Lenin Rajendran was the first to make a film on
Swati Tirunal, the royal composer from Kerala. Through
Makaramanju, the filmmaker pays homage to Raja Ravi Varma. The director says it is the artist's special place in Indian art that had drawn him to his life. "A few years ago, I had done a play on Ravi Varma for
KPAC. During my reading and research on him, I was fascinated to know more about the man and the circumstances in which those works were created. Here was a prince who had paid a price for pursuing his passion for the arts. He faced hostility and criticism but that did not put an end to his affair with brush and paint. Cases were filed against him but he fought against the orthodoxy and won the right to express himself. I felt there was space for a movie," he explains. Instead of a biopic on the artist, the director wanted to focus on the artist at work, and chose a single work to unfold the life of the artist and the period he worked and lived in. "Although his style was European, his themes were from Indian mythology. In each of his works on the Indian Puranas, he chose a point in the story that was filled with drama and emotion. I was struck by the sensitivity and acumen of the man who used his brush to depict those moments. That is why I felt I could understand him better if I concentrated on a work and then narrate the story of the artist's creative process," says the director. The principal production began in October 2009. The film's set has been put up in an old bungalow known as the Church bungalow on the compound of a Lutheran church near
Pallichal in
Thiruvananthapuram district. The film was also shot in
Kochi and
Mumbai. ==Music==