The Tamil sports drama is pathbreaking on various levels
In a heady mix of India’s two consuming passions - cricket and cinema – film stars Nayanthara, Sidharth and R Madhavan bat it out in the Tamil sports drama Test.
S Shashikant, who makes his directorial debut with the film, says it was his passion project for over a decade. “We have moved away from the one-dimensional way of looking at sports. It’s more about the character of these individuals who are part of a Test match, and they are presented in a way that hasn’t been done before,” he shares.
The character-centric narrative called for skilled actors. Sidharth trained for nine months to get the body language right, and leading lady Nayanthara used her voice as part of her performance for the first time. “So much of the intrinsic character of the actors make the roles what they are. This is the first film in sync sound for all of them. Nayanthara has not dubbed for any of her Tamil films so far. After 20 years, she came in saying ‘this is the character with which I'm going to break whatever preconceived notions exist, and I’m going to bring my performance to the table’,” he reveals.
Shashikant feels Southern films have an edge over Bollywood in terms of cultural representation. “I think Hindi had a problem when they were making pan-India films. Just because they spoke the same language, it didn’t mean they represented the same culture. So there was a disconnect. On the other hand, Tamil, Telugu and the other southern languages each have a cultural identity of their own,” he explains.
Test could be the start of a lucrative innings for the South on OTT platforms, marking a shift from the Hindi-centric content that has been streaming.
Monika Shergill, Vice President - Content, Netflix India, says, “Programming in Tamil and Telugu originals is as important for us as Hindi because we have South stories doing so well on the service. I feel the story grammar, the subjects, are a little different when they’re dealt with by Northern and Southern creators. Southern language storytellers come with subjects and narratives from a different perspective.”
HIGHLIGHT
“Nayanthara has not dubbed for any of her Tamil films so far. After 20 years, she came in saying ‘this is the character with which I'm going to break whatever preconceived notions exist, and I’m going to bring my performance to the table’.”
— S Shashikant, producer and director
