Musings on Dasavatharam

Firstly i have to admit, after sivaji ganesan if there's been one actor who has satisfied my appetite for intellectual cinema, its always been our padmashree Kamalhasan. Cinema has always had its huge influence on the life of every tamilian right from the 1960's. If family values, cultural bonding and a liking for the language as such got instilled through sivaji's movies, cinema as a profession found its respect amongst the population through Kamal. The cravings of the masses have always been satisfied by MGR and later rajni and now Vijay to some extent. Its not a distinction im trying to forcefeed here by dividing the population into mass and class. I for one, believe its the same group of people who wear different hats while watching a rajni or a kamal's movie. We watch rajni for the pure fun element, to get some kick ass feel, whereas when we are out to watch a kamal's movie, we prepare ourselves ..dont we??..we build up expectations ..there is an urge to keep ur mind active and rolling to understand what the great actor might have on offer each time. We expect him to take cinema to the next level each time. We keep prodding him, egging him and encouraging him inspite of his repeated "commercial" failures right from "Hey Ram" in 2000, so much so that a new breed of audience has emerged now, whom i would like to term as "Kamal Hascists". They support anything and everything that Kamal has on offer.Yes i was heartsick after watching "Alavandhan".I was in a state of comatose reeling from the movie's impact and also at the fact that i had to spend 300 bucks (black ticket) out of my meagre articleship stipend of Rs.500 those days to catch a 22 crore profligate no hoper of a movie. I had felt kamal's career would go belly up after that movie. It was such a magnum disaster that i never wanted to call myself a kamal fan after that. But the actor known to bounce back frequently, rose like a phoenix from the ashes with "Virumandi". I remember watching this movie in 2004 without any expectations and i was dumbstruck by his performance. I was back in awe and my faith n hope in my idol was temporarily restored but only to be destroyed by this new cock a hoop, self aggrandizing misadventure called "Dasavatharam".

What a "sothappal" movie it was for a budget of its scale and size.All this helium hype ends in a damb squib post the first 15 -20 minutes into the movie. Its too late for you to realise that its a cleverly aimed marketing ploy of the producers to sell a product thats "below par" in every aspect of film making. They have roped in the crowds and who knows, they might have already had their payback in full. Yes, the producers will continue to say "Remember this is a Tamil film. There’s only so much that can be done with the limited technology we have, with the limited money we have. Just think how hard this hero born amidst us has toiled, how hard he’s trying to take us places we’ve never been before." But isn’t this line of thinking a great disservice to the audience as well as Kamal, the writer-actor who refuses to be limited by the narrow confines of Tamil cinema and measures himself against global standards. When celebrities like Jackie chan are invited for the audio release of the movie with all the accompanying hype and hoopla, the least any film goer would expect from Kamal is that the movie atleast matches up to the Chinese films of his revered and venerable international peer. Watch the recent effort of Jackie Chan in "The Forbidden Kingdom"..U can throw ur hat out and say that the Chinese are moving in the right direction since the "Crouching tiger" days, improving budgets and the quality of film making. When Aascar Ravi, the producer of Dasa shares such a great relationship with Jackie Chan (For those unaware, Aascar Films distributes all Jackie Chan movies in India), he could have atleast roped in in the CG guys who work on Jackie's special effects. God knows why he dint do it. They would have definitely made Dasa much more watchable.Yes Kamal still deserves credit for taking special effects to the next level in tamil cinema but by Hollywood standards, Dasa would still be considered a B grade effort as far as CG goes.

The whole premise on which the movie's script has been built is based on "Chaos Theory" whereby one event leads to the other and there's a clear cause and effect relationship for every event that unfolds right from the 12th century priest to the last tsunami scene. This was such a wonderful script and a lifetime opportunity for Kamal to have created a canvass of sorts. He got his thinking right but the execution sadly leaves a lot to be desired. If we take the individual characters or avatars, Kamal scores heavily as Rangarajan nambi, the priest and Vincent Poovaragan, the dalit crusader. This is the only movie where u have Kamal in almost every scene and thats a record by itself for any form of cinema. He stays right there, getting overexposed at times, sometimes funny, sometimes irritating and thought provoking in sequences that are few and far between in this megalomania of sorts. If only Kamal had decided to just stick to the Poovaragan character and had made a movie on his crusade for social reforms, i guess we would have had another classic on the likes of Anbe sivam that would get archived in the annals of tamil cinema. Kamal as Vincent Poovaragan got me involved for a change in an otherwise boring fancy dress competition. His dialect, the make up and everything about the character had some unique appeal to it. Sadly the script doesnt offer enough fodder for this role.

Balram naidu as the RAW officer was just not funny contrary to what most have opined after watching the movie. Kamal has clearly tried to imitate the yesteryear actor Baliah and somehow watching him do it was an irritable experience, similar to the one i had while watching his "Indiran Chandiran" in the late 80's. His interrogation of kaifullah (kamal again as an Afghan Muslim) as to whether he belongs to Alqaeeda or Lashkar e Toiba was so cliched and ridiculous. Kamal as a dialogue writer has failed miserably except for the Dalit character. The dialogues are just not in sync with a story of this kind. The Japanese Zen exponent retaliating to Christian Fletcher's fussilade in the climax fight sequence was taking it to the heights of imbicilty, where fletcher fires a salvo saying "Remember Hiroshima" to which the Zen kamal remarks "Remember Pearl harbor". I squirmed in my seat at this so called "punch" dialogue. Was this the actor i used to idolise, Was he the one who gave us Moondram pirai,Rajaparvai,Sathya, Apoorva Sagotharargal, Mahanadi, Kuruthipunal, Michael Madana kama rajan or even Anbe sivam recently. My thoughts revisiting all these old classics had already started rolling even before this movie ended.

Asin, the less said the better. It was a-sin to even watch her in this movie. He job was to ensure that the movie remains a mediocre effort. She must have managed to push people out of the theatre through her incessant calls to "perumal". Wish the Flecther character had shot her down in the beginning itself along with Mallika Sherawat. For the first time i felt pained to see Asin perform so badly.

Avatar Singh is another comedy character. he gets shot in the throat and "voila" his cancer gets cured. Man... that gun shot was his straight ticket to heaven. Kamal as govinda, the main protagonist in the movie around whom the other 9 characters revolve jumps from high rise buildings in the US, does a free fall from flyovers in Chennai and its suburbs, catches a speeding train that too with Asin and her perumal "barbie doll", escapes unhurt each time. The point is if Kamal wants us to suspend our disbelief, sorry, that can never happen in a movie of this kind. Kamal cant be a rajni just as Rajni cant be a kamal. The action sequences also were an eyesore beyond a point. When a chase of that magnitude from US to India is happening, shouldnt that be shot in a riveting manner?? Not for a moment was i in the edge of the seat, awestruck by the action that unfolded. Kamal has still not learnt his lessons in full from his "Alavandhan" exercise. That's the only conclusion i can arrive at, after watching this "dud" of a movie called Dasavatharam.
We all realise the pain and the efforts he has undertaken to slip into each of these 10 characters with all the prosthetic make up surrounding his body. But at the end of it all, was it just worth the effort???

Kamal..we want u back..back as the actor of the 80's and early 90's..ur experimentations are laudable but they invariably end up getting executed shoddily...Ur career graph has seen an undeniable decline ever since 2000 and there's very little time left..Maybe the ego maniac in you will never allow u to work with the current crop of talented directors in tamil cinema like Bala, Ameer or Cheran who may still be able to make good use of the vast unutilised potential that lies beneath ur visage. Even Sivaji required a "Mudhal Maridhai" in 1985 from Bharathiraja to realise that he had a completele different dimension to his acting skills. So come out of ur self created closet..we need the actor in you..not the director anymore.