Movie Review - Dasavatharam

Warning*** Some spoilers below...

Seldom have I felt such conflicting emotions after watching a movie - do I love it or hate it? Well, after much thought - here is my verdict; the movie offered tantalizing glimpses into the immense potential that Thamizh and Indian cinema has; however, its impact is marred by innumerable gimmicks, dreadful makeup, and needless/endless hero-worshipping that much of Kollywood feels compelled to indulge in.

To state that Kamal is a great actor is like saying that the sun rises in the east. It is that obvious, and that indisputable. He does not act - he simply becomes the character. In the eighties, perhaps bored by simple "hero" roles, Kamal began experimenting with various avatars. And thus began the string of movies where the handsome actor intentionally disfigured and/or disguised himself, playing old men, midgets, etc etc. It just took a few eyebrow pencil lines on his forehead, a little talcum powder on his hair, a wig and some false teeth (and yea, the occasionally bound up legs or water bags tied around his stomach too)

Then sadly, Kamal discovered the "art"(?) of prosthetic makeup. Painfully enduring hours of application, and then many hours more for removal, Kamal transformed himself into an elderly vigilante for Shankar's Indian. Sure, he won a national award for the movie, but frankly, the makeup stuff (bearing scary resemblance to chapathi dough) ended up masking all his facial expressions (and Kamal is the most expressive actor I have ever seen). If one Indian-thatha was hard to watch, imagine the plight of the audience when asked to endure another eight such atta-masked characters in Dasavatharam.

Ironically, the only characters that leave a lasting impression on the viewer are the ones where Kamal allows his real face to show without the distractions of makeup (the scientist, and the 12th century Vaishnavite) or minimal makeup (the hilarious RAW agent). Watching the movie, you come to the quick conclusion that Kamal plays ten roles, just so that the movie could be called "Dasavatharam" and he could enter all the record books. Some of the characters do nothing to help move the story forward (Avatar Singh, the Japanese person), while the makeup on some other characters (the tall guy, the 95 year old paati) is so grotesque, you scratch your head wondering "what were Kamal and K.S Ravikumar thinking?"

Also, despite the seeming novelty of Kamal's multiple avatars, each role has a stale been-there-done-that feel. The Old lady? Yea, Avvai Shanmugi. Humanitarian guy pushing aside conventional religion? Kamal already did that in Anbe Sivam. Pious Vaishnavite? Remember Hey Ram? Suave foreign returned dude? the Madan character in MMKR....Hey, Kamal has even portrayed a japanese character already in the Kalyanaraman series.

Without the avatars, the movie would have been truly brilliant. A scientist participates in the creation of a bio weapon that could kill millions of people if released in the air. The bad guys want to get a hold of it. How he tries to save the weapon, dodging a ruthless ex-CIA agent forms the rest of the plot. Beautiful Asin reaches the pinnacle of her career with a fabulous performance as an orthodox Agraharam girl.

Kamal's Balaram Naidu character can easily be ranked the best, with laugh-out-loud funny dialogues. If you can forgive the bad makeup, Kamal has also excelled as the 95 year old lady and George Bush. The CIA officer would have been cool, but I could not look past the disproportionately sized head.

The biggest letdown however happens right in the beginning of the movie; There is a perfect sub plot set in 12th century Thamizhnadu - the tussle between a Chola king and a pious temple priest. Everything about this sequence was mind boggling - the special effects, majestic performances by Kamal and Napoleon, unparalleled art direction, lush cinematography and special effects hitherto never seen before in Indian cinema. I really thought the movie was going to evolve into a wonderful historical/supernatural/philosophical/religious/paranormal adventure. However, this sub-plot ends, without tying into the main script, and the rest of the movie is fairly mundane. What was the significance of this opening sequence? Was it to show that Kamal and Asin's souls are reincarnated and they unite in a later avatar? So?

Like it or hate it, the movie cannot be ignored. The special effects, while imperfect, are still truly commendable. The tremendous effort put in by the actors, and crew shows literally in every frame. Arggh....if only they had not bothered with the avatars and the makeup......

Here is the bottom line- Kamal is arguably the greatest actor in the world. A wonderful performer like him, does NOT need stuff plastered on his face. He has already set all the records he needs to in his illustrious career - he does not need any more gimmicks. As a movie buff, with a lifelong crush on Kamal, I can only hope that he goes back to his roots and leverages his talent and immense brainpower to make some seriously good cinema.

Mr. Kamal Haasan, you ARE the greatest. We already know that. So please, can we see the real you and nothing but your true face in your next movie? Please?

Image source: http://www.indiaglitz.com/

Book Review - The 10 year nap

Forgive me for an unimaginative tag line, but really, this book can even make a chronic insomniac fall into a deep, 10 year nap!

As a woman intentionally stepping away from the rat race to focus on my personal life, I was very interested in reading this book as its concept was intriguing - a detailed study into the lives of women who have quit their jobs to look after their kids and contrasting the current generation of women with the feminists of the 60s and the 70s.

This subject carries so much potential, but the author sadly builds a one dimensional tale around four uninspiring protagonists. The women are perennially unhappy, they do not know what to say when people ask them the dreaded "what do you do?" question (why not just let people know that they are stay-at-home-moms? what is wrong with that?). They take little interest in managing their family's finances, or building a happy home for their children. They wage a constant mental war against working women.

Books like these perform a serious injustice against women - promoting the age old cliches about working women and home makers. Is it really that complicated? As a working woman, I look at my non-working friends and cousins and envy them for the following -
* They get to see the sun rise and set (instead of going into an office at dawn and re-emerging 12 hours later after sun set)
* They spend their day loving and nurturing children
* They are always there for family and friends
* They do not need to face nasty egoistic people, and engage in thankless tasks

My non-working friends look at me and envy me for the following -
* My freedom (what freedom? I ask....anyway, that's what they think)
* My ability to just pack a couple of bags and travel around the world with K (we can never get the time off from work to do it)
* My ability to make money (but is it not the law of the world that as your paychecks increase, your expenses also increase?)

So bottom line, there is no perfect scenario - there are good and not so good things with choosing either path. The author Meg Wolitzer could have at least attempted to explore both sides of the equation. However, she chooses to fill 368 tedious pages with elaborate character sketches, not just of the four women, but their moms, and then, for some inexplicable reason, Margaret Thatcher. A basic plot and some heartfelt empathy are both conspicuous by their absence. Geez, I could have just taken a nap.

Media matters...or does it anymore?

No, its not a tween bitching about her hotter classmate on Myspace - its Maureen Dowd writing for the New York times. And is there any difference between said tween and Pulitzer prize winning Maureen? Not really, if the barometer for judging is Maureen's columns over the past few months.

Check out the titles of some of her recent columns - "Watch Out, Meryl Streep! She’s a Master Thespian', "All about Eve", "Is she a Trojan rabbit", "Surrender already Dorothy". Oh yea, the terms Trojan rabbit, Master Thespian etc etc applies to a woman who is a former first lady, currently powerful senator, and almost won the democratic primaries (till the establishment chose to bury her)

If this is the kind of trash talk from a female journalist, you can imagine the nature of the commentary from male journalists. Seldom have I seen any character assasination to the scale of what has happened in the recent past. Mike Huckabee did exactly the same thing as Hillary - he chose to stay in the race, till McCain reached the requisite majority of delegates. Was there even a whimper of protest? Not really.

And if you still do not buy into my rant against misogyny, do check out this youtube montage that Judith Warner mentioned in her blog in NY times (she is my new favorite now).

If the tables were turned - if it had been Barack who had won all the major states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and a claim to the popular vote majority, and if he had been asked by Hillary's supporters to get out of the race, can you imagine the backlash and accusations of racism?

After obsessively following the primaries (I have been a rabid Obama supporter from 2004), I completely stopped following any of the races after March 18. My reason was simple - the only response the mainstream media could come up with for Obama's historical speech on race was this - "Did he throw his grandma under the bus?".

I gave up then, and did I miss a thing? Absolutely not. And by not listening to the news or reading political blogs, I got back two whole hours back every day; I could easily stay informed by skimming the headlines for a few minutes and listening to NPR radio on my way in to work.

The pathetic primary season ends...no wait...the media will still extract as much viewership as possible from speculation about the vice presidential candidates. Does anyone have any inside information or the ability to accurately predict who the Veep candidate from either party will be? Absolutely not - but do expect to see endless speculation and tripe from "panelists" who speak with more certainty about Barack's intentions than he himself would.

Will we see any real debate by the media on the pros and cons of the candidates' views on economic reform, education, national defense, and the environment? I am not going to hold my breath. But at least, I can delete Maureen's feed from my google reader page. Thank God for Paul Krugman, and NPR!

Spending .....is it all destiny?

After many years of careful financial planning and frugal living, K and I have painfully realized that no matter what, we always end up with a certain credit card balance every month. Trust me, we are not partying every weekend, or shopping at Calvin Klein. We rarely eat out, have no kids, and watch a movie in the theatre maybe once a month or so. We still run up a balance, larger than what we like. It could be due to an unplanned medical emergency, or a car related repair, or some other unanticipated home repair expense.

I am now leaning towards a very unscientific explanation - maybe, it is my karma to have a certain "varavu" (income) and a certain "selavu" (expense) every month? I feel powerless before it. I could just pay my rent and not climb out of bed for the next month all weekends, but somehow, the check engine light in my car will start flashing and before I know it, the auto mechanic gets richer by a few hundred bucks.

So, when spending is your karma, is it just better to go shoe shopping? Am I crazy for thinking this?