The Kamal of My Dreams: Musings on His Many Indias
Editor’s Note: The 200th post — another milestone, as we travel towards new destinations. We have reached this point due to the great support of readers like you and various contributors. Thank you all; but do give us more, to help us give you more! And now, Qalandar is back with a fitting post…
I am ostensibly an odd choice to write a commemorative post on a site dedicated to Kamal Haasan: not only have I not grown up on Nayakan, Thevar Magan or Guna, but I’ve come to Kamal’s films — indeed, Tamil films in general — only relatively recently (and even now am limited to the ones I can find with English subtitles), and indeed often wish he would stop playing the hero (including in one of my favorite Kamal films, Virumaandi).
What gives?
All of the above might, however, make me especially well-positioned to begin a discussion on Kamal’s place in Indian cinema, a discussion, that is, that does not focus on his acting achievements so much as on what he means, the position he occupies, and the difference he has made. That “difference” is not merely a question of saying that Kamal stands for “quality” cinema, or that Kamal goes against the grain of Tamil masala cinema. Rather, a proper appreciation of this difference would also have to engage with the wider context of a Tamil cinema that is simultaneously a “regional” cinema, and one confronted with the hard fact of a dominant “national” industry with far greater resources at hand. For it is this terrain that Kamal’s career has had to negotiate, certainly over the last two decades.
Confronted with that brute fact, the tendency is for India’s “regional” industries to go aggressively “local”, with cinema being viewed as a repository (or even as embattled citadel) of a culture and way of life that is under threat, besieged not necessarily due to any overt political hostility so much as by the dominance of a discourse — in this case Hindi cinema — with nationwide ambitions. At its best, this phenomenon results in films far more attuned to the rhythm of the “little”; to “marginal” voices that are not very likely to register on canvases where images are painted in very broad brushes; to moments as opposed to grand projects; to stories and not mere spectacles. At its worst, however, the “regional” film finds it hard to shed its mantle of insularity, and runs the risk of imagining the “local” past and culture as hermetically sealed and set in stone, and even of falling into the trap of xenophobia. Confronted with a “national” hegemony that would potentially sacrifice the “regional” at the altar of homogeneity, the temptation (not often resisted) is to construct a narrative of the “regional” that itself becomes a countervailing homogenizing hegemony: certain films or subjects are deemed more or less “authentically” Tamil, while others might be criticized for not hewing closely to a “standard” or “authorized” Tamil idiom. The construction of a countervailing sub-national hegemony, in short, risks compromising the very attention to the “local” that animated the “regional” in the first place.
Ever since the man started assuming greater film-making control over his projects, the arc of Kamal’s career has done more to destabilize the above polarity than any other, Mani Ratnam’s excluded (fittingly enough, if one were hardpressed for an inaugural “moment” for the difference I am referring to, one need look no further than the coming together of Ratnam and Kamal in Nayakan). For Kamal and Ratnam have sought to evade the hegemonic “national” by resorting to a global paradigm, one that seeks to tap into the best of “world” cinema in an ambitious attempt to distinguish their Tamil films not merely on account of their Tamil essence but on account of their excellence — where “excellence” is defined not in terms of what would or would not pass muster in mainstream Hindi cinema, but what would make the grade where the world’s cinephiles are concerned. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that of the two, Kamal’s concern for the health — and even more so for the sophistication — of Tamil cinema exceeds that of Ratnam’s. And if the prescription comes at a price — the casting of Kamal himself in the role of messiah — in a historical sense the price is well worth paying.
Kamal’s approach is not simply a question of distinguishing Tamil films by virtue of quality: the films he has directed make clear that he sees the appeal to the trans-national as a way not only to evade the national, but to enable the “regional” to interrogate the national, thereby carving out a cinematic space that is not simply a function of linguistic difference, even as it depends upon and perhaps even acts in the name of that linguistic difference. It is worth stressing that this is in no way an “anti-national” viewpoint, but instead one that resists the dominance of an “official” paradigm. My point is best illustrated by means of Hey Ram and Virumaandi, two of the finest Indian films I have seen this decade, and both directed by Kamal himself.
Hey Ram is ostensibly itself a “national” film, planned and executed as a bi-lingual, and populated with Bollywood stars, to such a degree that non-Tamilians might not even think of it as a Tamil film at all. Yet this is no instance of cultural effacement in the quest for a wider audience. Rather, Kamal uses Hey Ram to literally enact the drama of the “regional” difference (not to mention communal difference) vis-a-vis the symbolic heart of India, Mahatma Gandhi himself. This is about more than just the fact that the film’s protagonist is Tamil Brahmin Saket Ram, out to avenge himself on the nation’s father; rather, one realizes very soon that almost every memorable character in the film is testimony to the “regional”, be it a Pathan Muslim, Saket Ram’s Bengali wife, or his Sindhi friend. In fact, the film’s casting of culturally “authentic” Hema Malini as a Tamilian is itself slyly subversive, inasmuch as it takes a “national” icon and “regionalizes” her in a very direct way. The extremist Abhayankar and the wicked Altaf are far more “mainstream”, of course — not coincidentally, if the film has villains, they undoubtedly fit the bill. Towards the film’s end it is in fact the Pathan’s knowledge of Tamil that enables him and Saket to escape the mob at their heels, a literal staging of the hope that acknowledgment of political difference — here the sub-national — might enable us to sidestep the overarching manias of national projects (problematic not so much because they are manias but because they are overarching projects), including projects like Abhayankar’s.
Perhaps most wondrous of all is the fact that not a trace of anti-Indian sentiment animates Hey Ram, though this isn’t surprising to those who have followed Kamal’s interviews. The film is not embarrassed to embrace India, but equally, is consistent with a view that does not see patriotism as involving any sub-national compromise, and certainly no compromise of a humanity that is shared across communal and other boundaries. Perhaps as a result of its enactment of this conviction on a nationwide scale, Hey Ram might be the grandest “regional” film of them all, free not only to examine the national margins but also liberated from the stultifying restrictions of “mainstream” discourse within which it would be difficult to think the things Hey Ram thinks of. The result is a political film that is bolder than most, and a “regional” film that meditates on issues that resonate nationally, even globally.
Virumaandi illustrates another aspect of the “difference” I started out with. On the face of it, the tale of a violent inter-village conflict in Madurai district sounds like the sort of “local” film any number of directors mindful of making “authentic” Tamil films could have made. Once again (and more clearly here than in Hey Ram) it is Kamal’s recourse to broader aesthetic and political concerns that distinguishes the film, which touches upon Kurosawa’s Rashomon, capital punishment, and the injustice of the justice system. Simultaneously, Virumaandi strives to be a rip-roaring “massy” action film as well as the sort of rural study Bharathiraja was once known for — in short, about as recognizably Tamil a film as one could ask for. The melange is not always seamless, but the parry (of the status quo, here represented by a hopelessly inadequate legal order) and thrust (of the “regional”, in the form of the ultra-Tamil feel of the film) clearly strikes a chord. Virumaandi is consistent with Kamal’s resistance to the homogenizing potential of the “regional” itself, and displays an ear for Tamil voices not often heard in mainstream cinema.
Nor was Virumaandi the first time Kamal had explored the representation of voices that one might characterize as “marginal” to the Tamil cinematic mainstream, as films like Thenali, Nala Damayanti , and Anbe Sivam attest — indeed the first two quite literally focus on characters who speak a Tamil that is lived on the border as it were, between Sinhalese and Tamil in Thenali; and between Tamil and Malayalam in Nala Damayanti. (The third film explores a character beholden to an ideology — communism — that is as marginalized today as it has ever been.) With Kamal, it is clear, the hegemony of the national may not be replaced with the hegemony of an “authorized” regional voice, one which purports to stand for the authentic to the exclusion of others. Moreover, Nala Damayanti is especially relevant in the contemporary “globalized” world, given its doubly disorienting move: not only does the film’s protagonist speak the Palakkad Tamil of the Tamil Nadu-Kerala borderlands, but he is also an illegal immigrant in a strange land, adrift in a sea of English he cannot understand. Nala Damayanti, that is, illustrates yet again the ability of the “regional” film to explore global issues that the “mainstream”, almost by design, finds difficult to engage.
If this essay is about anything, it is about more than the achievements of a single actor/filmmaker (and I have deliberately stressed the “filmmaker” Kamal here, leaving to others better qualified than I the task of thinking about Kamal’s performances and other contributions in light of this piece). Because the likes of Kamal have inspired others in Tamil cinema, not only at the purely superficial (albeit very welcome) level of technical proficiency, but visually and thematically as well. Rather than cite particular examples of filmmakers and actors who have followed Kamal, I will end by paraphrasing a critic I greatly respect, who had once said that prior to the mid-1980s there was no non-culturally specific reason to watch any Tamil films. The “difference” to which Kamal Haasan has helped give concrete form means this is simply not true anymore. How untrue it is in the grand scheme of things is an open question, and will turn (as it must) on those who follow. Kamal has done his part — and, fittingly enough, not just “locally”: while the Kamal “difference” is a different animal from the (overly optimistic) crossover concerns that seem to occupy far too many in the Hindi film industry these days, it has nevertheless left its mark even there, principally by way of the manner in which the likes of Aamir Khan have begun to approach their films — with seriousness, ambition, and the desire to rescue popular cinema from both global blandness and “native” cliche. It is not a question of creative influence so much as it is one of mindset. A mindset that is best situated to result in global critical recognition for India’s popular cinemas, and in a manner such that they do not cease to be voices of our many Indias.
Thank you, readers / fans!
September 20th, 2007 at 2:46 am
i came to my office at 8am itself today..this article made my morning..
September 20th, 2007 at 3:58 am
[…] LINK […]
September 20th, 2007 at 5:12 am
One of the finest peices that you’ve ever written Qalandar. In fact, many of your passages say the same things that my write-up on CDI does, alhough one cannot argue that your proficiency in the English language is infinitely better than mine, and hence your thoughts translated into words that much more easily. Allow me to digress, but while on the topic, I’d like to mention that it is not only regional cinema which runs the risk of being stifled under the ‘national’ Hindi cinema, but in a frightening development over the last few years, the regional culture of India is under serious threat of a homogenous ‘Hindi’ invasion. The recent Ram Setu controversy notwithstanding, there seems to be a deliberate ploy to dissolve the many regional identities of India into one homogenous ‘Hindi’ one. Coming back to cinema, it is the presence of the likes of Kamal Hasan, Mani Ratnam, Shaji Karun, Gautam Ghosh, Jabbar Patel, etc. that the ‘regional’ India is atleast heard in the pointless ‘global’ melange.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:24 am
Some thoughts triggered by this fabulous piece:
- The thought of Kamal going international while rooted in Tamil Nadu struck me hard when I watched Virumaandi. If we look around, great masters like Ray, Kurosawa and Bergman stuck to their languages, dealt with their own culture and still received international acclaim purely due to their talent.
- The problem for Hey Ram at the Tamil box-office was that Tamilians too didn’t think of it as a Tamil movie! To be fair, the movie did assume a high level of understanding of various things.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Abzee, would love to read your write-up on CDI (from past experience I know your modesty is entirely groundless!)
September 20th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Dear Editor:
A well written article, but I am not sure about the objective or “truth” behind your musings. Humour me for a while, but do you seriously think that the “national” hindi cinema threatens “regional” movie makers to become fiercely “local”? and that the real difference Kamal has made is swim against the current? Wow, a fallacy, I’d think. As the “global” cinema availability threatens “national” hindi cinema to become fiercely “local” & repeat mediocrity, it is people like Kamal who proudly showcase Indian talent in the global marketplace.
And please do not forget that Rajni is the 2nd highest paid actor in Asia (after Chan) - do you believe that Tamil movies are threatened by the Hindi behemoth?
Please avoid patronizing the Tamil or other “regional” movie industries - gone are the days when one was forced to watch “regional” movies rotated on Saturday evenings and “regional” songs every Friday on “doordarshan”. Kamal has indeed made a “difference” - made us proud as Indians that we still make and see quality movies.
Thanks.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Re: “Kamal has indeed made a “difference” - made us proud as Indians that we still make and see quality movies.”
I wouldn’t disagree at all: my point is that this difference is thought under the sign of the “regional”, but one that is not reducible to the “local” (understood here in the specific sense of a cinema that is itself seen as cultural guardian). Kamal’s quality movies do not seem to me to be reducible to either pole, although of necessity they must negotiate both of them.
I do not believe Tamil movies are threatened ANYMORE by the Hindi behemoth — and that is because of the revolution that people like Kamal and Rathnam brought about from the mid-to late-1980s onward. Prior to that the “threat” was not there would be no Tamil film industry, but that it would be either derivative (automatically remaking Hindi hits, most prominently in the case of Rajnikanth, who has starred in remakes of multiple Bachchan hits) or “insular”. For those who would wish to see distinctive Tamil cinema and a cinema of aesthetic merit as well, those were grave threats indeed.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Excellent piece this Qalandar. As I keep advocating, Kamal and Mani are the torch-bearers of Tamil cinema. Kamal represents the more ambitious, and provocative face while Mani is certainly the nonjudgmental and refined kind. Kamal the actor/filmmaker, is an influential figure indeed, not just in South India (as you quite rightly pointed out with Aamir example). The auteur over the artist is something thats not uncommon. Although for someone like me, he is one of the messiah(s) of acting, no other soul had better represented the subtleties and nuances of ‘different’ tamilians (when I say ‘different’, a tirunelvi dacoit, a boorish thevar, a coimbatore doctor, palakkad iyer, etc) as much as him. And, his mastery over other languages and different ‘cultures’ is noteworthy. Although the evaluation of ‘acting’ itself is highly subjective, I should say.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:00 am
MAhesh,
I don’t think Kamal or even Mani should be seen as ‘Tamilians’. But their identity and representation has always been that.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Hi Qalandari,
Excuse my frankness - I was deluged in your decorated word play the first time that I had to read it again to grasp the content, again with not much success.
1. And if the prescription comes at a price — the casting of Kamal himself in the role of messiah — in a historical sense the price is well worth paying.
By ‘messiah’ in the above sentence, do you mean Kamal’s participation in front of the camera to enhance his contribution behind the camera? If that’s the case, why do you say that it comes with a price? I’m such a huge fan of Kamal and believe that his range as an actor is second to none and can rival any living artiste. You mentioned that Kamal as an actor is lesser than the filmmaker. You’re entitled to that opinion; but to call his on-screen performances as a price worth paying for his genuine concern for the health of cinema is overboard, I think.
2. A mindset that is best situated to result in global critical recognition for India’s popular cinemas, and in a manner such that they do not cease to be voices of our many Indias.
Very well said. The western roars have long masked many native voices. When personalities like Kamal & Mani elevate the standards of story-telling without diluting cultural integrity, it gives hope.
3. When you say that you are subtitle dependent, I feel sorry for you. For his grunts and yells and hisses acquire new meanings when you’ve grasped (not read) his previous dialogues. Its a matter of fact that he’s the best person alive to mouth Crazy Mohan’s lines and they’ve gone on to create laugh riots, which without knowing Tamil, is less than half as appealing. (cue to the violins).
September 20th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
abzee: ” regional culture of India is under serious threat of a homogenous ‘Hindi’ invasion.”
That is one way of looking at things. IMO national culture (which is in turn made up of hindi and other regional cultures) is in serious threat from global influences mainly economic. We view this as threat or transformation is altogether another view. I would love to read your take on setu controversy.
Q: I am not conversant in tamil cinema but I do know that Kamal stands for quality. I need to check hey Raam in these interpretations.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Ram: I highly recommend checking out some of the films discussed here, I think you should be able to get subtitled DVDs where you are…sadly Netflix doesn’t have many Tamil films…
September 20th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Don’t know why I wrote “Ram”, I mean to write “rks” of course…
…and can’t help thinking of the lyrics from “Hare Rama Hare Krishna”:
“Sunlo O deewanon, tum ye kaam na karo
Ram ka naam badnaam na karo”
(with apologies to rks! :-))
September 20th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Even I thought who is Ram
. Then I thought you must have been reading too much about setu controversy.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:26 am
Kamal’s biggest challenge is to represent the loud, and expressive faces of this part of the world(this argument also holds good for Mifunes of the world) but one needs to know the nuances and subtleties to know how closer to perfection it really is and probably appreciate it a lot more.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:54 am
Re: “When you say that you are subtitle dependent, I feel sorry for you. For his grunts and yells and hisses acquire new meanings when you’ve grasped (not read) his previous dialogues. Its a matter of fact that he’s the best person alive to mouth Crazy Mohan’s lines and they’ve gone on to create laugh riots, which without knowing Tamil, is less than half as appealing. (cue to the violins).”
I agree completely; the same holds true when I watch films in European languages or Japanese, and I feel the “loss” just as keenly there (perhaps more so in the case of Japanese than Tamil, because with the latter I am far more familiar with the gesturality of the performers, it is not “other” in the sense that it would be with a Kurosawa film from the 1950s (Western gesturality has of course become so “normalized” and assimilated — or we have become assimilated to it — that it isn’t wholly “other” to any of us))…
September 21st, 2007 at 5:54 am
Very well said, Hal…
September 21st, 2007 at 5:56 am
PS– I had also been hoping for a discussion on how (if at all) some of Kamal’s performances might fit into the ideas in this piece:
“I have deliberately stressed the “filmmaker” Kamal here, leaving to others better qualified than I the task of thinking about Kamal’s performances and other contributions in light of this piece”
Thoughts?
September 21st, 2007 at 4:21 pm
http://www.naachgaana.com/2007/09/20/the-kamal-of-my-dreams-musings-on-his-many-indias/
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:35 am
Qalandar, thinking about what you asked for…
- In Guna, he’s a Tamilian in Hyderabad. There is some amount of environment created because of that, but not too much. In Mahanadhi, he travels from Kumabakonam to Chennai to Kolkata. He was you-know-where in Mumbai Xpress. Kurudhippunal was pretty non-regional. But I’d probably dismiss all these, as Kamal was the writer too.
- Kalaignan had him as a pop singer (not the 80s filmi-type).
- Michael Madana Kama Rajan had quite a bit of diversity in the four roles. But here too, Kamal was involved in the scripting.
- Pushpak aka Pesum Padam was a truly national movie. He was with Singeetham; so, you can figure out what he did behind the scenes.
In pre-Nayagan days, he was a superstar who was mostly slotted into city-based roles. He did marvellously well in village-based roles too, of course.
Basically, over the past 20 years or so, the ‘filmmaker’ in Kamal has taken over and that’s pretty much what dictates the roles he does.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:04 am
The family is seated around the dining table as Raghavan eats his afternoon meal. A kid, presumably his nephew, runs up to him and informs him that he has an official phone call. He answers the phone and when he hears the voice at the other end of the line his entire body goes into attention/near salute. In a single reflex action we are told many things. We realize he his talking to his superior. We are also told simultaneously the kind of regimented response that we can expect from a career policeman. A simple enough scene in Vetaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, but Kamal manages to deliver a little more exposition than was intended by the writer.
I agree with Rand Ramble, Kamal the writer has definitely improved Kamal the actor infinitely. If Virumandi was a movie about how a simple minded villager is manipulated, Thevar Magan shows how a London-educated Sakthi goes from feeling like a fish out of water in his own village to completely reimmersing himself in its vagaries. In a scene that occupies no more than a second of screen time we see his feet firmly embedding itself in a patch of wet slushy earth, indicating that he has finally crossed over. The writer Kamal seems to indicate that while learning global values (and I insist global not national) is important at a personal level, it also brings with it the responsibility of passing along that knowledge to those not fortunate enough to avail themselves of the same experiences. The implication I believe is that Chinna Thoovaloor (the village in the movie) is but a microcosm of the world and its problems, much like those of the world, are seldom solved by mindless violence.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:17 am
What a beautiful and inspiring comment Deepauk! all I can say is: thanks! (and lament that Thevar Magan has not yet been released with subtitles!)
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Qalandar, that was an extremely enjoyable piece of writing.
When I first saw Virumaandi I enjoyed its Madurainess so thoroughly , that I was pretty apprehensive about its commercial prospects. Though I actually saw it in a near-full cinema in Bombay !
The movie seemed to underline the old one about ‘poetry being that which was lost in translation’. Except for a small slice, the whole world, I felt, was going to go about its life as if nothing had happened. This substantial aesthetic achievement was
going to go undernoticed. And it wasn’t going to be anybody’s fault.
I would never be able to fault a jury who didn’t connect to this film.
Wait, why did I think of a “jury” ? So all my pretentious gas about art-for-art’s sake has been a facade. After all, when it comes to things I like, it seems like I want them to be widely appreciated. Well, not “popular” in the vulgar sense of the world.What else then ? The applause of cognoscente ? Wasn’t that elitism even worse.
Even if I were to be elitist, shouldn’t I be the better kind ? The one who enjoys this movie all the more because it appeals to the very few who are ‘like’ him. Redeemingly, ‘like’ only in a basic cultural background sense; nothing more.
In my (now proven to be quite flawed) opinion, the movie was intensely local. A radius of around 50km around ThEni.It would be the clever limerick one cooked up with a friend in college. The vocabulary and references so intensely personal that it can only have an audience of the two.
Was glad to be proved wrong, first in the box office. Now, here.
//With Kamal, it is clear, the hegemony of the national may not be replaced with the hegemony of an “authorized” regional voice//
Beautiful perspective. For long, “typical” has been passed off as a compliment. An actor can be excused for it. But a writer creating “typical” characters creates flat cardboard pieces is just being lazy. And nothing could be more misplaced than thinking “typical” characters are easier for people to relate to.
//And if the prescription comes at a price — the casting of Kamal himself in the role of messiah — in a historical sense the price is well worth paying.// Couldn’t have said it better (and that applies to most of the article)
Keep writing !
PS: HAL, I didn’t get the one about the Tirunelvely dacoit ?
September 24th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Prabhu Ram,
Michael from MMKR.
September 24th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Michael from Tirunelveli ? Nothing pronouced about it except the passing “elEi ?”, which is not exclusive to TirunelvEli. It is one dialect that I thought he is yet to speak on screen.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
A pleasure to read the article - as always.
Another aspect that strikes me about Kamal (as an actor in his choice of roles ; as a film maker, always) is the category of cinema he dabbles in : neither the wholly-artsy one nor the typicaly masala one.
In every movie, there is an attempt to satisfy both (all ?)types of cinema. The A,B…Z centres (as they are labelled in Tamil Nadu).
For want of a better word, shall label it as bridge-cinema, although the brand he exemplifies, is wholly-kamal’ian !
This aspect of Kamal, is what makes me worry, would he be able to achieve all that he wants (and more importantly we crave !)
September 24th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Thanks so much guys for all the generous compliments; it’s sentiments like these that encourage me to keep writing…
September 25th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Even more, Kamal is like a poet or a writer. He’s a creator whose chosen medium is movies. This is most visible in the repetition of pet themes like atheism.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:40 am
Superb write-up Qalandar!
PR,
Aandavar speaks the Thirunelveli dialect in Mumbai Express. Well, after all, Avinasi is a Mumbai Tamil - he HAS to be from Nellai
HAL,
I though Michael spoke the Madurai thamizh…
September 25th, 2007 at 5:45 am
On Why Michael is from Tirunelveli: I have a friend from that place with voice and dialect closely matching Kamal’s. He is a Protestant as well. That is why! Anyway, this depends on Santhana bharathy’s character. I assume this could be ambiguous. Anyway, Crooks are gypsies.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Michael’s dialect in MMKR is like the generic, semi-urban south Tamilnadu accent, a mix of Madurai (”ippa thEn cAr’la ponAn, adhukkuLLa nazhuvi inguttu porAn!“) and Tirunelveli dialect (”elEi!“), but as HAL says, his being a Christian does suggest that he (or rather, Santhana Bharathi) is basically from Tirunelveli.
However, in Mumbai Xpress, Avinasi speaks the Coimbatore dialect. (His family is basically from Coimbatore; remember, Kovai Sarala played his sister.) Chidambaram, on the other hand, speaks chaste Madras Tamil.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Hi Qalandar,
brilliant write-up! I enjoyed it every bit.
Like “randramble” says, the “film-maker” in Kamal dictates what Kamal the “performer” does!
I admire Kamal for his roles - and he is a performer at par with any of the best ones all around the world!
I wish him all the luck (which seems to elude him more often!) in completing “Marudanayagam” and doing much more!
PR - The father (watch out for the scene where he arrests Nagesh - the “accent” stands out!)character in “Apoorva Sagotharargal” is clearly from “nellai”!
Again, Good work Qalandar!
Thanks,
Apala
September 26th, 2007 at 3:15 am
Zero,
NO!!
Avinasi speaks the Thirunelveli dialect for sure. Infact i thought, very surprisingly, he does not do an ‘excellent’ job of it.
Mumbai Tamilan in Dharavi (or any other slum) has to be from Thirunelveli - ok, most of them
P.S: kozhappi vittutteenga and i will have to watch it again!
September 26th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Bala,
In Mumbai Xpress too, I think his speak isn’t consciously specific to one regional dialect, but a normalized, neutralized, semi-urban potpourri of different dialects, and it fits the scenario very well. I just felt that the basic style (izhuthu izhuthu pEsaRadhu, in a singsong fashion; without Vijaya-Kumar-Sarath-Kumar-esque assaults, a la ‘enRa poNNukku unRa paiyyan’, ’seyyONum’, ‘konnu pOduvEn’, ‘Enunga ammaNi’) was rather from the Coimbatore dialect, which is what I actually wanted to say. Also, it’s completely inconspicuous in the film, so I wanted to make note of it here.
Sorry for the kozhappam. I think I’m at total fault here, I know the Coimbatore dialect primarily through films, and, my familiarity with Mumbai Xpress exceeds with that of the Coimbatore dialect.
September 26th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
As Apala has already noted, Sethupathi of Aboorva Sagodharargal is clearly from deep down south (Nagesh even refers to him as a “thekkathian” in the scene where Sethupathi arrests Nagesh and co.), most possibly from Tirunelveli. The accent is spot-on, and also, he’s supposed to be a vivasaaya pillai in the film.
In Mumbai Xpress however, I couldn’t sense much of Tirunelveli slang in his lines, which misled me to think otherwise. It’d be great if anyone can shed more light on this.
September 27th, 2007 at 2:37 am
Zero,
Sethupathi speaks the Madurai accent and not the Thirunelveli accent.
“Kaveri, ivinga solradha kekka vendiya avasiyam illa.. chumma pesuvainga aana edhuvum seyya dhairiyamilladhavainga”.
Mumbai Xpress is Thirunelveli, for sure and like i said, he doesn’t do a good job of it (by his standards) and hence there is some doubt.
Trademark Nellai accent in MX - e.g when he negotiates with Santhana Bharathi for the first time. Can’t remember the dialogues exactly but if you think of M.S Bhaskar speaking in Dum Dum Dum (pakka Nellai Tamil), you can find the similarity.
September 27th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Zero, HAL, Bala, APALA: you folks are either too observant or have watched Kamal movies over and over again!
September 27th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Bala,
It clearly has a strong flavour of the Madurai dialect, evident in the scenes where he banters with his wife about their kid’s name (which is sort of revisited in Virumaandi) and in the following scene that you’ve quoted (words like ‘ivinga‘). In any case, Kamal is most adept at Madurai dialect himself.
Uh, I was only saying that Sethupathi is clearly from down south and that his very south-ish accent is spot-on.
But, I believe, a considerable part of the Madurai dialect has had percolated its way to the entire south Tamilnadu. I think one may safely say that both Sethupathi of Aboorva Sagodharargal and Michael of MMKR largely have the same accent, one with a strong Madurai flavour.
In fact, my understanding too was that Sethupathi was from Madurai (while I thought Michael was from Tirunelveli, primarily because he played a christian), but Apala’s point was rather compelling to me as he is also said to be a “Vivasaaya” Pillai in the film. So, there.
M. S. Bhaskar is the epitome of Nellai Tamil, especially the Ambasamudram dialect which was captured superbly in Dum Dum Dum. I don’t remember Kamal speaking that dialect in films. As for Mumbai Xpress, I must confess that I clearly missed the Nellai dialect even though I liked the nice rural touch in the Tamil he speaks. I think I got carried away with his longdrawn style of speaking. There’s a singsong way to Nellai Tamil as well, but the Tamil spoken is really faster than Kamal’s way of speaking in the film. But, Kamal uses some chaste Nellai Tamil words in the film (like ‘theendhuttu‘! Yes, I revisited some scenes of the film since this discussion started).
September 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Zero,
I think one may safely say that both Sethupathi of Aboorva Sagodharargal and Michael of MMKR largely have the same accent, one with a strong Madurai flavour
Exactly. Unmistakably Madurai Thamizh. Michael being a christian - well, he could be a christian from Madurai :)..
There’s a singsong way to Nellai Tamil as well, but the Tamil spoken is really faster than Kamal’s way of speaking in the film. But, Kamal uses some chaste Nellai Tamil words in the film (like ‘theendhuttu‘!
adhe dhaan!
While on the topic of accents, i am a fan of Kamal’s “peter” English. He has played a man returning from a foreign country in Thoongadhe Thambi Thoongadhe, MMKR, and Thevar Magan (Virumaandi is different) and while his accent hasn’t been the “exact” U.S/U.K version, its distinctly “Kamal” - “you’ve got 7 days to save your ass!”, “Open the bloody gates man! I’m your boss”, “she’s got neem oil on her hair” etc - while not totally ‘authentic’, are trademark Thalaivar stuff. Now, the question is, in Dasavatharam, the *villain* is an American. In a recent interview he gave in Mumbai after receiving the Living Legend award, we could observe some “peter” words with a tinge of American accent. Would be interesting to see how the role’s going to come out
September 27th, 2007 at 10:13 am
randramble,
Zero, HAL, Bala, APALA: you folks are either too observant or have watched Kamal movies over and over again!
- Or maybe too much of vettiness ) - speaking for myself here :p