Friday, June 27, 2008
Googling for love
In a desperate bid, I searched for “love” on Google today. Well, you could do the same and you would get the same results and I know exactly where you will stop. But a backgrounder is in order.
The past few months have been dark and I have wondered if the man who perhaps invented the word in any language ever realised that his invention has actually led countless idiots, me being one, to actually think the state is possible. I mean, if you see a tree and call it a “tree” I know a tree is possible and very much there. So I assume, along with the countless idiots, that the sadistic man who invented the word, knew of the blessed state. And yet we all spend our life in careful or careless approximations of that state, forever doomed to wonder, “was I in love?”, “Is this love?”, “Nah, this can’t be love”, “we like each other, but is it love?”
A few months ago, after floating blithely in one such love-crazed question bubble, I hit the lamppost in full impact. Anyway, the flashback stops here because it more or less blacks out after that. Until I surfaced after a manic depressive bout last night (or was it day) and searched for “love” on Google.
I told you I knew where you would stop because I stopped there. The Love Calculator. It’s the first site on “love” and all you have to do is feed in the names of two people to find out what chances the relationship would have. Well, I found out practically everything I didn’t want to. None of the babies, children, boys and men I have been after in different stages of my brief, eventless life, would have survived in a relationship with me. Only the last man apparently had a 63% chance of making it and that too if we could talk and sort out things. Ha ha, I know better than that now. Talk to a man!!!
But what do you know, the love guru who has set up this thing is very optimistic. So even in relationships where the chances were 0%, all it said was “well, love guru thinks there’s a chance this might happen but will require great effort”. Well, love guru, we didn’t fall in love to MAKE any EFFORT. There’s enough effort in paying off the rent and telephone bills.
But then, I am actually more optimistic than love guru. So after I had exhausted my chances with all the members of the opposite sex, some whom I’ve spoke about ten words with so far, I turned out to the two men I would really want a relationship with. But there’s no unmixed happiness there either. I could possibly have a good relationship with Sourav Ganguly. But of course, we will have to keep working at it and I am quite sure he has other things to do now so I will have to wait till at least he stops playing T20. And well, tragedy of tragedies, my chances with Kamal Hasan are like 14%. That, I think, is about the size of Dasavatharam’s viewership in the world.
After having spent a whole hour in such intellectual pursuit and none the wiser for love, I understood one thing though. Why no member of the opposite sex could hold a relationship with me for more than a month and a half max. Will check IQ on Google next.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Dasavatharam. And After
There’s I-me-myself and there’s I-me-myself-and-mind-you-mark-my-nine-other-selfs. Which is basically what Kamal Haasan’s managed to do with Dasavatharam. The story goes for a toss, the characters are all arbitrary, depending mostly on what Kamal wanted to dress up as and well, if you wanted logic, you wouldn’t be watching a Tamil movie anyway. In our miraculous world, an assassin’s bullet can remove a throat tumour “better than a surgeon” and after a tsunami, hero and heroine, nice and dry and alive, can rest their back and survey ground zero like they are watching television. But never mind that.
If I could trash Dasavatharam and resign my loyalty to Kamal, it would be easy. The problem is that there are snatches here that are brilliant by themselves. Some glimpses of what Kamal is turning out to be, some flashes of his past comedy and those little performances only he can rustle up in a blink.
For example, there’s the incorrigible Mr Balram Naidu, the RAW chief from Andhra in a safari suit and line-moustache, the obsequious bureaucrat but with a turn of phrase and home-grown intelligence. Or the “mental” grandmother who has a sense of humour and accent and a shrill voice that cracks up every now and then. Nobody but Kamal can give you a hint of everything in a couple of minutes; turn a mannerism into a dramatic monologue.
And, there’s the thinking Kamal fighting with the star Kamal in his movies lately. In Anbe Sivam, they got along damn well, in fact, the thinking Kamal so won over the star that the movie is memorable in simply what it says, not mentioning Kamal’s brilliant performance. In Virumaandi, they got along for quite a bit but then, the star completely junked the ending. In Dasavatharam, you almost want Kamal to simply give us three good interviews telling us what he thinks instead of stringing it along limply over three hours, where every hour or so, some character suddenly comes up with a gem in an otherwise uninspiring narration.
For instance, take Vincent Boovaragan, one of the 10 characters that the “universal hero” (that’s another recent Kamal fixation) plays in the movie. Vincent is a Dalit environmental activist. He is unlettered and is taking on the sand mafia. He is dark, dressed less than ordinarily, walks with an unassuming spring in his step and speaks a heavily accented Tamil. The dialogues are full of earthy wisdom, sometimes poetic, sometimes explicit. Vincent speaks of those who rape the earth, whose greed has gone far ahead of their wisdom, whose lust is so short-sighted it doesn’t see where they leave the next generation, indeed their own sons and daughters.
(Those few scenes took me back to that heart rending soliloquy in Virumaandi where a sloshed Kamal with his head half shaved rants, standing in what is to be his grandmother’s grave. There’s dialogue here so beautifully punctuated by Kamal’s gestures – he smears the red earth on his arms, legs -- but all to the effect that the soil was his grandmother’s blood, her lifeline. Selling an inch of it would amount to sacrilege. Sigh.)
But endearing Mr Vincent Boovaragan is lost here. Lost in completely unnecessary plots and sub-plots. Guess who he’s up against. There’s stocky Christian Fletcher (Kamal, will you please hit the gym before a film), the ex-CIA agent-turned-assassin who speaks darned good American English but is so sharp that the first thing he does when he gets his hands on a vial of biochemical toxin is bite it open like it’s a grenade. There’s Avtaar Singh, the pop singer who’s Punjabi only in name and dances like he’ll kick Jaya Prada (remind me, why was she there?) out of the stage. There’s Kalif Ullah who’s only contribution is being very tall and very slow at the same time. Then there’s the Japanese martial arts teacher who pulls off the superhuman task of keeping the pasty make-up on while executing some slick chops and kicks before shouting “tsunami” very thoughtfully when he sees a huge wave rolling. And of course, there’s George Bush who manages a pelvic thrush towards the end.
If you can live down this multiple person disorder, you will catch good old Kamal as the top scientist Govind, who runs around with a half-wit heroine throughout the movie and vintage Kamal, Rangarajan, who goes down the sea, literally, for his faith. There’s very deceptively promising stuff in the beginning with a muscular Kamal taking on the Chola emperor like only he can but then, the loonies take over.
Good old Kamal can barely take off and put on one appearance after the other, let along pick up the plot every now and then.
Yes, there is a plot. It starts with Chaos Theory (well, now we know what Kamal’s been reading lately) where an earthquake can begin in the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. So Kamal starts off with this Ramanuja disciple who takes on the might of the Chola kingdom to stand up for his Vaishnavite creed. And goes down with the idol of the lord that has been uprooted from the temple by the Shaivite king. Very well.
Cut to 2004 and George Bush has just got into the business of biochemical weapons. But our patriotic and humane scientist, moved by the gruesome death of his pet monkey which eats the toxin by accident, wants to save mankind and prevents unscrupulous bosses from selling the secret. But of course, toxic vial manages to reach India and then the hero must go from place to place lugging vial and heroine in search of the police, RAW, just about anybody. Which is how he meets all his other selfs, sometimes in the same frame, a technical feat, I was informed on Sun TV. Like all good heroes who collect their paychecks, this one manages to save the world, with help from a timely tsunami, romance his heroine and incidentally, give us a brilliant conclusion to this entire phantasmagoria – everything is linked, one flutter here is a catastrophe somewhere, one moment in history is a destiny that will return after generations to decide somebody’s fate. Now, why couldn’t he just have told us that in the beginning instead of pouring in crores into this epic-scale babble?
Kamal attempts a back and forth narrative so much in vogue these days – where you make nothing of what you see in the beginning till you see the end. There are spectacular helicopter shots, there’s action and gory killings, there’s even international locales and Mallika Sherawat but where are the basics? The much hyped make-up is amateur in places (I mistook Fletcher’s supposed scars for peeling off), the heroine actually repeats her insipid dialogue twice or thrice, there are no real-time tsunami shots so you can see cars and coconut fronds and bits of houses superimposed on waves (give us a break!) and occasionally, you have to altogether forget you brought your brain to the movie hall.
Picture this: Fletcher is fighting the martial arts teacher on the beach shore. Our scientist hero is watching from the sidelines because the Japanese guy has first fighting rights since Fletcher killed his sister. There’s an attempt at Matrix-style jumps and all that. And suddenly the American, Fletcher, basically Kamal staring from beneath a rubber face, tells martial arts teacher (also Kamal staring through slit-eyes beneath rubber face): “Remember Hiroshima?” Pat comes the reply from martial arts teacher who is usually English-challenged: “Remember Pearl Harbour?” What was that?!
There are more jumps and dishum-dishum and all that after which Fletcher gets the vial and decides to drink it up. Now but for these cross-cultural stunts, so far, everything has been peaceful on the shores of this peaceful south Indian coastal town. Not even a whiff of wind disturbing our martial arts guru as he cuts and slices the air while Fletcher is mutating on the spot. But we have been told that the biochemical toxin that Fletcher has begun to leak requires tonnes and tonnes of salt to neutralise. So before you can react, a giant wave rolls up and the martial arts teacher, who has lived in Japan all his life and is therefore used to such sudden weather phenomena, shouts helpfully, “Run, it’s a tsunami”, and leading by example, turns and runs. This, when the tsunami is happening about 10 metres from where he stands. Stupendous!
Please, Kamal, don’t do this to us. Enough of this I-can-do-this-and-that-too-and-all-at-the-same-time. Time you stopped saying the same thing over and over again. We’ve seen Japanil Kalyanaraman, Apoorva Sagotharargal, Aalavandaan, Avvai Shanmukhi... dozens of films with you doing this and that. And we’ve seen Nayagan, Thevar Magan, Virumaandi and Anbe Sivam and dozens of films that rode on characters that had a hint of everything, a hint of something truly human and universal. Films that spoke beyond the plot and dialogue of all its people put together and what people they were!
But I guess, every genius has quirks, and Kamal’s latest just managed to run into a couple of crores. Not to mention, in the process, running over Rajni’s Sivaji in terms of sheer hype and scale. But then, Kamal’s getting old and there’s nobody to carry on that school so there’s no time for too many quirks and senseless ones at that. The next time he thinks, I hope, he goes beyond Kamal Haasan and gives us a film we can remember and not eight out of 10 characters we can forget. Not to mention side props ranging from Asin to Mallika Sherawat to the venerable Napolean who gets all of a paragraph of dialogue.
In spite of all this angst, I will, perhaps, watch Dasavatharam again. Not because I’m a “mental” like the grandmother but because there’s still bits of Kamal here and there that I like to watch. Even if I have to sift the sands of Chidambaram to find those moments.
There’s only one thing to be said, Kamal, after this epic chaos, I’m waiting more than ever for your next film, like millions of your fans must be.
Oh, one other thing. Please cut out songs that “hail thy greatness, thou in whose depths universes sleep and thy endeavour so tireless that the UN will call you soon”. Oh puh-leeze. If you ever went to the UN, you would want to be secretary-general, his assistant, the translator, president of one warring country and one docile country, UN peacekeeper and his 80-year-old dying grandmother and ...
If I could trash Dasavatharam and resign my loyalty to Kamal, it would be easy. The problem is that there are snatches here that are brilliant by themselves. Some glimpses of what Kamal is turning out to be, some flashes of his past comedy and those little performances only he can rustle up in a blink.
For example, there’s the incorrigible Mr Balram Naidu, the RAW chief from Andhra in a safari suit and line-moustache, the obsequious bureaucrat but with a turn of phrase and home-grown intelligence. Or the “mental” grandmother who has a sense of humour and accent and a shrill voice that cracks up every now and then. Nobody but Kamal can give you a hint of everything in a couple of minutes; turn a mannerism into a dramatic monologue.
And, there’s the thinking Kamal fighting with the star Kamal in his movies lately. In Anbe Sivam, they got along damn well, in fact, the thinking Kamal so won over the star that the movie is memorable in simply what it says, not mentioning Kamal’s brilliant performance. In Virumaandi, they got along for quite a bit but then, the star completely junked the ending. In Dasavatharam, you almost want Kamal to simply give us three good interviews telling us what he thinks instead of stringing it along limply over three hours, where every hour or so, some character suddenly comes up with a gem in an otherwise uninspiring narration.
For instance, take Vincent Boovaragan, one of the 10 characters that the “universal hero” (that’s another recent Kamal fixation) plays in the movie. Vincent is a Dalit environmental activist. He is unlettered and is taking on the sand mafia. He is dark, dressed less than ordinarily, walks with an unassuming spring in his step and speaks a heavily accented Tamil. The dialogues are full of earthy wisdom, sometimes poetic, sometimes explicit. Vincent speaks of those who rape the earth, whose greed has gone far ahead of their wisdom, whose lust is so short-sighted it doesn’t see where they leave the next generation, indeed their own sons and daughters.
(Those few scenes took me back to that heart rending soliloquy in Virumaandi where a sloshed Kamal with his head half shaved rants, standing in what is to be his grandmother’s grave. There’s dialogue here so beautifully punctuated by Kamal’s gestures – he smears the red earth on his arms, legs -- but all to the effect that the soil was his grandmother’s blood, her lifeline. Selling an inch of it would amount to sacrilege. Sigh.)
But endearing Mr Vincent Boovaragan is lost here. Lost in completely unnecessary plots and sub-plots. Guess who he’s up against. There’s stocky Christian Fletcher (Kamal, will you please hit the gym before a film), the ex-CIA agent-turned-assassin who speaks darned good American English but is so sharp that the first thing he does when he gets his hands on a vial of biochemical toxin is bite it open like it’s a grenade. There’s Avtaar Singh, the pop singer who’s Punjabi only in name and dances like he’ll kick Jaya Prada (remind me, why was she there?) out of the stage. There’s Kalif Ullah who’s only contribution is being very tall and very slow at the same time. Then there’s the Japanese martial arts teacher who pulls off the superhuman task of keeping the pasty make-up on while executing some slick chops and kicks before shouting “tsunami” very thoughtfully when he sees a huge wave rolling. And of course, there’s George Bush who manages a pelvic thrush towards the end.
If you can live down this multiple person disorder, you will catch good old Kamal as the top scientist Govind, who runs around with a half-wit heroine throughout the movie and vintage Kamal, Rangarajan, who goes down the sea, literally, for his faith. There’s very deceptively promising stuff in the beginning with a muscular Kamal taking on the Chola emperor like only he can but then, the loonies take over.
Good old Kamal can barely take off and put on one appearance after the other, let along pick up the plot every now and then.
Yes, there is a plot. It starts with Chaos Theory (well, now we know what Kamal’s been reading lately) where an earthquake can begin in the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. So Kamal starts off with this Ramanuja disciple who takes on the might of the Chola kingdom to stand up for his Vaishnavite creed. And goes down with the idol of the lord that has been uprooted from the temple by the Shaivite king. Very well.
Cut to 2004 and George Bush has just got into the business of biochemical weapons. But our patriotic and humane scientist, moved by the gruesome death of his pet monkey which eats the toxin by accident, wants to save mankind and prevents unscrupulous bosses from selling the secret. But of course, toxic vial manages to reach India and then the hero must go from place to place lugging vial and heroine in search of the police, RAW, just about anybody. Which is how he meets all his other selfs, sometimes in the same frame, a technical feat, I was informed on Sun TV. Like all good heroes who collect their paychecks, this one manages to save the world, with help from a timely tsunami, romance his heroine and incidentally, give us a brilliant conclusion to this entire phantasmagoria – everything is linked, one flutter here is a catastrophe somewhere, one moment in history is a destiny that will return after generations to decide somebody’s fate. Now, why couldn’t he just have told us that in the beginning instead of pouring in crores into this epic-scale babble?
Kamal attempts a back and forth narrative so much in vogue these days – where you make nothing of what you see in the beginning till you see the end. There are spectacular helicopter shots, there’s action and gory killings, there’s even international locales and Mallika Sherawat but where are the basics? The much hyped make-up is amateur in places (I mistook Fletcher’s supposed scars for peeling off), the heroine actually repeats her insipid dialogue twice or thrice, there are no real-time tsunami shots so you can see cars and coconut fronds and bits of houses superimposed on waves (give us a break!) and occasionally, you have to altogether forget you brought your brain to the movie hall.
Picture this: Fletcher is fighting the martial arts teacher on the beach shore. Our scientist hero is watching from the sidelines because the Japanese guy has first fighting rights since Fletcher killed his sister. There’s an attempt at Matrix-style jumps and all that. And suddenly the American, Fletcher, basically Kamal staring from beneath a rubber face, tells martial arts teacher (also Kamal staring through slit-eyes beneath rubber face): “Remember Hiroshima?” Pat comes the reply from martial arts teacher who is usually English-challenged: “Remember Pearl Harbour?” What was that?!
There are more jumps and dishum-dishum and all that after which Fletcher gets the vial and decides to drink it up. Now but for these cross-cultural stunts, so far, everything has been peaceful on the shores of this peaceful south Indian coastal town. Not even a whiff of wind disturbing our martial arts guru as he cuts and slices the air while Fletcher is mutating on the spot. But we have been told that the biochemical toxin that Fletcher has begun to leak requires tonnes and tonnes of salt to neutralise. So before you can react, a giant wave rolls up and the martial arts teacher, who has lived in Japan all his life and is therefore used to such sudden weather phenomena, shouts helpfully, “Run, it’s a tsunami”, and leading by example, turns and runs. This, when the tsunami is happening about 10 metres from where he stands. Stupendous!
Please, Kamal, don’t do this to us. Enough of this I-can-do-this-and-that-too-and-all-at-the-same-time. Time you stopped saying the same thing over and over again. We’ve seen Japanil Kalyanaraman, Apoorva Sagotharargal, Aalavandaan, Avvai Shanmukhi... dozens of films with you doing this and that. And we’ve seen Nayagan, Thevar Magan, Virumaandi and Anbe Sivam and dozens of films that rode on characters that had a hint of everything, a hint of something truly human and universal. Films that spoke beyond the plot and dialogue of all its people put together and what people they were!
But I guess, every genius has quirks, and Kamal’s latest just managed to run into a couple of crores. Not to mention, in the process, running over Rajni’s Sivaji in terms of sheer hype and scale. But then, Kamal’s getting old and there’s nobody to carry on that school so there’s no time for too many quirks and senseless ones at that. The next time he thinks, I hope, he goes beyond Kamal Haasan and gives us a film we can remember and not eight out of 10 characters we can forget. Not to mention side props ranging from Asin to Mallika Sherawat to the venerable Napolean who gets all of a paragraph of dialogue.
In spite of all this angst, I will, perhaps, watch Dasavatharam again. Not because I’m a “mental” like the grandmother but because there’s still bits of Kamal here and there that I like to watch. Even if I have to sift the sands of Chidambaram to find those moments.
There’s only one thing to be said, Kamal, after this epic chaos, I’m waiting more than ever for your next film, like millions of your fans must be.
Oh, one other thing. Please cut out songs that “hail thy greatness, thou in whose depths universes sleep and thy endeavour so tireless that the UN will call you soon”. Oh puh-leeze. If you ever went to the UN, you would want to be secretary-general, his assistant, the translator, president of one warring country and one docile country, UN peacekeeper and his 80-year-old dying grandmother and ...
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