Mollywood’s love affair with the rains

Basil Joseph and his team were busy shooting for his debut film, Kunjiramayanam, when the Chullaiyar dam area in Palakkad got its first summer shower after 45 years.

While the people of that area were celebrating the rain, the crew was perplexed and bewildered. Managing the unexpected crisis they decided to shoot the indoor scenes till the rains stopped.

After a while, when the sun appeared again, one of them ran into the house where shoot was happening and asked everyone to come out and see the magic of nature.

“It was a pleasant surprise! We saw a beautiful rainbow in front of us in the sky. All the sadness and confusions we felt vanished. We hurried to freeze that beautiful visual extravaganza forever by capturing it in our film,” recollects Basil with a smile. The cameras were set, the frames were changed and quickly, they started shooting.

“In a hurry, none of the actors knew the dialogues and some of them even forgot the script,” he quips. However, Aju, Dhyan and Vineeth Sreenivasan managed to act while the camera man creatively captured the long shots of the rainbow with the actors. “Later, we did the close up shots, with dialogues, according to the long shots we took.”

Prior to this, Basil and team were planning to create a rainbow for their film using computer graphics. “Then we got the original one, though the scenes we planned with the rainbow were different!” says the director. That is how the rains came as a blessing in disguise for the Kunjiramayanam team.

When the whole world thinks that the rains will create havoc during the shoot, the directors of M-town say that it never dampens their spirits.

Award winning director Anil Radhakrishnan Menon opts for monsoon time to shoot his films and the director believes that he has an amazing rapport with the Rain God.

“80 percent of the shoot of my first film, North 24 Kaatham was outdoors and even for Sapthamashree Thaskaraha it was almost similar. Now, in Lord Livingstone 7000 Kandi, almost ninety percent are outdoor shots and not even once, were we forced to stop the shoot because of the rain. It was during shooting North 24..., our location in Palakkad received heavy rains after thirty years. Still, we used umbrellas only to shoot a single scene. I love the visual beauty that rain gives to my films, the green tone, the beautiful sunrays and the beautiful moisture around.”

Anil’s current film, Lord Livingstone... is shot in the forest areas of Wayanad, Vazhachal, Athirapally and so on. “When we came for location selection, nature appeared in a brownish tone and now, the rain has made it green and alluring. I think the Rain God really blesses us!” he says with a smile.

Jayasurya says that rain has never ditched him. “For some films, rain is a blessing. Like the movie, Beautiful. We wanted rain during the tail end and it rained. But, Amar Akbar Anthony is a film that we would have fallen in trouble if it rained. By God’s grace, we have not stopped our shoot for more than half a day due to showers. As a precautionary measure, thinking that monsoon will be heavy in Kerala by June, we captured two songs of the film in Hyderabad. People may say that rain deceives but it has never done that to me!” says the actor adding that monsoon is his ever favourite weather as he enjoys dancing in the rain with his children.

Mammootty’s Varsham that drenched the minds of Malayalis with enchanting monsoon visuals along with his extra-ordinary performance too was shot during last year’s monsoon.

“Fortunately, it rained only when we wanted rain and it never hindered our shots. We used artificial rain only for one scene and the rest were natural scenes. Similarly, my other recent films like Punyalan Agarbattis too had the touch of rain!” says Director Ranjith Shanker.