Dasavatharam - Errr...

I am a huge fan of Universal Star Padma Shri Dr. Kamal Haasan. I think he's an exceptionally gifted actor and something approaching a cinematic visionary. I love the fact that he is not afraid to experiment, to push the boundaries of contemporary cinema.

So it was with fairly high expectations that I went to watch Dasavatharam (Wiki) - his much-hyped magnum opus - last weekend.

If I had to pick two words to describe it, they'd be these: a. Impressive, b. Disappointing

Impressive because it takes guts and talent to contemplate and execute a movie of this scale. Disappointing because I expected so so so much more.

A few thoughts:

Impact
I didn't come out of this movie feeling anything at all. Of his recent movies, Panchathanthiram and Vasool Raja left one feeling on a ROFL induced high, while Anbe Sivam and Virumaandi simply blew one away by the sheer brilliance of structure and performance. Dasavatharam? Nothing. No connect, just a mild feeling of having been let down.

SFX/VFX
As Kamal has gone to town declaring, this does set new standards of filmmaking for Tamil cinema. Maybe even Indian cinema. Some of the visual effects are amazing, especially the often ignored visual effects of having multiple Kamals sharing a single scene fairly seamlessly. Some though, are cringe-inducingly tacky, particularly during the climax.

Music
Contrary to what the rest of the world seems to think, I didn't find it a complete disaster. Mukunda is very easy on the ears, and Oh Ho Sanam is good fun as well (until Kamal starts yelling instead of singing in the last 30 seconds). But Kallai Mattum Kandaal is sheer brilliance. Wonderful music by Himeshbhai (although the base tune is copied from a random Malayalam song) and sung powerfully and emotively by Hariharan.

Mallika Sherawat
Ugh. My god, woman. If you're doing a pole dance, at least try to be graceful. Especially if that is practically the only thing you bring to the movie.

Avtaars
Another Panchathanthiram would have worked just fine. Keep Rangarajan Nambi, Balaram Naidu, Govind, Vincent Boovarajan and (reluctantly) Avtaar Singh. The others didn't need you to play them anyway, layers of muscle-stiffening make up and all.

Make up
Oh Kamal, Kamal. Did you have to go for random Plaster of Paris masks for your characters? Not only do they look ridiculously fake, they also restrict your facial expressions and smother your eyes and voice, all of which are key to your normally brilliant performances.

Ego
This, to me, is the single biggest flaw to the movie. Kamal is a phenomenal actor, but has a phenomenal ego to boot. (This, incidentally, is often pointed out as the key personality difference between him and Rajni.) How else does one explain the force-fitting of Kamal-played characters to bring the total to 10, the dialogue anointing one of the characters as Ulaga Nayagan and the my-god-I-can't-believe-they're-doing-this-tacky-self-congratulatory-song Ulaga Nayagane at the end. The whole movie was eventually reduced to being less about the story and more about Kamal giving himself a stage to grandstand.

Which made it very disappointing to someone going in expecting a powerful performance from him.

Oh well. Hopefully his next will make amends.