I love Tamil cinema. I have taken it as my sworn duty to defend Tamil cinema on the face of the facetious, superficial nonsense Bollywood dishes out. But I plead to the entire Tamil film industry, down on my knees, don’t remake Premam.
Just. Don’t. Touch. Premam. Let it be.
In the past few weeks we have heard rumours that rights for a Tamil remake of the 2015 Malayalam blockbuster has been bought by some in the Tamil film industry. Names like Dhanush have been thrown around and denials have been issued. But knowing how things work, there just might be someone out there who is seriously considering remaking the movie in Tamil. To that person, I beg -save some time and money, and stay away.
The movement is catching on. #SayNoToPremamTamil is trending, and here some good memes put out by Awesome Machi on why we should say no.
But beyond all that, one main reason is this – we should remain original. As Tamil cinema fans, we have always mocked others for picking up our stuff and remaking it. Why take a perfect little product from across the aisle and remake it, when it is the inherent richness and local flavour of Tamil cinema which makes it awesome? Let’s celebrate original cinema and not succumb to create an assembly line of monotonous and unimaginative remakes.
And there is another reason too - you will end up spoiling the original experience for us. Nivin Pauly is hard to live up to. Malar and Celine are adored so much because, well, they are Malar and Celine and we don’t like them any other way. You cannot match the background score because whatever you do, it cannot be the same, it will be something else and that does not work. The cinematography has to be frame-by-frame copy. Premam is a super hit because it was in that mix of Tamil and Malayalam, set in Kerala’s wet coastal towns and politicised colleges. The heat and dust of Tamil Nadu and the lacklustre college culture cannot live up to what Premam did. Premam has to remain the Malayalam-Tamil Premam with precisely those stars to remain awesome. Anything else will be a disaster. So please, stop.