On Kamal’s 50 year service

Vijay TV is sporting a new program on Kamal’s 50 years of service in Tamil (Can I say Indian?) film industry. Service? How else can I put it?

(What I don’t like with Vijay TV Singapore is their continuous irritable repeated telecast of the advertisements of their own program. One can not count the number of times “Anbe Va” serial’s advertisement is telecasted with in one hour with his own fingers.)

Ok now to the point. I have been seeing this Kamalum-Thamizhum (Kamal and Tamil), Kamalum kadhalum (Kamal and Love) et., all kind of programs coming up in Vijay TV.

One cannot deny that he is one of the best available actors in Indian cinema and particularly Tamil cinema industry. I fell in love with Kamal’s acting after I saw his movie Sathya. For other than Tamil readers: If you have never seen this movie, now go rent it or buy it or download it or do what ever and make sure you see that movie. That is one of the master piece performance by Kamalhassan. One might say that his crying in Mahanathi or his crying in Punnagai Mannan is his best performance. But I doubt it.

Ok I accept that I cried in the theater when I was watching this movie Mahanathi. But that is an emotion. An emotion that was being built up right from the starting of the movie and it waited for its time to burst out. If you watch just that scene alone I bet you will not have that kind of emotion.

An acting must be natural that when you see the performance you must never see the actor in it, but you must see the character. But in most of his movies once in a while appearing characters will be totally wiped out by the strong wiper Kamalhassan. Guna, Thevar Magan, Hey Ram are to name a few; not to forget Sandiyar.

Even though I am a fan of Rajini, I liked and loved very few performances of Kamal. Here is the list:

1. Varumaiyin Niram Sigapu
2. Aboorva Sagotharargal (For Appu’s innocent smile)
3. Sathya
4. Indiran Chandran (for the Mayor)
5. Micahel Madana Kamarajan (for showing 4 different characters)
6. Salangai Oli (only young performance)
7. Oru Kaithiyin Dairy (only old performance)
8. Vettaiyadu Vialayadu
9. Dasavatharam (Vincent Pooavaragavan)
10. Vikaram (For his style and charm)

I liked and loved Velu Nayakar before I saw Don Corleone. I still don’t know why Kamal had to imitate Marlan Brando and Al Pacino.

Even now when I see Al Pacino in some movies I cannot help but relate his mannerisms with Kamal. If you have doubts watch Insomnia and God Father part 2. Did Al Pacino follow the styles of Kamal Hassan?

Also why in the world Kamal has to remake the movie A Wednesday? My friends say that he has done it to pass the message to all including C section. Bullshit.  And the message in the movie A Wednesday is utterly stupid, that you can eliminate (or reduce) the violence by killing the terrorists. One of the cheap commercial tactic to attract already confused youngsters.

If Kamal ever wish to do a remake of a Hindi movie and yet want to pass a good message to the so called B and C section then he must act in the remake of Lage Raho Munnabhai and Taare Zameen Par. After I watched Taare Zameen Par, I repeatedly asked this question to myself: why our so called legends in Tamil cinema didn’t ever think of a movie in this theme? Can they ever? I share Charu’s view on this regard.

Kamal is there in the industry for 50 years. But why can’t he change the Tamil cinema in these 50 years? He was constantly criticizing Tamil people for not supporting his movies which he and his few die hard fans considered classic like Guna et., all. He (and his fans too) has utterly under estimated the Tamil audience.

Now there is a visible change happening here in Tamil industry. Loads of good movies from good directors had been made. Mozhi, Kaadhal, Veyil, Subramaniyapuram, Pasanga to name a few. Did the Tamil audience not support these movies? The architects of this change are apparently Shankar (as a producer) and Prakash Raj. They identified and introduced good directors. They produced and experimented movies. That was very bold. One fine example is “Imsai Arasan 23aam Pulikesi”.

Now, why can’t (or didn’t) Kamal do this? Don’t mistake me. I cannot put this question to Vijayakanth or Rajnikanth for simple reason: they are not Ulaga nayagarkal (Heroes of the world!).