'Ponniyin Selvan-1' characters wear real gold jewellery, says Mani Ratnam

The upcoming Mani Ratnam film 'Ponniyin Selvan-1' spells royalty as it uses actual gold jewellery for its characters and was designed keeping in mind the small details of the Chola period.

The film, based on Kalki Krishnamurthy's 1955 novel of the same name, tells the story of the early days of Arulmozhivarman, who later became the great Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola I.

Talking about the jewellery design of the film, the director of the film, Mani Ratnam said in a conversation with IANS: "We gave special emphasis to the costume to make them believable and lend the period-specific authenticity and still evoke that sense of royalty. We were very lucky to have Kishandas (the jewellery designer) on board with us and we worked with actual gold jewellery."

He added: "The artisans worked around the small details of the Chola period and made the ornaments specific to the characters."

Gold, though, tends to behave differently on camera given its radiance. So was there a lot of back and forth on the design? The director revealed: "It was not very difficult once we figured out the texture. It was more about the design that we focussed on as to what will be right for a particular character."

'Ponniyin Selvan: I', which features an ensemble star cast of Vikram, Karthi, Trisha, Jayam Ravi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sobhita Dhulipala, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Prabhu, R. Sarathkumar, Vikram Prabhu, Jayaram, Prakash Raj, Rahman and R. Parthiban, is arriving in cinemas on September 30.