2015 was a year of mixed blessings for Kamal Haasan. His Thoonga Vaanam, a remake of the French film Sleepless Night was a huge moneyspinner. The proud producer and actor says, “We are happy and proud. Without the unprecedented bad weather in November, we could have been happier, but not prouder. The reviewers and the public made us take pride in the work we have done.”
So why adapt a French film, and that too which was not the stuff classics are made of Reveals Kamal, “Even as a teenager, I was influenced by the novels of James Hadley Chase. Also, French and European Cinema. I chose Sleepless Nights for its unique French sensibilities.”
What Kamal really dug was that the hero’s character in the French film was no superman. “There is no special effort to make the protagonist larger- than-life. You root for him like you root for the hunted animal on the run in a National Geographic footage. There the chances are 50/50. Here to you get the feeling your hero could loose. But slowly you loose the sense of despair because you see that your man has his wits in place. The way I drag one of my unconscious victims is very reminiscent of a predator dragging its prey to a safer place.”
When he wrote the Tamil-Telugu version of the French original he decided to completely rework the source material. “When I sat down to write the screenplay I only had the original version in my rearview mirror, as you can obviously see.”
Kamal Haasan’s production house RajKamal Films International is starting its next production this month which featuring his star-daughter Shruti Haasan. He says, “It’d be an interesting story as opposed to the conventional romcom. Rajeev Kumar of Malayalam hit film Chanakyan will be directing it and the story is written by me.
