Seven-year-old Prabu sat in the darkened Amaravathy theatre in Neyveli, watching open-mouthed the adventure unfolding on screen. King Solomon’s Mines and its sheer grandeur stunned the artistically inclined child. Some years later, he would cut out pictures from Rani and Muthu magazines and create his own film using a 16 mm projector. Today, that boy is the much feted Prabu Solomon, known for his searing love stories, and for painting his scenes in the colours of nature at a time when the rest of the world veers towards everything artificial.
Prabu is now winding up the dubbing work for Kayal , a love story set during the 2004 tsunami. It is due for release in September-October. The film follows Mynaa and Kumki , which firmly established Prabu as a director whose films celebrated the script, not stars.
The 43-year-old Prabu says he reached that stage after a decade of struggle. He started at 24, assisting directors before he got to make Kannodu Kanbathellam . A string of films followed — King, Kokki, Lee, Laadam … which showed hints of promise, but not enough to satisfy him. “I compromised. I never got to make the film I wanted to,” he recalls.
That’s when he formed Shalom Studios with friend Jon Max. Mynaa was their first production, a do-or-die venture. “I decided I would shoot till I got the result I wanted,” he says. Financial issues plagued him, and he kept shuttling to Coimbatore to borrow money. The film about a convict and his lover and two cops released in 2010 and touched hearts across centres. It made money for all. “After Mynaa , the doors opened. But I needed the years of struggle to find my own cinematic voice, my language.” Now, he makes films under the God Pictures banner.
Mynaa , Kumki and now Kayal , all his films are soaked in nature. That, says Prabu, harks back to his growing up years in Neyveli. “We were surrounded by greenery. When it rained, it was bliss. Green was the defining colour of my childhood.” It’s something that shows up in his frames, where every rain-drenched leaf wafts in the aroma of manvaasanai .
The filmmaker is known for his penchant for ‘silent’ love. “Ah yes! I like to show love, not tell love. Underplaying is natural. We smile in love, we are tender. We don’t always beat our chests when we lose someone. We weep, we are frozen, unshed tears gather in the corners of our eyes. Why do we exaggerate emotions on screen?”
Prabu likes to allow the audience to soak in the ambience of a film. “Many people tell me watching Kumki was like going on a forest holiday,” he laughs. “I love backgrounds. I don’t really like tight close-ups. I love to use wide lenses, seduce the viewer with gorgeous landscapes. I like to show them a way of life they don’t normally see.”
Despite the stardom and freedom to make his kind of films, Prabu stays grounded. “My parents raised us four siblings that way. I got married at 23. The presence of my wife Punitha and children Samuel and Shiny ensured I never lost my balance,” he says. Now, Samuel, 18, is pursuing photography. “I inherited my artistic genes from my father. He’s probably got it from me. We come gifted with some ability. We just need the opportunity to identify and nurture it,” says Prabu. Prabu says he identified his ability after hits and misses. Now, he’s clear he wants to only make films that wow the audience. Like the film that seduced him years ago in Neyveli.
ABOUTKAYAL
It is my tribute to those who lost their loved ones in the tsunami. The tag line says it all — ‘Many lost their loved ones, one man lost his love.’ I travelled extensively to areas battered by the tsunami — Colachel, Manakudi, Kanyakumari. The climax is in Kanyakumari. There’s a lot of VFX involved in the film. The film stars Anandi from Hyderabad and Chandran. I love working with new faces, they are imageless. You can mould them. As for the music, composer D. Imman and I think alike. He understands what I want. He knows that in my film, music will have a purpose; it will not merely fill gaps. His score for Kayal has surpassed his magic in Mynaa and Kumki.
