Ersatz

Preface

I have been wanting to publish this post the day I watched it, 2nd day, night-show in Singapore. I apologize to the people I have been promising that I would post this way before. The reason is that I am still unsure of certain facts in the movie (especially the avatars linked to Vishnu Puranam) and hence I wanted to watch it again which also never happened even though I did purchase a ticket again. It is as if I can see Kamal only when he wants me too see him (pun intended). I have read atleast a thousand blogs about the magnum opus entertainer, I wouldn’t call ‘the proud owner of each of those blogs’ as a schadenfreude, since they fail to realize that they haven’t realized it yet which has been the case for many years now with respect to Kamalji’s movies.

I quote the creator himself,

“Unfortunately you will not get to see it or probably you will not realize it.”

I will try my best to explain why this certain parts of the movie are not up to the mark as well. The movie has been talked about ever since it was announced. The film, made with a budget of USD 35 million, was released on June 13, 2008.

Review

The screenplay in this particular Tamil cinema is sublime and the pace at which it is being portrayed is mind blowing. An example, all 10 characters played by Dr.Kamal are shown on screen within the first 20 minutes of the movie. Inane questions on whether Kamal is trying to show off his ego by acting in 10 roles and trying to put another of his grandstand plays in an attempt designed to make a strong impression is a ridiculous critic which has been framed by so called fans of commercial entertainers.

It certainly is not a masterpiece of Dr.Kamalhaasan, though the robustness of the script is freshly brewed for tamil cinema. A major reason why the movie is a big hit than any other Indian movies is because of one man, Asscar Ravi. He is also the reason why people are being made to understand this movie by making changes in the script by roping unwanted characters such as Aandal and Jasmine and packaging this in an unaesthetically commercial way unlike other RajKamal movies which turned out to have hollywood’ian’ scripts yet could not even get back the money which the producers invested. I hope that can fit in as an excuse for the acerbating Asin and mesmerising Mallika. Keeping all this in mind, my opinion is that it takes real talent to pen down a screenplay which fits chaos theory, bio warfare, ten roles and keeping the audience entertained all through the movie by fitting commercial nonsense. If anyone in the Tamil industry can do it, it can only be Kamal. All the roles are very well characterized, none being unfitting or totally out of scope for the movie. The versatility of Kamal can be seen in the ten different roles that he plays.

The story starts with a monologue on chaos theory, moves on to 12th century where Nambi tied to  the Govindaraja statue is thrown into the sea marking the authorita of Shaivites, then to biowarfare in the US. The protagonist, Govind, tries to stop the bad guys from misusing a bio weapon, which was developed as a consequence of the September 11th attack on the twin towers. Due to certain sequences, the chase for the virus reaches Tamilnadu. Each character of kamal appears with a reason helping the story till the end, rather helping the cause for the apocalypse, Govind. The virus is exposed as Fletcher consumes it in the climax and when it looks like the full stop for all life forms, a tsunami strikes destroying the virus and the Vishnu statue is seen lying on the shore.

Why tsunami?

• 1. To destroy the Vial (Virus). It saves millions by killing thousands (NaCl concept).

Inference: An act of GOD?

• 2. Drowning the idol of Govindaraja seems to cause a tectonic disturbance, which results in a tsunami after 800 yrs. So, the story ends with the idol coming out of the sea.

Inference: Humans drive the destiny of this world; God is just a figment of the human imagination.

• 3. None of the above. The last part of the movie can be interpreted like any other commercial entertainer, the bad guys had to die!

If the whole story is thought with the chaos theory in mind, then the screenplay and the happenings will make you appreciate the effort and the talent, which has gone into the movie. Kamal has managed to provide an on-screen narrative which can be easily interpreted on a vedantic or rationalistic basis depending on one’s persuasion.

One of the blogs read,

Seen from a karmic/vedantic perspective, Rangaraja Nambi and Andal can be seen in Govindarajan and Kothai. Lord Govindaraja whose moola-vigraham was involved in their separation in an earlier birth brings them together. Although this interpretation can be discarded for an atheistic one which looks at how apparently random events bring about changes in so many parts of the world. Also, Fletcher trying to make away with the idol and dying of a horrible viral disease seems to imply that he is the reincarnation of ‘Kirumi kanda Chozhan’. Hence his involvement in Govind’s life and his death near Govindaraja Perumal whose moolavarhe threw into the sea! This resonates eerily with Rangaraja Nambi’s warning in the first sequence. Also the scene where an elephant wearing the saiva markings on its forehead flings the Utsava-vigraham of Govindraja Perumal is a beautiful play on the word ‘matham’ and an ironic replay of the 12th century act. Govind’s arrival on the scene is to prevent Perumal from hitting the ground/falling into the wrong hands. It is Kamal’s touch and not silly heroics. Even the punishment meted out to Nambi has a very Christian flavour to it (being hooked and hung). As the film ends we are shown the moola-vigraham of Lord Govindaraja, on whom Govind and Aandal rest their arms before ‘coming together’ in a conscious meaningful sense, which again leads to two interpretations.

When I thought the movie is over and started analyzing it, the last song, Ulaganayagane, where kamal dances in each of his roles is flashed on the screen with credits being displayed on the frame to the right. It looked really pathetic to see Fletcher dancing to that lousy number. Probably it was made compulsory by KS Ravikumar, having a commercial director is like having an extra hand to choke yourself when you have two other hands, one to eat and the other to, you know what. If this had been directed by Kamal, the movie would have ended with the scene where Asin wants Kamal to believe that God exists and Kamal says “Naan kadavul illanu sollala, irundha nala irukum nu solren”.

I started to ponder, how well this story could have been narrated but I couldn’t find an answer. Kamal had a restriction of commercial success to get the producer pump the money for him. If written as a novel, a lot of details can be added to make people understand what he has in his mind. I have to pity Kamal who’s thoughts are beyond what is understandable by our audience. We are kind of people who will praise the movie ‘Matrix’ though we don’t understand them but neglect good Indian cinema. Kamal was brilliant this time to sell his idea with the intelligent director who knows how to give hit movies compromising and convincing Kamal on certain things.

Other than Kamal, Asin has done a good job in her first role during the 12th century. Jayapradha looks voluptuous for her age during the dance number, well she s the KAM(al)-girl in this movie, something like the bond girl concept. M S Bhaskar is excellent as the translator; Mallika is stunning but could have better off as a heroine in a Himesh Reshimiya starrer. I dint like the Japanese girl tamil dialect, quite painful and embarrassing to even sit inside the theare in Singapore. I would rather give the songs composed by the cap man a 2/5.

I read in one of the blogs which reads,

It breaks all barriers of religion – a Hindu giving blood to a Muslim, a Christian trying to save a Hindu family and the humanitarian Govind trying to save great destruction.

I can now imagine why it is also a commercial success among the B&C crowd. Overall the movie was perfect, a good way to earn money for the bigger bait, Marudhanayagam. I am sure even Marmayogi is one of the money making movies, well I kind of guessed when Sriya has been roped for the same project. Another commercial film with a great script, all to gain a 150 Million USD for the big fish.

Critics

Q: Why bother showing a Tsunami sequence if you can’t completely do justice to it – especially when it has been done in films like Deep Impact (10 years ago) – and flood sequences (like Titanic – 11 years ago)! Those films had huge budgets but relatively speaking, so did this film! Many scenes in Titanic were filmed in a tank!?

Ans: By any chance, are you from a different part of the universe which does not know the conversion between the american dollar and indian rupee? Titanic had a budget of 250 million USD, and Dasa has around 150 Crores. For your information, Superman (1978), released 30 years ago had a budget of 165 million USD and Dasavatharam is the costliest Indian cinema released as of date.  All that CG experts have been doing in india is trying to learn how the software used in Matrix works and copy the same stunts and it becomes a moderate hit after 10 years. Why? Ask Brian Jennings, he says they were unprepared. I quote Jennings,

I would say it was difficult but was not impossible. I only wish I had more time. That was the only problem I faced because the studios were slower. The talent is the same but they are not experienced enough to do such effects. So, it all depends on how you use the talent. Most of the visual effects of Dasavathaaram is done by the Indian crew in ten Chennai studios.

The CG in this film is actually one of the best KOLLYWOOD has witnessed and this film will be a benchmark towards getting us excellence in this field. So I would rate it ‘Good’. With so many of Kamal’s avathars in one frame, one will never find the difference between CG and reality. Especially in the hospital scene where we have 4 kamals in one scene, or the Car Chase or the climax fight, well I can just go on and on!!

Q: Make up?

Ans: Make up was very good and could have been better in a few places. I am probably guessing those scenes were shot last as the time in hand was pretty less. But credit has to be given to Kamal because recently I read that each character make up took around 6 hours and he had to fit into the role and change himself. I bow.

Q: Bullet cures Cancer? How?

Ans: I heard lots of people complaining about the illogical bullet removing the cancer, if that’s the only thing one could find fault in a three hour movie – then I think the movie is good in all standards. May be that could have been a slip in the script, could have been better explained if there was a funda behind it. But kamal comes up with an answer that he was inspired from what happened to MGR, a bullet striking MGR’s throat actually made him get a better voice and speak very well. Why not buy that? I would like to ask these pessimists what is a good movie according to their standards? If they think that heavy concepts like chaos theory and bio warfare should be handled only by the Steven Spielbergs of the world, I beg to tell them that only we can  encourage good tamil cinema, charity should begin at home.

Q: No Story? Kamal not upto the mark?

Ans: I’d like to point out a few things in defense of Mr. Kamal Haasan. First of all, I’d like to state that I’m not a ’stupid’ fan that doesn’t possess any sort of cinematic knowledge. I’m an educated fan of Kamal and I take pride in the fact that I’m the harshest critic of Kamal Haasan, as I expect him to deliver the ‘best’ performance every single time. Hence the enormous hype for the film and inviting Jackie Chan for the audio release, etc. Personally, I think Kamal wouldn’t have enjoyed the idea of having Jackie Chan for the audio release for three reasons.

• It’s not needed. At least, in Tamilnadu it’s not needed because a film sells for Kamal’s name alone.
• Jackie Chan was reportedly paid around 5 crores, which is on par with the salary that Kamal got for the entire film. It’s utterly rubbish.
• The launch of audio CD was delayed only because Jackie Chan was not able to get a visa. Otherwise, they could have released it earlier and released the film earlier, like Kamal expected.

So, right from scratch, Kamal had to cope up with two big heads – KS Ravikumar and Asscar Ravi. In this case, you can’t expect Kamal to do a Mahanadhi, Hey Ram, Guna, or Virumaandi. Moreover, Kamal never publicized this movie as a classy one. At the end of the day, if the film goes on to become a huge box office success, it would justify everything. After all, that’s the output that is expected of a film like this. Not awards. For award winning performances and gripping storyline, we’ll have to wait for another movie which Kamal decides to direct himself.

(Source:AllthingsaboutKamalinfo Blog)

I have still not figured out the avatars linked with the Vishnu Puranam. I hope to watch the movie again soon and update the post.