Ironically it was only here, I was able to grab a DVD of Kakkha Kakkha. A lot of my friends pushed me to watch the DVD version for the reason that it had Gautam Menon’s directors commentary. I think it is the first time for a tamil feature film, a DVD comes with a director’s commentary. An opportunity missed by many including Mani Ratnam, KB, Kamal Hassan and a others. They still have time to release the next versions of DVDs with director’s commentary. Let’s talk about that later.
At first came the biggest disappointment. Gautam’s directors commentary was in English. He probably wanted Kakkha Kakkha to reach a wider audience. Appreciate that thinking but it would have more interesting and more grounded if only he had done it in tamil itself. Gautam was able to skim through the movie so easily that he had made a year back. Except that he kept saying, a-whole-lot-of, repeatedly through out the commentary.
We know that Kakkha Kakkha was made out of a shoe-string budget of 2.40 crores on first-copy basis to Thanu. And when the budget exceeded Gautam had shelled in 40 lakhs to complete the movie and carry it to the screens. During the commentary, he kept re-instating as to how the budget constraint hindered them from making it a better production. Atleast he should be happy now that his next movie with Kamal, Vettayaadu Villayadu is sporting a huge producer. Gautam could have elaborated more on the Kakkha Kakkha story and what prompted him to pen a story like that[Other than Fugitive and other cop flicks from hollywood, about which they was a huge argument in the blog a week back]. The whole commentary was about how the movie was shot. Instead of saying, we shot this at a crowded Nesapakkam and we had hundreds of onlookers, Gautam could have taken time to talk about the Cop called Anbu Selvan. There is always a next time. Probably it would happen with the Kamal flick, I hope. All said and done, hats off to Gautam to kick start the trend.
A director’s commentary is not a feature for everyone. For fans and movie buffs, a director’s commentary is a treasure. It’s only yesterday, I watched Steven Spielberg‘s first film(tele film for ABC) Duelon the DVD. It had a half-hour interview with Spielberg about making of the movie. He was able to recall his mindset when he shot duel and he spoke with an entusiasm of a first-timer. His director’s commentary for Saving Private Ryan and E.T are still my favorites.
How about our kollywood legends like Mani Ratnam, KB, Bharathiraja dub a commentary for their movies. Not only they enable us to see what went on inside their heads, it also would give them the pleasure of re-living ‘those’ days. Twenty years from now when they will be long gone, their movies will talk their genius, no doubts. If only they sit for a good three months and strech themselves to a commentary for all their movies, it would nothing but a jackpot for the future movie-makers. Imagine Mani Ratnam talking about Nayagan and why he was so moved by Coppola’s Godfather script that he I only wish all Bheemsingh & Sridhar movies had such commentaries. I only wish, I get a chance to see KB talking about Server Sundaram, Bharathi Raja about Muthal Mariyaadhai, Kamal on Raja Paarvai, Hey Ram & Virumandi. I wish.
Looks like Vikram’s 
kirukkal.com 