Dasavatharam

I am on phone. She knew I have been to Dasavtharam and I have admiration for Kamal.
How is Dasavatharam?
mmm... Its Ok..
Not good?
Not like that.. but most of the people who came with me didn't like it...
Hi.. tell me whether you liked it or not?

We go to a theatre and film starts. It may make us to think, laugh or cry (sometimes to look into watch). But ultimately what matters is does it engross us? It is immaterial what happened before, under what conditions its coming out. But on other side when a man ventures into what have not been done and have passion and love for what he does and veers of the target or miscalculates it , it still needs some applause, at least some pat in back. That's why I don't have an simple yes or no for that question .

On almost every frames there is a technical brilliance. Most of the shots have more than 1 Kamal on the screen and between them there is a visible physical difference. And for the first time in a Tamil film, technology is not on face and blends into movie. Unless we sit and and think it never strikes how much graphics, camera etc... has gone into that shot. Will it work out commercially? I don't know, because , if you want to sell it you should have it bold and italicized (It was not surprising when I hear why this movie consumed so much of money? )

Graphics hovers between 'too good' to 'bad' in several places. But considering the fact what it was trying to replicate the graphics was good. Makeup also follows the path of graphics. There is "balramnaidu" for us to praise the make up and also "kalif ulla" to leave a bad taste.

Kamals' acting notched up few new territories. As the face is plastered with dough, he shows all the difference just with the eyes and body language. Let it be villain or the old lady in the climax or the balram naidu or kalif ulla- infront of the hospital or rangaraja nambi, Kamal soars high .

Dialogues were good. It looks as if written by Sujatha and Crazy Mohan. There is no ingenuity except Kamal's speech in Nehru stadium. But dialogues are good, rib tickling, thought provoking and also witty.

Now the big question. The question what every one means when they ask how is a movie? : " What is the story and how is it told? ". I saw an NDTV interview in which Kamal rated himself less for acting and proclaimed, he is one of the best in industry when it comes to script writing. If one has to validate that statement only with Dasavatharam, (there are movies which makes me to to nod for what he said), I wonder what he means by screenplay. To start with he has a wafer thin story, hero wants to destroy a bio weapon (a vial) and the villain want to have it. Well Gilli too had a story of cat and mouse chase. But the difference is in the way it was told. Here everything happens by coincidence (chaos or 'Gods plan' depends on what controls your thoughts-is it Science or God ). But for a screenplay it never works , for a simple reason, no one does anything and everything is under the control of probability which never engages the viewer and pushes him to backseat.

That is the reason why even if one of the best things happened in Tamil film industry , the 12th century sequence, losses all it charms when a viewer asks why is it needed in the film. First comes need then the presentation , but Kamal got it topsy -turvy. Whatever crossed his mind found a place in the movie. I wondered why there is a jail riot in virumandi, why so much talk like a radio drama in Anbe Sivam and now I wonder why there is Dasavatharam ?

If we look into most of the Kamal interviews there will be a agony and a pain of the man who has to fight for everything he has to do. He always says he don't want to waste time for the question if he is ahead of time. May be he feels he has lot to tell and clock is ticking. I am never good in public pulse . More often my feel for a film and commercial results where in opposite direction. If Dasavtharam becomes commercially hit, I will be more than happy for the fact that 'HE' deserves a success though not for this but for all the anbe sivam,aalavandhan and virumandi's. But the better the quicker if he understands the boundary of "too much".