7G Rainbow Colony, a romantic drama with a “loser” hero (Ravi Krishna), made a big impact on Girish. “The hero of the film is a total failure. He is terrible at academics, his behaviour is bad…he’s the kind of guy you’d say is a burden on earth. But he has a crush on an upper class girl, and the film takes us through his pain. I found it very touching,” said Girish. “Of course, now I realise that there were many things about the hero that were toxic and can’t be accepted. Still, the film has stayed in my mind for a long time, including Yuvan’s songs. I was addicted to it.”
The power of the Tamil song
Girish noted that unlike Tamil films where songs have always been an integral part of the screenplay, the Malayalam film industry isn’t music driven. “During the cassette era, there was a compulsion to have five songs in a film. But after that, the approach has changed. Songs are included only if necessary. The Tamil industry has always had stalwarts as composers and many films have become a hit because of the music,” he said.
Malayalam films are mostly made on modest budgets of Rs 5 to 10 crore. Tamil films, on the other hand, may splurge that amount just on the songs alone. Back in the Nineties, Shankar and his team did a 30-day trip around the world just to shoot the ‘Athisayam’ song in his Tamil film Jeans (1998). The most expensive Indian film song ever shot is also from a Shankar film – ‘Enthira logathu sundariye’ from 2.0 (2018) – that cost Rs 20 crore. With elaborate sets, hundreds of dancers, exotic locations and stars like Vijay who’ve made a name for themselves for their dance skills, it’s easy to understand the appeal of the Tamil film song to the Malayali audience.