Birthday Special: What was that again?
With randramble
Birthday reflections are far from peaceful preoccupations. Even if he has lived an eventful 53 years and has a cap cluttered with feathers, contentment seems a far cry for Kamal. Every interview smacks of a Schindlerian “I could have done more”, which works out just fine for the greedy viewer.
Attention grabbing. That is what artists do for a living. But the blink-and-you-miss moments — which is a sort of Kamal signature — make meeting-the-artist midway quite a task. And of course the rewards are great. So, how about sharing the rewards then, just like we did last year?
All ye, who have seen MMKR, would recall the short-lived giggle that Kameswaran lets go, when ChakkubAi plonks herself on him and just before reigning himself when Tiruppu shoots a scorching look. With all due respect to Crazy here, it was one of those several Kamal-Singeetham moments. One can actually trace the idea back to a few passing frames in Aboorva SahOdarargaL.
This in the famous driving lesson, that has screamers like “nice-A vandhittEn”. The car is stuck in the middle of the road and Raja and Janaki have to exchange seats. Kamal steals a wickedly funny moment here. No lines, no stopping the viewer to direct his attention to the moment — just an ingenious expression that send the observant viewer rolling. Here it is in a thousand words:
Now, this is becoming a Singeetham special too. In the path-breaking movie that was Pushpak aka Pesum Padam, acting is restrained by the lack of dialogues. From balcony to balcony, he speaks with the girl he likes. After telling him about her parents, she asks him about his. Talking cheerfully till then, he becomes sad. He recovers quickly, puts out his tongue to indicate that they are dead. She empathasises and melancholy sets in, with the violin background of L Vaidhyanathan.
Moving onto little bit more serious stuff, Nandhu of Aalavandhaan (Abhay) is in one of his hallucinations and the doctor asks him where he picked up so much violence from. Combining the innocence of the character and the mischief of the writer, he replies that he learnt it by watching cartoons.
That’s it from us. What’s your “Kamal moment”? Let’s have a better show this year in the Comments section.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:02 am
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November 7th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I’ve a collection of snapshots of some of my favourite got-to-frame-this moments (very few, of course) in MMKR with the intention of posting them as part of an incredibly overambitious task on my part — to write a series of posts on MMKR. I’ll try to upload them somewhere.
The hu-hu-hu-grin moment of Kameshwaran with Sakubai and Thiruppu’s reaction was one of them! It lasts just for a split-second — it was quite tough for me to get one “good” snapshot of it — but executed with perfect precision. The moment when Raju rolls his eyes down (a favourite Raju-moment) before using that catchphrase (!) is another.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Hi,Good site for the legend.Keep up the great work!My top-favourite “Only Kamal” moments:
1)Salangai Oli-climax speech before Shailaja’s dance.The glint in the eyes of the artist,who never got a stage to perform a gem of a reflection of the yearning,satisfaction.Wow!
2)Anbe Sivam-pre-climax scene with Madhavan calling hime brother-he made us see the lump in his throat,touched by being called brother.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Prabhu Ram(Randie?),
You’ve come up with a great topic.I’ve waited so long to get this weight off my chest and to my good luck I found this topic today.
Well my favorite Kamal moment is from Anbe Sivam.
Kamal and Madhavan start a conversation after the boy they accompanied in the ambulance passes away.The conversation turns to God when Madhavan says that unlike Kamal, he believes in the existence of God(maybe a direct reference to Kamal being an aethist in real life).Kamal in reply says that he too believes in God and he points at Madhavan when asked who he worships.He explains the logic behind his statement.
Madhavan is amused at Kamal’s ’sudden’ turn of heart.He asks Kamal why he is so kind to him after all the trouble he went through because of him (”ஏன் இந்த திடீர் பரிவு?”).
This is where Kamal Haasan’s facial expression tells a whole story.He replies by saying “ஏன்னா நானும் கடவுள்”.If you watch closely he gives Madhavan an amused+arrogant look.It is a healthy mix of both the emotions.The particular expression lasts for only 2-3 seconds.But it personifies the multi faceted man who he is.