How many actors in India, or abroad, would have heard of the chaos theory, leave alone weave a story around it and tailor it to fit the tastes of a million movie buffs? That is what sets Kamal Hasan apart.
A self-taught man, this is one actor who knows his Freud and Lorenz, is sensitive (check out his Anbe Sivam) and totally non-judgmental in his attitude to life. By his own admission, the villain is his favourite character, because “he is honest to admit he likes a girl and will rape her!”
In Dasavatharam, where he plays 10 roles, inspired by his idol Peter Sellers, Kamal weaves a racy plot with many wry observations on the way humans conduct the business of life. But they remain observations or comments with no attempt to brand anything good or bad. This is an actor who believes in the grey shades to life, as evident with Alavandaan.
But this is also someone who believes a movie’s primary role is to entertain. So we have action; plenty of it with a baddie and his moll, who excel in gymnastics and mercenary attitudes. And a seemingly half-witted RAW person investigating the chase, with FBI and an ex-CIA thrown in!
There is entertainment. But the song and dances are in their place without overstepping lines. The fights and chases though could have done better with some editing.
Finally, there are the images like the one on the tsunami that speaks of a man looking for perfection. Instead of resorting to computer graphics, the film went in for a mini-tsunami. Six machines, which generated 20 ft. high waves, were imported from the US, at a cost of Rs 3.5 crores. And the scene shot near Mahabalipuram where a 100 feet wall was first erected!
Smartly mixed in between are the writer’s (Kamal) comments: Whether it be about the callous ways in which scientists pursue science without considering negative fall-outs, or the typical Indian fixations on language, caste and religion. Our obsession with our identities, our stereotyping of communities, our disregard for environment, the movie deftly scoops such muck during the non-stop chase that ends on the seashore, the day the tsunami struck.
For the thinking viewer, there is lot of homework. Or as Kamal himself said, the intelligent viewer will go home questioning, like the critics have been doing!
In Dasavatharam, a biotech scientist is attempting to explain to a gallery of bigwigs the essence of chaos theory. In brief, it talks of how small variations can mean big implications in a sensitive system. And so, the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.
Taken across space-time, a tragedy in the 12th Century has direct effect on the planet centuries later. For the devout, chaos theory becomes god theory.
There are no loose ends in the movie. That’s remarkable, given its cast of characters. But where it becomes a winner is in offering a menu that appeases different palates. Kamal’s movies may be in Tamil but there is a subtle, yet wider reach in most of them which is perhaps why the audience is a secular mix.
To me, one of the most appealing take-homes from the movie has been the reinforcement of how interlinked the world is, even as humans find myriad ways to stay apart. Nations, states, languages, castes, sub-sects and what not, we are ironically more aware of these things today even as we become ‘advanced’. But however much we resist the forces of globalisation, the truth is overpowering.
Funnily, we as a race have come full circle from the time we emerged from the tree tops, multiplied, separated and spread across, settled and then began coveting each other’s territory. We still fight in the name of all things as petty as our ‘lesser’ ancestors fought over, though we have grander names for those. But increasingly, the net is closing from above.
Our actions spill over in chain reactions across the globe. Whether it be food scarcity or the spread of a disease, or the proliferation of nuclear arms, we are all under attack— from ourselves.
