A good film is a good film irrespective of language, says AR Rahman

PTI, Oct 8, 2024, 4:34 PM IST

A good film transcends all borders, including language, says celebrated composer AR Rahman, who has scored music for movies across Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam industries in his 32-year career.

The musician is the national capital to attend the 70th National Film Awards ceremony, where he will receive an award for best background score for frequent collaborator Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film “Ponniyin Selvan I”.

“A film belongs to everyone. East, west, north or south. A good film is a good film. Whether it’s Tamil, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali or Malayalam. There are no borders,” Rahman told PTI.

This is the second National Award in the background score category for Rahman and seventh overall.

The 51-year-old said he is happy that his seventh National Award has come for Ratnam’s film. The director gave Rahman a break with 1992’s “Roja”, for which he received his first National Award in the best music direction category.

“This is the seventh National Award and I’m very, very grateful to God, and all the filmmakers who have helped me get these National Awards, especially to Mr Mani Ratnam,” he added.

Rahman and Ratnam have worked on several films, including “Thiruda Thiruda”, “Bombay”, “Dil Se..”, “Alaipayuthey”, “Guru”, “Raavanan”, and “O Kadhal Kanmani”. They are set to reunite for the upcoming film “Thug Life”, starring Kamal Haasan.

“My first award was for ‘Roja’, which was with them. This is the seventh, this too is with him for ‘Ponniyin Selvan I’,” he said.

Some of Rahman’s most popular songs across languages are “Roja”, “Minsara Poove”, “Veerapandi Kotayyile”, “Dil Se Re..”, “Chhaiyya Chhaiyya”, “Nadaan Parindey”, “Tere Bina”, his Oscar winning track “Jai Ho”, and most recently, “Ishq Nachaye”.