo. “But in some way we all make compromises in the choices we make,” he comments, “It is a question of survival. We cater to popular industry requirements. Our film industry is yet to grow beyond commercial­ism...”

Kathir, a student of the Government College of Fine Arts wrote his first script, ‘inspired’ by a fellow student, a girl. “There was this girl in college that I liked,” he recalls, “I wouldn’t call it love, but I found her attractive and would look out for her.” This first poem showed the spark of a creative promise and Idhayam was born. Ask him about the one-sided view of ‘love’ in Tamil films and he sheepishly admits, “Yes, but my forthcoming film Kadhal Virus is different. This time, I have tried something different.”

Interestingly, Kathir the realist and critic, steps back from his role as a director, when he talks of life and relationships and of moving forward as a creative person. The bottomline, he says, is not to lose a certain basic innocence and simplicity. He enjoys his privacy and the ability to do the things he wants to, without the trappings of the celebrity spotlight. This nature-lover hopes to some day, do something for the environment around him.

Kadhal Virus that is poised for a June boasts of one song that has been enhanced with Computer Graphics that cost more than fifty lakhs. “I am very happy with the way the film’s turned out,” says Kathir, “You cannot see what is real and what is computer generated in that particular song...” Then suddenly, Kathir the critic pops up. “But it is not something no one has tried before. Remember the Ten Commandments? The parting of the ocean? Ben Hur? Those were dream visuals. And that was before Computer Graphics came into being!”