‘Wild Tales’ was a 2014 Argentine-Spanish black comedy directed by Damian Szifron. The film which won many accolades was an anthology film composed of six standalone short films, united by a common theme of violence and vengeance. In our own Bollywood there was a ‘DusKahaniyaan’, a compilation of ten short films which dealt with diverse subjects and was directed by a host of six directors. Now it is Kollywood’s turn to try something akin to ‘Wild Tales’ and ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’. ‘6 Athiyayam’ (6 Chapters) a movie consisting of six individual stories is all set to be released soon. Unlike ‘Wild Tales’ the six short movies of the film have been directed by six different directors.
The six independent tales in the movie are united by the theme of horror and spookiness. The climax of the stories are shelved to the end of the movie and played one after another and this is capable of offering the viewer the wholeness of a single movie. The six directors of the movie are Sridhar Venkatesan, Ajayan Bala, Lokesh Rajendran, Suresh Eav, Shankar Thiyagarajan and Cable B Sankar, and the film features Kishore, Vinoth and Sanjay in lead roles.
Image Credit: Movie – 6 Athiyayam
Tamil cinema had tried novel things in the past. There had been a number of twin directors in films; Krishnan–Panju, Robert-Rajasekar, J. D.-Jerry and Pushkar-Gayatri are some notable pairs. The 1954 Sivaji starrer ‘AndhaNaal’ boldly adopted the form of Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’. Renowned director K Balachander’s ‘OruVeeduIruVaasal’ was a novel venture that had two different short films in a single movie. ‘Suyamvaram’ was a full length feature film shot in a record 24 hours.
Image Credit: Facebook
‘6 Athiyayam’ is directorial debut for five of its six directors. While talking about the movie, one of the directors, Ajayan Bala said that Tamil cinema couldn’t experiment and innovate much since it is very much hero-centric, but now ‘6 Athiyayam’ tries to break the norm and presents itself as an experimental cinema. He believes that this movie will usher in a new trend in Tamil cinema. Shankar Thiyagarajan, one of the directors and also the producer of the film was an IT professional in the US. He was smitten by West’s novel film endeavours and wanted to do such films in Tamil too.
‘6 Athiyayam’, which is going to hit the screens on February 23, has been keenly awaited by both movie buffs and critics. Every now and then filmmakers try their hand at that exceptional novel film, but only with the viewers’ support such films become trendsetters. Let’s hope that ‘6 Athiyayam’ becomes one of the path-breaking films of Tamil cinema.
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