Boat was shot in challenging conditions on sea: Chimbudevan

CHENNAI: The teaser of Chimbudeven’s upcoming film Boat was launched on Sunday in Dubai and has gone on to garner two million views in two days.

The film stars Yogi Babu, Gouri Kishan, MS Bhaskar, Chinni Jayanth, Jesse Fox-Allen, Chaams, and Madhumitha among others in important roles.

Boat will be the only second Tamil film after Sivaji Ganesan’s Andha Naal (1954) to have its backdrop set on the Japanese bombing of Chennai on October 11, 1943.

“The idea blossomed during the lockdown when I was on a call with Jayaraj and Sree Ganesh. We discussed a few scripts for an hour every day. Boat is a fictional story that takes its inspiration from the Japanese, bombing of Chennai. It is an important incident in our history. The Japanese dropped the first bomb in Colombo followed by Kakinandiwada (present-day Kakinada) during World War II. In Chennai, people were anticipating the bombing for six months. A lot of people fled the city at the time. We built the story on the incident, which takes place in the sea. Boat will be a survival thriller blended with political satire. Like all my previous films, it will be an entertainer with necessary elements including humour” says Chimbudeven.

When we give him the subtle political allusions in his dialogues from his previous films, the filmmaker explains, “There is politics within each one of us. If you show me a million people, I would say there is politics that underlies in every individual. Some people may be vocal about it and others may not be. As a creator, if I express it through this medium, a few people could relate as well as identify themselves through my films, is what I believe,” he tells us.

The shoot of Boat took place in challenging conditions according to Chimbudeven. “Firstly, this is a terrain I haven’t touched before. I have not shot any of my films on sea. Also, coming from Madurai, the seashore is something that I haven’t frequented before. Shooting on water isn’t similar to shooting indoors or on land. The boat in which the cast and the boat from which we shot kept dithering in mid-sea. I felt dizzy and there were days where I even threw up. These happened despite three months of recce after we zeroed in on shores near Thoothukudi that had low tides and were conducive for shooting. Imagine the cast, who had to emote under these circumstances. I am glad we could do such a film under such conditions. With Ghibran’s music and Madhesh Manickam’s camera, the frame will get stronger,” he smiles, reminiscing.

The filmmaker has been following the responses to the teaser and he says it has been overwhelming. “We have made the film on a pan-Indian scale, which is why Aamir Khan, Vijay Sethupathi, Naga Chaitanya, Prithviraj and Kiccha Sudeep released it in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada respectively. Aamir Khan told me that he liked the teaser.”

Chimbudeven has created everlasting characters like Balabadhra Onaandi, Java Sundaresan, and Dagelandi in his previous ventures.

“These are things that happen automatically when people relate and embrace these characters. I am sure that Boat too will have characters they could relate to and become timeless,” he signs off.