Dasavatharam - Divine layers

When I go to the theatre to watch a movie, there are a few things on my checklist I would like to be ticked off: a star cast with a reputed hero, a good story narrated in an entertaining fashion, not a tear jerker (because those are easy to create and captivate and don't really provide the escape from reality I look for in a cinema hall), and a well delivered message if the movie claims to do so. Other ones that do not fit the bill, I usually make do with live streaming and DVDs. I ticked off points one and three before I entered the theatre, and crossed out two and four after leaving it. Two days and a lot of thinking and interacting with people around me saw the crosses becoming ticks. Dasavatharam was a great movie.

Kamal Hassan plays ten roles in this movie and each one showcases a different getup, mode of dialogue delivery, poise, attitude, and in a more subtle sense, a different type of acting. A few of the roles required the use of method acting - notably those of the protagonists, and the CBI officer, because I am not sure there were templates for these characters that Kamal could have worked off. The Dalit leader, the Asian martial arts expert and the middle aged pop singer characters all have real life templates, but representing their psyches would have probably required Kamal to probe the depths of his own ideals in life. So, I would categorize their portrayal under Stanislavsky's method. The role of George Bush is a case study in impersonation. The Villain's role is one which he pulls of with the so called indicated acting technique, as are the roles of the giant sized midget and the old woman. An actor who masters one of these techniques usually wins atleast one Oscar in his lifetime and becomes critically acclaimed. An actor who seamlessly flits from one to another in a span of three hours should win not one but ten Oscars.

Oh, by the way, I was trying to show off a bit there, but truth be told, I know zilch about these deep matters, and that last paragraph was borne out of Wikipedia and four other windows, one each for Stanislavski, Strasberg, Meisner and Adler. So, if I'm totally off the ball, go ahead and slam me, but politely.

There is no point in reviewing the movie here, because you are going to see it yourself. If you are clever - to be able to grasp his message in all its layered complexity, then you don't need this. But if you are as asinine as I am, then you need someone to help you cancel the bias that is bound to creep in as the movie progresses. Hope this helps...

First of all, doing ten different roles, even if they are all one dimensional, and what's worse, all along the same axis, requires some level of skill and determination, because there are such issues as continuity and threading that require care. So, in that context, rising above the rut of "meesai vecha Raja, meesai yedutha Ramu" (Raja with a moustache, and Ramu without) double action formula and doing ten dissimilar roles that have nothing in common is a herculian effort worth watching the movie for in itself. Ardent critics and anti-Kamal lobbyists will argue that the characters were too one dimensional (a foolish argument I myself forwarded immediately after leaving the hall), and that the make-up at times was too cartoonish. To those people, I have this to say: sift through the band-limited timeframes and cliches, and I will give you atleast two levels for atleast some of the characters:

Rangaraja Nambi: Pure devotion to god and ardent belief in his core values; preacher of peaceful coexistence
Govindaraja Naicker: Hero fighting for a cause and running from everyone in sight; agnostic posing as an atheist intended to be the final gear in the chaos drivetrain that leads to the indisputable existance of god
Fletcher: Evil incarnate a la Model 101; fanatic more than a perfectionist - revelaed in the climax
Khalifullah Khan: Simpleton; realising the simple but important truth of peace
George Bush: George bush the idiot; George bush the evil idiot

I am too tired right now to think about the others, so gofigure.

As for the makeup, Michael Westmore has given us aliens from outer space. He has given us green skinned slave girls, outsized craniums, 'N'-eyed monsters, and downright scary bad guys. So, if all he could manage were a few cartoonish masks, then a few cartoonish masks is probably the best you're going to get for a while, so live with it. Personally, I think the makeup was as believable as can be when transforming a semi-Caucasian-Dravidian to a White American or a Mongoloid.

Secondly, the story is as layered as a sleeprite mattress. While the interface is the "Ulagam Suttrum Valibhan" type inter-continental chase for the biogenic weapon (infact, the resemblance of this theme to that famous 1970s classic is so striking that it makes me wonder if Kamal didn't cash in on a winner here), the shell is about the triumph of good over evil and the existence of god, and the Kernel is steeped in Chaos theory. But at the assembly level is the printed circuit of human social patterns that do not change with time - the inherent necessity of human beings to fight one another over flimsy ideologies. And finally, the indexing of the ten characters is so complex that your query on the title Dasavatharam does not reveal much except the ten different roles. There is a direct correlation between the two Rajans for sure, but in a deeper sense, the other characters are also avatars. Like the Dasavatharam of Lord Vishnu, here we have:


Avatar Singh with his second chance through the assasin's stray bullet as a cause and effect relation to Matsya avataram,
The Comtemporary Scientist representing the Koorma avatar, who churns the biogenic weapon unintentionally out of his research,
Boovaragan who attempts to save the earth from the eco-plunderers like the Varaha avataram,
George Bush as Narasimha? No this one doesn't make sense - I put this one down to Kamal's gigantic and well justified self belief in himself.
The old lady as the Vamana avataram, who causes the arrogant players to run through hoops through her simple devotion to god,
The angry Nambi who is the Saivites' Parashuramar,
The Japanese Rama, who vanquishes evil to redeem his sister's life,
The ever too trusting and good natured Muslim Balarama,
The Telugu Krishna, who uses hook or crook for the triumph of good, and
Is it too much of a leap of faith to think of Fletcher as Kalki, the harbinger of doom to end evil once and for all?

Once again, my interpretation is limited by my own inadequencies, but some of these make logical sense, don't they?

As for the music and visual effects, while the former is nothing to write home about, save the first, scintillatingly brilliant effort, the latter is equal to anything ILM can dish out.


So, to end this long review, I want to give Dasavatharam a score of 7465 out of 100, but I am not Thengai Srinivasan, and this isn't about a test for Dasavatharam securing its place in history. In my opinion it already has. Right at the top of good cinema.