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He gave his best
 Iyarkai, the Arun Kumar-Shaam starrer was adjudged the best Tamil film for 2003. In an interview to
Chennaionline, director
Jananathan spoke about many special features about this film and his other ventures.
Iyarkai
deals with the love affair between a girl living in the mainland and a sailor in a ship, who sails to different places and does not have a home.
Jananathan has handled the story of this movie differently, different from contemporary Tamil movies.
The climax was also different: The heroine who was to wed her new lover, gets married to the man she has been waiting for all this time, her earlier lover, due to an accident.
According to the director, “The inspiration for this movie is a Russian story but we have worked a lot for this movie.”
 Speaking about the sets for the movie, he said the lighthouse, club and other sets were made at
Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Thoothukudi. “We faced many hardships while shooting this movie because when we built the lighthouse at Andamans, there was high tide, which prevented us from erecting it. We had to erect the lighthouse when the tide died down.”
Also, “We could shoot the ship scenes only when the ships were available. So, we had to run from one ship to another. When we shoot in one ship, it would get ready to load goods, so we would need permission in another ship and shoot the scenes there. If one sees the movie, one cannot make out these difference because we worked so hard that the audience would not see any differences.”
Speaking about the award, Jananathan
said, “I did not expect an award for this movie. It was the cameraman of this movie Ekambaram, who spent Rs 50,000 to take a print of the movie and send it to the jury of the awards committee. There were lots of movies which competed with us. The award is for the film in total and it is team work that has got the prize.”
“We worked a lot on the script and that may have made the jury select our movie,” says the director.
 Jananathan
is the last son of a big, economically backward family. Born and brought up in Chennai, he first worked in Chennai harbour as a clerk. But since his dream was to direct a film, he joined as assistant to producer-director K R, and worked with him for many movies.
He also had a chance to work with editor and director B Lenin for many of his documentaries and movies.
When Jananathan got the opportunity to direct
Iyarkai, he took utmost care in selecting the actors, actress, technicians and locations for the movie. According to
Jananathan, “The heroes of the movie, Shaam and Arun Kumar and actress Kutti Radhika cooperated well for the excellent outcome of the movie.”
Speaking about the release of the movie, he said, “The movie was to be released during the 2003 Deepavali, but was not released then for various reasons. But the problems were sorted out and the movie was released three weeks after that.”
 Asked who was his role model,
Jananathan instantly replied, “S S Vasan. The reason for this is the movie ‘Chandralekha’, produced by Vasan, is still being talked about by the people. The scene in the film ‘Avvaiyar’, in which many elephants bring down the fort, is an unforgettable one.”
Speaking about Tamil movies, he said production cost for a Tamil movie was higher than the production cost of a Hollywood movie.
He says that it is youngsters who are the audience for Tamil movies and so he would direct movies to suit their tastes.
Winning the national has made many people turn around and look at
Jananathan and the new director is optimistic that he would direct many more movies.
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