First things first. A salute to the hardwork, dedication and sincerity of Kamal Haasan. It shows in each & every frame of the movie. Hats off to him.
Kamal has this rather irritating dichotomy; One side of this dichotomy is the serious filmamker who (over)indulges in his creative ability and produces classics like Hey Ram, Anbe Sivam & Virumaandi. Then there is the other side when he flips over to mindless comedy movies like Panchathanthiram, Vasool Raaja and Thenali. The interesting aspect to his dichotomy is the commercial viability - Hey Ram was one of the biggest flops while Vasool Raaja had a decent box office draw. Kamal has always struggled in getting the ingredients right for a movie that could satisfy both the mass and the class audience. With Dasavathaaram, he seems to have got that combination. Take the best aspects of movies like Anbe Sivam, Panchathanthiram, Virumaandi and make them into a formula for a succesful movie - you would probably end up with Dasavathaaram.
Dasavathaaram is about life itself and the interlinks that it creates.Each and every one of us in this world is linked to every other person in the world in either a direct or an indirect fashion. Dasavathaaram starts from the 12th century where Rangarajan Nambi, a Vaishnavite, is tied to a stone statue of Vishnu and left to die in the sea. The story then moves to a biotechnology lab in USA where a team of scientists have just produced a new form of virus that is deadlier than anthrax. As things always happen, the vial containing the virus falls into the wrong hands and it is upto Kamal to save the people from absolute disaster. Kamal's journey starts from USA and finally ends on the shores of one of the Indian beaches on 26th Dec 2004, the day when Tsunami struck. He meets various people(Other Kamal Haasan's, to be exact) during his roller coaster ride to save the nation. The body language, the accent, the makeup & the costumes of each one of these Kamal characters is different and showcases the homework that has gone into the visualization and creation.
Kamal has put his heart & soul into this venture and the movie is yet another proof of his versatility. One of the grouches that I had is that Kamal goes over the top in the old lady and George Bush portrayals. Asin, the heroine, is needlessly portrayed as a dumb person with no compassion. This, I felt, was needless and may be some more effort could have gone in the etching of this important character.
This movie also brings into limelight the story, screenplay & dialogue writing skills of Kamal. K.S.Ravikumar, the director, deserves equal amounts of credit for making this movie possible. The art direction is brilliant and the initial scene at the 12th century temple premises is a case in point. The graphics, which was touted as world class before the movie's release, is adequate. It is definitely not in par with some of the english movies but on comparison to other tamil movies, it is definitely in a higher plane (Watch out for the graphics and the temple set seamlessly integrating in the 12th century temple scene).The background score is a big letdown as it does not enhance the visuals. Devi Sree Prasad must have felt satisfied to allow the visuals on the screen to dominate and the background score is not appealing. The camera of Ravi Varma was patchy in a few places (Or was it the fault of the projectors?); apart from these glaring mistakes, the camera work is brilliant as the number of shots required would have been enormous to capture the different Kamal's characters. The 'Mukunda' song is already a big hit and 'Kallai Mattum Kandal' & 'Oh Ho Sanam' might get added to this list very soon. The fact that Himesh Reshmaiyya, a person of North Indian origin, has given a touching song like 'Kallai Mattum Kandal' is ample proof for his talent.
All said & done, is this a perfect movie? The answer is a definite 'NO'. The screenplay, while racy and kept us waiting for the next scene, had glitches and some scenes were not given a proper closure. The non-linear narration of the story, a brilliantly executed one, did not help the matters much in some cases as there were some loose ends that went unanswered.
Rating: 8.5/10
(P.S: I am an ardent fan of Kamal & hence this review has its fair share of 'personal' bias)
