Dasavatharam
Possibly the most anticipated and hyped up movie from Kamal. He totally plays 13 roles of which 3 are extremely vital and demanding. Story, Screenplay and Dialog. Not to mention the fact that he has to shed one role completely from his mind and get into another role – and repeat this process 9 times through the making! Doesn’t that sound like a staggering amount of workload for one person? The resulting product asserts that it is, in several ways.
The Story: So many e-mail forwards and after-analysis of the film explaining what he had attempted to do – makes me think Kamal succeeded in what he intended. It is a complicated story in the first place. The core of the story is the butterfly effect (Kamal himself states this before he starts narrating it as Govind), where a seemingly minuscule event has gigantic ramifications but he decided to sketch the story in a reverse fashion. A catastrophe ending with the butterfly flap. Within this he also embedded the concept of non-requirement of a God as a separate entity behind all the events happening within the realm of humanity [This is not so obvious in the first place but deeper discussions with a friend of mine leads to this.] As such, the seed of the movie is reasonably good and makes one think/contemplate more on the writer’s interpretation. It looks like it is intended to be multi-forked and hence these discussions.
Screenplay/Dialog: Apart from the segment of Rangaraja Nambi, the rest of the movie is a sequential flow of events all of which Kamal connects using Chaos. Some of the events are stretched – leading to a tiring long movie with too many unnecessary details. Kaif Ullah and Avtar Singh are classic examples of stretching. This makes it uninteresting and with all the current dates being displayed, one is already expecting when the obvious climax of Tsunami is about to come. There’s not much of breathing space he has given to other people and one can feel that congestion of ideas and non-clarity while watching the movie.
Acting: This is where in my opinion, Kamal fails. Primarily because of bad make-up. For an actor, make-up is very important as it brings him close to reality of what he’s trying to depict. In most of the roles, Kamal’s face looks bloated – making it all the more obvious that we are watching Kamal and not the character. That just sucks! The story should require 10 well-carved roles for the actor and the actor fits in. It looks like its the other way round here. He’s well-known for the authenticity and genuineness of the character he sketches and that miserably fails in the movie. Boovaragan, Japanese, Kaif Ullah are stand-out instances.
Overall, a great concept executed poorly. The primary reason I can see is commericalization and pressure of money-recovery. There’s a clear confusion between what is required by the story and what is required by the market. It is expected that everyone will come and see the movie because he is playing 10 roles and never before has it been for a Kamal movie that way. It is always about world-class acting and a great execution of the story-line. Dasavatharam disappoints in this sense.
