Sarvam

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Sarvam (transl. Everything) is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language

The film revolves around five individual characters and the events that change everything in their lives, which the film's title refers to, and also brings them together. It is an anthology film, containing two parallel stories that are connected by a freak accident in Chennai. A young architect falls in love with a young beautiful pediatric doctor, runs after her and tries to convince her to marry her. Simultaneously, a morose ex-football coach troubles a software engineer by vowing to kill his eight-year-old son. How these characters get connected and confronted through the accident forms the crux of the story.

After several postponements, the film was released worldwide on 15 May 2009 to mixed reviews and become an average grosser.

Plot

The film opens with a fight between two individuals on a rainy night in a deep, dark forest. In the opening scene, a title card is presented with an Upanishad quote: "Death is just the beginning of another life".

Karthik is a carefree architect who comes across Sandhya, a pediatric doctor, in a go-kart race. Karthik immediately falls in love with Sandhya and wants to convince her to marry him. Karthik finds out several pieces of information about Sandhya and arranges a meeting by pretending that she had caused a car accident and damaged his car. When that approach fails, he goes to the hospital where Sandhya works, becoming a regular visitor there and making efforts to woo her. Sandhya, however, has other interests and shows no signs of reciprocating his love. She believes that Karthik is too carefree and not serious about life. One day, Sandhya's parents tell her about her to-be-fixed marriage. She finally recognizes that Karthik is the right match and slowly develops a deep love for him. She wholeheartedly agrees with the marriage.

Simultaneously, a morose mysterious man, Eashwar, always moving around with his Rottweiler, goes to see Naushad, a software engineer who happily lives with his eight-year-old son Imaan. A few months ago, Naushad had hit and killed Eashwar's wife Gheetha and son Naveen in a car crash. Eashwar, apparently mentally disturbed, keeps murmuring that his son has died and thinks that Naushad was planning to kill his family members. Eashwar keeps following Naushad, telling him that he will feel the same pain only when his own son dies. A workmate of Naushad informs him that Eashwar had visited him and requested information about Naushad and tells him to beware. He and his son escape to his friend's place near Elliot's Beach, Chennai.

Meanwhile, Karthik and Sandhya, who happily spend time together, are ready for marriage and make plans for the future. Karthik then suddenly asks Sandhya to postpone their marriage for a year. However, Sandhya persists on marrying at the earliest possible date. To solve this problem, they decide to hold a cycling race across a road in Elliot's Beach so that the winner may make the decision, which has to be accepted by the other person. At the same time, Imaan and his friend fly a kite on the terrace of Naushad's friend. Suddenly, Imaan faints and falls, which distracts the boys, and they let the kite fly away. Sandhya, who is ahead of Karthik and leading the race, rides straight into the kite thread, which cuts her neck, injuring her. She dies in the hospital from blood loss.

Six months later, Sandhya's father visits Karthik, who is devastated. Sandhya's father informs Karthik that even after death, Sandhya has saved the life of a child, since her heart has been transplanted into a boy, who happens to be Imaan. Karthik becomes emotional and is overjoyed that at least one part of his love is alive and goes to meet Naushad and Imaan. He finds out that they have left their home in Chennai and moved to Munnar in Kerala. He travels to Munnar to see them and feels happy again. Meanwhile, Eashwar, who had followed Karthik, arrives in Munnar as well, where he meets a car mechanic, Sajid, who used to play professional football with Eashwar and who allows Eashwar to stay at his home.

Karthik goes to see the father and son one last time before he returns to Chennai, when suddenly, a car hits Imaan. Karthik, who was just ready to go home, comes back and saves Imaan. Shocked by that incident, Karthik does not believe that it was merely an accident and wants the truth from Naushad, who has been admitted to the hospital after having been injured in the accident. Karthik then learns about Eashwar, who was the man in the car, and his intentions. Eashwar has bought the same car that killed his family and seeks revenge for their death by killing Imaan in return. Karthik decides to take Imaan to a nearby place where he had stayed before, promising Naushad that he will protect and look after Imaan.

Subsequently, Karthik tries to befriend Imaan, who dislikes him and wants to stay with his father. When they later go by car, Karthik and Eashwar encounter each other and Karthik finds himself threatened by Eashwar. It follows a cat and mouse chase where Eashwar wants to dispose of Karthik to get to Imaan and kill him. Sajid sees Eashwar chasing Karthik and offers to help by hiring people, who will kill both silently without mentioning Eashwar's and Sajid's names.

How Karthik protects Imaan and saves him from Eashwar as a tribute to Sandhya and his love forms the crux of the story.

Cast

Production

Development

In June 2006,

In August 2007, when Vishnuvardhan was still working on Billa, it was reported, that he had not given up on Sarvam and wanted to restart the film once Billa is finished and released, with Arya in the lead role.^[9][10][11] It was also rumored that composer Yuvan Shankar Raja would produce the film,^[12][13] which turned out be wrong, with K. Karunamoorthy and C. Arunpandian taking over the project and producing it under the banner of Ayngaran International. Filming began in May 2008 with Arya, Trisha and J. D. Chakravarthy .

The film was first reported to be a remake of the 1986 Hollywood thriller The Hitcher^[14] and later to be a remake of another Hollywood film, the 2003 drama 21 Grams.^[15]

Casting

Initially, when Vishnuvardhan started the project in September 2006, he had signed up Surya to play the lead role, pairing up with the

In November 2007, after Vishnuvardhan had finished his Billa, which was due to release, he restarted his shelved project Sarvam and started to scout his cast for the film again and reports say that again Surya was considered for the role, before supposedly Arjun was confirmed for the leading role with Arya playing the second lead.^[19] Reports indicated that the script has been changed several times to suit the lead actors;^[20] Vishnuvardhan, however, confirmed that the script did not change, stating that there are similarities between Surya and Arya and the script suited both and therefore change was not necessary. Sarvam was Arya's first film after Naan Kadavul, with which he was engaged for more than two years and for which he had grown a long, thick beard.^[21] In contrast to that, Sarvam features him as a romantic lover hero, whereby he had to remove the beard and, hence, the "Old Arya returned".^[21][22] Actually, Vishnuvardhan said, Arya's transition from Naan Kadavul to Sarvam was very difficult, since Naan Kadavul was a "lengthy process", where Arya had "forgotten the real in him".^[23] This was the third film in which Vishnuvardhan and Arya worked together after Arinthum Ariyamalum and Pattiyal, with Arya stating that Vishnuvardhan knows him "in and out" and that he was able to bring out the "best and finer aspects" of him, knowing his strengths and weaknesses,^[24] while Vishnuvardhan confessed that working with Arya was comfortable.^[23] Arya later also mentioned that the role of Karthik was the best role he had ever played in his film career, since the character had "many shades" as romantic, serious and emotional and there was "so much of variation".^[24]

Trisha eventually got the role of Sandhya after several actresses, including Hansika Motwani, Anushka Shetty, Nila, and Ileana, were considered and opted out. This marked her first collaboration with Arya.^[25][26] According to Vishnuvardhan, Trisha, though she is not a new entrant, looks "very fresh" in the film, which, he believes, is because of her co-star Arya.^[23] Besides, she has an "interesting quality", which is her "innocent smile irrespective of her mischievousness", Vishnuvardhan states, which was "very essential" for the character and the reason for giving her the role.^[23]

The antagonist role was first offered to

Apart from these three actors, Malayalam actor Indrajith Sukumaran, brother of well-known actor Prithviraj Sukumaran, who acts in his second direct Tamil film after En Mana Vaanil; a child actor, Rohan Shiva, playing the 8-year-old Imaan; and a Rottweiler dog play important roles in the film. Rohan Shiva was signed for the role of Imaan after 100–150 boys were tested for eight months. Vishnuvardhan finally chose Imaan, citing that "he is not handsome, but there is something very cute about him".^[23] Wasim was introduced by Vishnuvardhan in this film, who he cites as "so natural" as the other actors as well that you "tend to forget that it is cinema".^[23]

For the technical crew, Vishnuvardhan roped in mostly "his usual members", who had worked with the director on his earlier projects, including

Shooting for Sarvam was held for nearly nine months in various locations, including exotic places never before seen on film. It started in June 2008 after Vishnuvardhan returned from the Cannes Film Festival, where his film Billa was screened, and after Arya had completed Naan Kadavul, for which filming was held for nearly one and a half years.^[29] The first half of the film was shot in and around Chennai, while the second half was shot in Kerala, mostly in deep forests,^[30][31] hence, the first half would be very "colourful", while the mood in the second half completely changes, getting "rainy, misty and completely green and dark".^[32]

Before Vishnuvardhan left for Cannes, he had already shot a few scenes at

With this song, the shooting was wrapped up in February 2009 and post-production works began.[52]

Music

The album comprises five tracks, lyrics for which were written by Vishnuvardhan's "usual lyricist", Pa. Vijay. Out of the five tracks, two were sung by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja himself and one by his father Ilaiyaraaja. According to the director, two of the songs ("Neethane" and "Sutta Suriyana") were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja even before Vishnuvardhan's previous venture, Billa, had started, when Sarvam was first announced in October 2006, nearly two years earlier.^[53] The song "Adada Vaa" was originally composed for the film Aayirathil Oruvan, for which Yuvan Shankar Raja was first signed to score the music, but which he left in the midst, after he had a fall out with director Selvaraghavan.^[54]

Release

The film's release had been postponed several times due to various reasons, before it was eventually released on 15 May 2009 worldwide by

Upon release, Sarvam gained mixed reviews by critics, with the majority claiming that the film failed to live up to the expectations. Generally, the film was described as "stylish" and "visually attractive" and its (snail-paced) screenplay as the sore point. Sify labelled the film as a "visual treat", stating that the film is good in parts, has a "wafer thin storyline" and "banks heavily on style and gloss".^[68] Praise was addressed to director Vishnuvardhan for trying to make a "different film" and for reworking the "Kollywood commercial formula".^[68] Technical aspects of the film were immensely lauded, especially Nirav Shah's cinematography, which "works big-time for the film", as well as Yuvan Shankar Raja's music and background score, and Manu Jagadh's art work, while Thyagaran's "close combat action scenes" were cited as "spellbinding".^[68] Overall, the film was described as a "decent thriller".^[68]

Malathi Rangarajan from