There are never enough posts in praise of Raja. Recently, a flautist friend of mine sent a bunch of Raja's background scores to another flautist friend of mine - and there I was, a fool of music, in his CC like an add-on. The list is varied: Valli, Kadhalukku Mariyadhai, Nayagan, Aan Pavam, Guna... I've heard them all before and was still moved listening to them again. But the dark horse that blew me away was Aranmanai Kili. For a movie set in village starring Raj Kiran, you'd never expect such grand pieces. Especially there's one gem which starts with beautiful violin chorus with a western flavour and then suddenly there's a flute that peeks. And this flute piece, which just totally swept me away threatening to bring tears, has a touch of village nativity appropriate to the situation and it seems like a miracle that the two styles blended so perfectly to create what I heard. As it happens, the flute piece plays the pallavi of the song 'Raasave unnai vida matten'.
Listening to some pieces from Aan Pavam I was reminded of Raja's supreme reign in the 80s. He again does some magic with a violin & a flute, bringing me images of Pandian & Seetha running into each other. One piece greatly captures the soft romance, that there are times when the heart is just waiting ready to be given away. Most of the 'melody' these days just play at a slower tempo. He reminds us that a melody should touch you, even if the music rolls at the pace of 'Valayosai' from Sathya.
I'll finish this post with his work for Guna. I think this is one of Kamal's greatest performances (and I like the screenplay too). Listening to some of the BGMs for Guna, I was reminded of how Kamal's work has been accentuated by Raja over the years. Had Kamal been assocaited with a lesser musician in his prime, I'm sure the emotional punch Kamal dealt to the audience (talk about Mahanadhi) would have been greatly reduced. And I'm not only talking of Kamal's serious works. Michael Madana Kama Rajan has a great background track and Raja should be included in the comedy quotient that's usually only assigned to Kamal & Crazy Mohan. The movie would be definitely less funny without Raja.
Listening to some pieces from Aan Pavam I was reminded of Raja's supreme reign in the 80s. He again does some magic with a violin & a flute, bringing me images of Pandian & Seetha running into each other. One piece greatly captures the soft romance, that there are times when the heart is just waiting ready to be given away. Most of the 'melody' these days just play at a slower tempo. He reminds us that a melody should touch you, even if the music rolls at the pace of 'Valayosai' from Sathya.
I'll finish this post with his work for Guna. I think this is one of Kamal's greatest performances (and I like the screenplay too). Listening to some of the BGMs for Guna, I was reminded of how Kamal's work has been accentuated by Raja over the years. Had Kamal been assocaited with a lesser musician in his prime, I'm sure the emotional punch Kamal dealt to the audience (talk about Mahanadhi) would have been greatly reduced. And I'm not only talking of Kamal's serious works. Michael Madana Kama Rajan has a great background track and Raja should be included in the comedy quotient that's usually only assigned to Kamal & Crazy Mohan. The movie would be definitely less funny without Raja.
When the set-up precedes storyline one can only appreciate the decoration, not savor the meal. Kamal Hassan's idea of challenge is this: tall, short, muscular, paunchy, intelligent, mediocre, American, Japanese, theist, atheist, hindu, muslim, hero, villain, comedian... Of course, realizing these characters on screen is painful, but in this case, watching them too is. This is Picasso painting for calendar - two more roles and you're set for the year. If an actor playing ten roles in a movie is considered an achievement, then Kamal becomes a lesser actor than he is in 'Dasavatharam'.
I'm not going to dwell much on the story, which is a confused rendering of themes like destiny vs chance, divine intervention vs coincidence, godliness vs godlessness, blind faith vs scientific temperament. The movie starts with its best segment: a stand-off between Vasihnavites & Saivites in 12th century resulting in Rangarajan, an ardent devotee of Narayana, shackled to the statue and thrown into the sea. Cut to the present day: a vial containing a dangerous drug escapes a high security zone and is hotly pursued by the good & bad guys. There are many sub-plots and they all cut into each other (because of Tamil cinema grammar's compulsion) by strands thin as hair. The climax is not typical masala, but not far away from the typical.
What frustrates me the most is the number of junk roles (played by Kamal) floating around in the movie. What's so freaking sacred about 10 that he had to do this? His performance in Mahanadhi would have washed all these ten like a tsunami. Let me sample: a Punjabi pop singer is diagnosed with throat cancer. You'll have to see how bad this performance is to believe it. He coughs up blood and his wife runs to him. The expressions & lines of the husband & wife remind me of the 1980s Saturday evening Hindi movies. It's as if the actors had taken a oath to never act naturally. Either that or Kamal is subtly taking a dig at Punjabi movies & their actors with his non-descript lines for Avatar Singh (there's a bland reason for that name!).
Then there's Kalif Ullah - the good muslim son of a good muslim father. You get it, right? They're here to symbolize the goodness of the community in spite of viewed through terrorist filters. The funny thing about this guy is that everybody in the family speaks perfect Tamil and he speaks as if he's imported from Persia the day before. Then there's a Japanese martial arts guru who is in Chennai to settle an account. Two needless roles were squeezed in so that this Japanese guy has a purpose. But the WTF award goes to Kamal's role as George Bush. The guy has a dozen lines in the whole movie and the editor should have excised them to keep the material less fatty. The rest of the roles aren't necessarily strong, but at least they move the story forward.
It's not all that bad - because the above mentioned players have less screen time. Vincent Poovaragan, a Dalit social reformer has some good lines, good make-up, a performance fitting Kamal's stature and his end fitting Bollywood. Balram Naidu is a cracker of a personality - the dim-witted head of RAW interrogating & chasing an alleged terrorist is memorable mostly because of his impeccable accent. I'm sure that purists may find a tone or two inappropriate here & there. But for the general public, the variety in terms of accents he's brought over the years is delightful. Kamal's mastery of langauge is breathtaking - he's not just being a linguist absorbing words and their meanings but a supreme actor-linguist carefully weighing the pauses, whispers, overlapping-dialogues and related mannerisms that go with the culture.
Although Kamal is enjoyable in a few avatars here, the story & direction don’t help to hold attention. A stone hitting Rangaraja Nambi, the 12th century Vaishnavite results in blood trickling down his forehead symbolizing the 'divine namam' followed by, you guessed it, a song. The wisdom of a biotech scientist acceding to play by the rules of a beautiful girl in the face of impending but avoidable danger is not only illogical but also annoying. There's the accidental exchange of boxes resulting in dramedy. Then there's a timeline tag that keeps the viewer informed of what is happening when, which allows the hero to go on and on without sleep for 2 days. Kamal ties a lot of loose ends but not all; this is difficult because there are too many events & outcomes to tie them all. There's too much happening for the audience to connect to someone and care for them. The sum is very less than the parts - some of which are extremely fulfilling and some of which are disemboweling.
I've been wondering who'll cement the foundations of independent cinema movement in south India. Low budget no-name actors, directors & technicians coming together to create good movies. If artistes like Kamal don't promote them by writing & producing, there's no point in complaining about the standards in his next interview. Let Rajini speak for 55+ heroes who want to run around with 20+ girls & do the impossible stunts. Kamal has done that for almost 30 years now and it's high time to move on. Dasavatharam is more like a 3-hour make-up costume fiesta scoring heavy points to Kamal's repertoire of made-up faces. This is a movie Vijay or Ajith or Surya can be proud of.
I'm not going to dwell much on the story, which is a confused rendering of themes like destiny vs chance, divine intervention vs coincidence, godliness vs godlessness, blind faith vs scientific temperament. The movie starts with its best segment: a stand-off between Vasihnavites & Saivites in 12th century resulting in Rangarajan, an ardent devotee of Narayana, shackled to the statue and thrown into the sea. Cut to the present day: a vial containing a dangerous drug escapes a high security zone and is hotly pursued by the good & bad guys. There are many sub-plots and they all cut into each other (because of Tamil cinema grammar's compulsion) by strands thin as hair. The climax is not typical masala, but not far away from the typical.
What frustrates me the most is the number of junk roles (played by Kamal) floating around in the movie. What's so freaking sacred about 10 that he had to do this? His performance in Mahanadhi would have washed all these ten like a tsunami. Let me sample: a Punjabi pop singer is diagnosed with throat cancer. You'll have to see how bad this performance is to believe it. He coughs up blood and his wife runs to him. The expressions & lines of the husband & wife remind me of the 1980s Saturday evening Hindi movies. It's as if the actors had taken a oath to never act naturally. Either that or Kamal is subtly taking a dig at Punjabi movies & their actors with his non-descript lines for Avatar Singh (there's a bland reason for that name!).
Then there's Kalif Ullah - the good muslim son of a good muslim father. You get it, right? They're here to symbolize the goodness of the community in spite of viewed through terrorist filters. The funny thing about this guy is that everybody in the family speaks perfect Tamil and he speaks as if he's imported from Persia the day before. Then there's a Japanese martial arts guru who is in Chennai to settle an account. Two needless roles were squeezed in so that this Japanese guy has a purpose. But the WTF award goes to Kamal's role as George Bush. The guy has a dozen lines in the whole movie and the editor should have excised them to keep the material less fatty. The rest of the roles aren't necessarily strong, but at least they move the story forward.
It's not all that bad - because the above mentioned players have less screen time. Vincent Poovaragan, a Dalit social reformer has some good lines, good make-up, a performance fitting Kamal's stature and his end fitting Bollywood. Balram Naidu is a cracker of a personality - the dim-witted head of RAW interrogating & chasing an alleged terrorist is memorable mostly because of his impeccable accent. I'm sure that purists may find a tone or two inappropriate here & there. But for the general public, the variety in terms of accents he's brought over the years is delightful. Kamal's mastery of langauge is breathtaking - he's not just being a linguist absorbing words and their meanings but a supreme actor-linguist carefully weighing the pauses, whispers, overlapping-dialogues and related mannerisms that go with the culture.
Although Kamal is enjoyable in a few avatars here, the story & direction don’t help to hold attention. A stone hitting Rangaraja Nambi, the 12th century Vaishnavite results in blood trickling down his forehead symbolizing the 'divine namam' followed by, you guessed it, a song. The wisdom of a biotech scientist acceding to play by the rules of a beautiful girl in the face of impending but avoidable danger is not only illogical but also annoying. There's the accidental exchange of boxes resulting in dramedy. Then there's a timeline tag that keeps the viewer informed of what is happening when, which allows the hero to go on and on without sleep for 2 days. Kamal ties a lot of loose ends but not all; this is difficult because there are too many events & outcomes to tie them all. There's too much happening for the audience to connect to someone and care for them. The sum is very less than the parts - some of which are extremely fulfilling and some of which are disemboweling.
I've been wondering who'll cement the foundations of independent cinema movement in south India. Low budget no-name actors, directors & technicians coming together to create good movies. If artistes like Kamal don't promote them by writing & producing, there's no point in complaining about the standards in his next interview. Let Rajini speak for 55+ heroes who want to run around with 20+ girls & do the impossible stunts. Kamal has done that for almost 30 years now and it's high time to move on. Dasavatharam is more like a 3-hour make-up costume fiesta scoring heavy points to Kamal's repertoire of made-up faces. This is a movie Vijay or Ajith or Surya can be proud of.
Labels: Dasavatharam, Kamal
In a recent function organized by Vijay TV, Kamal Haasan was awarded the Chevalier Sivaji Award, something like a life time achievement. Among the audience were the crop of young and not-so-young actors ruling the box-office in the state. Kamal, as usual credited Nagesh, K.Balachandar and Sivaji for pushing his abilities, said that he has no plans of writing a biography, expressed that he felt immensely honoured to receive an award chosen by the general public and then went on to say something very important. Did those young guys with money overflowing from their pockets hear him?
He has been venting out his dissatisfaction at the level of performance among actors in particular and films in general in the past couple of years. Well, he's been doing that for quite some time, but I hear him groan often these days. He once said that as long as his senses are keen and aware, he would some how associate himself with the process of making cinema and expressed his wish to see Tamil cinemas that would make him jealous; that would have him crazy after a role upon seeing a movie - and yearn that he didn't get a chance to play one such and admire the actor and story at the same time. He also indicated that extrapolating the current trend, in his old age, he might just say "namma pannadhayedhan indha pasanga pannittu irukkanunga".
He clarified a point: he's not unhappy when his experiments fail and some lame movie succeeds. Because he didn't complain when his masala movies made money while some quality content were disregarded by the public. But he decried the lack of balance - there's a lot of masala and not much food for thought. When the trophy was handed over to him, Kamal said "It's very important that this statue doesn't remain in my hands for long. The industry should evolve to grab this from my hands as early as possible." He also took it upon himself to groom actors who might be worthy successors to him. Of course, he didn't explicitly praise himself, but he made it obvious that there's not any ground-breaking work going on in the industry.
After Kamal & Maniratnam, I don't see anyone trying to talk intelligence in a movie. Good cinema, as pointed out in a earlier post, is dying in the hands of star power and entertainment value. Earlier in the function, when Vijay received the best actor award he said that he wasn't sure if he was worthy of the honour. There is no room for doubt. The masses elect, just like in politics, a shallow showman. Kamal's speech could also be construed as warning to the mass. If the public doesn't encourage experiments, there is no point in blaming the film makers. But my question to Kamal is how many artistes & technicians have RajKamal Films introduced? When digital movies with newbies can be made at a budget under Rs.10 lakhs and marketed at a relatively low cost (at least in the cities), why hasn't he produced any? What has he done to change the situation other than leaving his films for the upcoming actors?
He has been venting out his dissatisfaction at the level of performance among actors in particular and films in general in the past couple of years. Well, he's been doing that for quite some time, but I hear him groan often these days. He once said that as long as his senses are keen and aware, he would some how associate himself with the process of making cinema and expressed his wish to see Tamil cinemas that would make him jealous; that would have him crazy after a role upon seeing a movie - and yearn that he didn't get a chance to play one such and admire the actor and story at the same time. He also indicated that extrapolating the current trend, in his old age, he might just say "namma pannadhayedhan indha pasanga pannittu irukkanunga".
He clarified a point: he's not unhappy when his experiments fail and some lame movie succeeds. Because he didn't complain when his masala movies made money while some quality content were disregarded by the public. But he decried the lack of balance - there's a lot of masala and not much food for thought. When the trophy was handed over to him, Kamal said "It's very important that this statue doesn't remain in my hands for long. The industry should evolve to grab this from my hands as early as possible." He also took it upon himself to groom actors who might be worthy successors to him. Of course, he didn't explicitly praise himself, but he made it obvious that there's not any ground-breaking work going on in the industry.
After Kamal & Maniratnam, I don't see anyone trying to talk intelligence in a movie. Good cinema, as pointed out in a earlier post, is dying in the hands of star power and entertainment value. Earlier in the function, when Vijay received the best actor award he said that he wasn't sure if he was worthy of the honour. There is no room for doubt. The masses elect, just like in politics, a shallow showman. Kamal's speech could also be construed as warning to the mass. If the public doesn't encourage experiments, there is no point in blaming the film makers. But my question to Kamal is how many artistes & technicians have RajKamal Films introduced? When digital movies with newbies can be made at a budget under Rs.10 lakhs and marketed at a relatively low cost (at least in the cities), why hasn't he produced any? What has he done to change the situation other than leaving his films for the upcoming actors?
Labels: Baton, Future Actors, Kamal, Tamil Cinema
