There is a method in the madness.
The recent Mollywood films 'Escape from Uganda', 'London Bridge' and 'Salaam Kashmir' — all have the name of a place as part of the titles. Every director has a reason for it. For some, the place itself has its own importance in the film while others use them as imagery.
The forthcoming Prithviraj starrer directed by Anil C. Menon 'London Bridge' is an example of the indirect link between the place and the story. The movie, shot entirely in London and Scotland, narrates the importance of relationships, and shows how love and empathy prevails over ambition and dreams. For Anil, the title 'London Bridge' is symbolic.
“It is a love triangle between the characters of Prithviraj, Andrea and Nanditha Raj. I used London Bridge in the title as the story is about bridging hearts. The tagline of the movie is ‘A bridge can join hearts’. Hence, the title symbolises the power and strength of relationship just like the London Bridge,” says Anil.
The trend of including names of places in movie titles has been going on for a few years now. 'Kottayam Kunjachan', 'Kanjirapally Kariyachan', 'Summer in Bethlehem', 'In Harihar Nagar', 'Krishnagudiyil Oru Pranayakalathu' to name a few. However, the trend vanished for a while only to return with a bang.
The directors say that the idea of having such titles is not to arouse curiosity but to imply the importance of the place in the story. Sethu, the scriptwriter of 'Salaam Kashmir' says, “In the film, Kashmir is as important as the characters. There is an intrinsic link between the place and the lives of the main characters Sreekumar and Suja, played by Jayaram and Mia. In fact, when one hears the name Kashmir, the first thing that comes to mind are military operations. But that is just a subplot. It is a family-oriented story in which the place becomes an influencing factor.”
At a time when filmmakers are finding it tough to create meaningful titles, these bunch of directors are confident that their film titles add meaning to their film.
Sandeep, one of the scriptwriters of 'Escape from Uganda', says, “There is a significant reason for using the particular title. When we wrote the script we developed Uganda as the main hero of the movie — an unpredictable place with unexpected twists and turns which became the base of the story.”
