"Aaranya Kaandam is a term from the Ramayana. It means Jungle Chapter but apart from the term, I haven’t borrowed anything else. The characters are as good or as bad as the common man. We might do something wrong according to law, jump the signal, go triples and commit such petty offences. When a friend sleeps around, we don’t think he’s being evil, right? I have just treated murderers and scum in my films just as I would treat a friend.

    Everything I have watched has been an influence. I’m a huge fan of Doordarshan, so my influences range from international to local. I like Karagattakaaran and at the other extreme, Aval Appadithaan. I think Bhimsingh’s classics are the greatest. I like Thiruvilayadal, also Visu as he directs a lot of people talking all along. At another level, I like the works of Tarkovsky, Tarantino, Lars von Trier… To me, it’s the work that matters and not the directors. No matter how many films a filmmaker makes, there would be very few films that are truly great, where he has got everything right."

~ Thiagarajan Kumararaja


"Once you create a believable fictional universe, you suck the audiences into that world and they tag along for the ride. Halfway through, their suspension of disbelief meets with an abrupt halt, when you include a real-world element like a ‘bleep’. Every effort that the filmmakers have put into the film just goes down the drain."

Thiagarajan Kumararaja on bleeping out words in Aaranya Kaandam