An 'unbreakable' Hollywood link

CHENNAI'S VEHICLE to Hollywood fame, Manoj Night Shyamalan's vacations in India are now a thing of the past. The director, who became a household name worldwide with his last film ``The Sixth Sense'' is hot property out there and the just released ``Unbreakable'' has made his days more hectic. He is too busy to stir out of his workplace, whether it is the premier venues, discussion rooms, offices or locations.

But as ``Unbreakable'' opened in Chennai on Friday, his parents, Dr. Jaya Shyamalan and Dr. Shyamalan, were in the city to recollect the sweet memories of their prodigious son making super-8 movies at the age of nine, raising money for his first ever feature at the age of 21 and making one of the ten best grossers in Hollywood film history.

So ask them, if Manoj (Hollywood calls him Night and his parents, Manoj) is writing the fourth sequel to ``Indiana Jones'' for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. ``He will decide this week''. ``Indiana Jones'' Harrison Ford, Spielberg and Lucas want him to write, but he has a problem. ``It is a sequel. He always wants to write original stuff''. It is this sheer originality that struck gold for Manoj. Last year, ``Sixth Sense'' was a shockingly divine experience to the American audience who had for long been fed on violence and computer animation.

In terms of collection, the film was second only to ``Star Wars'' in 1999 and its theme brought back the debate on the existence of ghosts. In ``Unbreakable'' too, Manoj's theme is out of the ordinary. ``Why, such affinity for supernatural themes?''

``He is a bit spiritual. His cultural moorings are strong,'' says Dr. Shyamalan. ``Unbreakable,'' which deals with the story of a man whose physical strength is larger than life, too has shades of spirituality.

Dr. Jaya has more vivid memories of Manoj's first movie, ``Praying with Anger,'' which he shot at his ancestral home in Chennai's Defence Colony, as she and her sister were the de-facto production managers. ``We showed him a few Indian movies based on which he selected some of the technical crew''. He had to fly in a sound-sync camera from Singapore and a few technicians from the US. The film cost US $750,000. Though he did not recover the cost, his present fame might help the film now. Disney, which paid him a record price for his script, is now trying to distribute it through cassettes.

Tell the proud parents about the striking intelligence that one can see in his films and the literary quality of his written words, they recall how good he was as a writer. ``He had a very creative way of writing''.

So what next? ``He always has a few scripts in the skeletal form and he can develop them any time''.

Besides relatives, another thing that connects the Shyamalan family is ``Udavum Karangal''. ``Manoj himself has adopted a child and named her, Salika, after his own daughter''. The parents and his sister, who is a computer specialist, too have adopted children at Udavum Karangal.

In fact, ``Unbreakable'' had a special screening organised by Disney.

Half the money this charity show raised was handed over to Mr. Vidyakar of ``Udavum Karangal'' by Dr. Jaya and Dr. Shyamalan, early this month.

``Manoj spoke about Udavum Karangal at the show''.

By G. Pramod Kumar

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Section  : Entertainment