Swapaanam at Dubai International Film Festival. Indian actress Lakshmi Gopalaswamy and director Shaji N. Karun share how they collaborate to come up with a movie that dances with drama. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00I myself was very happy with my role. I think it's a truly liberal woman that I've portrayed.
00:17Truly liberal in every sense. I think it's not just Malayalam cinema, it's everywhere.
00:21Now I feel as a woman and somebody who has also studied gender issues, I think people
00:27normally understand or people talk about women's liberation and feminism in a very superficial
00:33sense. Here is a woman who is dressed in a settumund all the time, who is dressed in
00:38a very simple cotton saree all the time, but she is truly emancipated in her mind. As somebody
00:46who follows, who fights, who breaks away from conventions, from traditions, follows her
00:51heart and her mind and I think that's the beauty of this role.
00:57Many of the films portray women in a dynamic and in one way a role which needs to be discussed
01:07and with a lot of attention. But unfortunately I think dress also doesn't bring in the limelight
01:13for that reason. And here I think the reason for an average filmgoer from India is now
01:20becoming more than an entertainment, it's sheer entertainment. But then the cultural
01:25side of the film generally is being overlooked or heard. And that's happening quite often
01:31from the last ten years and we continue. We don't want to get disappointed for a good
01:36reason, but we wanted to say certain things through our film which happened in this film.
01:40This is one example where cinema as a mass media is so powerful and I think it can be
01:47a catalyst to society's progress. So I feel this doesn't come very often. I would definitely
01:54like to say that. These kind of roles don't come very often. And I would also like to
01:58speak not just about my role, but all the women in this film. I think that's what a
02:04great director is about. They're all very well etched out. They all have a strong mind
02:09of their own. They have their own quirks and their own opinions, but they have their own
02:14mind. She's my actress who gave me enough blood and shades to my character which I thought
02:22in my mind. Right. So I had support for her. I was actually itching to dance, but on the
02:28other side I'm breaking a lot of stereotypes for myself because when they say Lakshmi,
02:32it's like Lakshmi the dancer, but here it's only the actor. Very often I felt sir could
02:37be my dance teacher. And if there was a passage, he would say I want anger here, I want it
02:42to turn into sadness in these two lines. And then I want it to turn to resignation.
02:48He would have worked out the emotion line by line, very much like a lyrics that I'm
02:52dancing to. So I really felt I was under some great, here kind of a director acting guru.
03:00But it was really, that was the feeling I got every time I was working with sir.
03:06Mani, why are you so sad? Is it because you're waiting to be with him? Or that you're in
03:22front of... Why? You're beautiful. You're a poetry in motion.