August 1, 2008

Cinema Cinema

Disclaimer: There is no doubt about Kamal Hassan's genius... Fewer movies have made as much an impact on me as Michael Madana Kamarajan. But did he have to do these 10 roles?

So out of sheer boredom and fueled by the summer vacations, I ended up buying an account with one of the Tamil movie online sites. I chose Tamil thinking S and I could see a lot of dinner time favorites. I don't know about that but the first choice of the movie was also the most obvious, Dasavatharam. This Kamal Hassan movie has made headlines all over the world for a variety of reasons from budget to plot and obviously the most important being the fact the Kamal, the lead in the movie has played 10 different roles. Having heard terrifically rave reviews about the movie from tabloids to reliable friends, we were very excited to watch the movie.... for about 15 minutes. At the end of the movie, I was left gawking... and not in the good sense. It became very obvious that the script was tailored to somehow accomodate the 10 different roles that the lead man wanted to play and create history. And in that sense, he did. I don't think anyone is going to attempt anything like this for a long long time. But the worst part was that none of those getups were really required. He could've been content with just playing 2-3 of the main roles and hiring accomplished actors for the rest. Instead they spent a whole lot of cash, time and effort in creating 10 distinct personalities, 7 of whom were totally uncritical to the plot and a couple ended up resembling one another! Some of the get-ups actually looked like the human version of Shrek in Shrek II. And chaos theory as the central theme turned out to be too chaotic and the tsunami scene that people raved about was total disappointment. It was crazy. And Kamal Hassan taking up the screenplay as a 11th role was probably the big damper in the whole fiasco..

On a totally unrelated note, I acquired a DVD of Dhoom II and decided it was well worth a wasted afternoon to gawk at Hrithik. So subconsciously as I watched it, I counted him wear 8 different disguises - all of which looked convincing and looked great on him. While I reached no.8, my heart beat a little faster. What a humungous disappointment it would've been to Kamal Hassan had Hrithik equalled 10 in a totally unintended and unassuming manner. Lol!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is good to see someone who isn't awestruck by the Kamal mania....

Jaya said...

Chinmaya -> I guess the expctations far surpassed the actual movie... That was the whole problem. Hype over content. Keep visiting!

Anonymous said...

the starting first 15 mins of the film was totally unnessary.... it was Kamal trying to show off his paunch in the guise of a body... the japanese role was a insult to general japanese people .... the makeup was outrageous and offensive...the only good thing about the movie is Mallika ....thankfully kamal was too busy with the different roles to indulge in his usual tactics related to female leads

Jaya said...

Hmmm... Anon -> Many people thot that the 12th century thing was the saving grace of the whole movie... It was interesting I admit... but the idol turning up in the end wasn't as mind-boggling as it was intended to be, I guess. Mallika being good - I don't agree with you but thats perhaps bcoz I am biased against her... Hmm..

Saumya said...

what is the tamil movie website?...:)

Jaya said...

Saumya-> How does that have any bearing?! Its TG btw :)

rrv said...

I couldnt take it past the first half an hour of dasavatharam. Is Kamal in a fancy dress competition that fails to impress. SO dissappointing!! And asin and Kamal have no chemistry what so ever. And her dubbed voice is mightly annoying.

But I should stop now :)

Jaya said...

Radhika-> I agree with all your points. And I completely lost it with Asin after the 4th time she said something about her 'Kadavul' out of the 400 times overall.. I mean, we get your bhakti girl... but there's a limit to overdoing!

Post a Comment