Chidambaram on following up 'Manjummel Boys' with the intimate world of 'Balan'

Any film that followed 'Manjummel Boys' was bound to attract attention.
The film's extraordinary success made Chidambaram one of the most closely watched filmmakers in Malayalam cinema, and naturally, questions followed. What would he do next? Would he attempt something bigger? Would he try to recreate the scale of his previous hit?

The answer arrived in the form of 'Balan', a film that appears to be taking a very different route.
The recently released trailer offers little by way of explanation. It follows a young mother and her son as they move from place to place, seemingly on the run. At different points, the boy is introduced by different names. The atmosphere is tense and unsettling, with the film choosing mystery over easy answers.

The trailer also challenged some of the assumptions that emerged when the film's first posters were unveiled. Chidambaram acknowledged that many viewers may have formed an impression of the film from its early promotional material, but said the trailer offered a better sense of the world of 'Balan'. For him, however, the film was never about expectations.

The project came to him through director Jithu Madhavan at a time when he had no clear plan for what should follow 'Manjummel Boys'. What stayed with him was not the scale of the story, but the emotion at its centre.

"What connected me to the film was the idea at its centre. It's a story about a mother and her son," Chidambaram said.
That, he suggested, was reason enough to make it. While many expected his next film to match the scale of 'Manjummel Boys', Chidambaram said he never viewed that as a requirement.

"'Manjummel Boys' was a film where the subject and the scale naturally came together. That doesn't mean every film has to follow the same path," he said.
The story may have originated with Jithu Madhavan, but the filmmaker's involvement extended far beyond the initial narration. Despite being occupied with his upcoming project starring Suriya, Jithu continued to work closely with Chidambaram during the writing process.

"He was part of the process throughout. We spent a lot of time working on the script together," Chidambaram said.

The film's journey has already taken it beyond Kerala. Earlier this year, 'Balan' was screened at the Cannes Film Market, where filmmakers, distributors and producers from across the world gather to showcase projects and build industry connections.

But Chidambaram said the team had a different objective. "We weren't there looking for producers or partnerships. What interested us was seeing how audiences from different backgrounds responded to the film," he said.

The reaction reassured them. "A lot of people connected with it. The story deals with emotions that can travel across cultures."
The Cannes visit was also Chidambaram's first. Beyond the screening itself, it offered an opportunity to interact with filmmakers from around the world and observe the variety of stories being told across different industries. The experience reinforced something he has increasingly felt about Malayalam cinema.

"We are no longer making films only for Malayali audiences. Today's films travel much further than that," he said.

That wider perspective may explain why Chidambaram remains reluctant to define 'Balan' too narrowly before its release. Asked what emotion first struck him when he heard the story, he chose not to answer directly.

Instead, he said he was more interested in discovering what audiences would feel when they watched it.
Chidambaram believes personal experiences inevitably find their way into a filmmaker's work, whether consciously or otherwise. He suspects that may be true of 'Balan' as well.

With 'Balan' set to release on June 19, audiences will soon have the chance to decide for themselves what lies behind its mystery. For Chidambaram, the film began with a simple connection to a story. The rest, he seems content to leave to viewers.

The film stars Adhisheshan, Farzana Palathingal, Muhammed Zinaan, Dolly June, Beena Antony, Jean Paul Lal and Girish AD.