Last week, Kamal found time to release the audio of Kodaikanal. Bharathiraaja, with whom he had several successful colloborations including Padhinaaru Vayadhinile and Sigappu Rojakkal, received it.

The highlights of the function were the camaraderie between them and Kamal’s decrial of Oscar awards. On the latter subject, Kamal went a little further this time, saying that he would like to see India honouring American movies with awards.

Kamal also recounted the days of their first association and encouraged the “small movie”. Watch all of that on video at IndiaGlitz. IndiaGlitz has photos too, along with Behindwoods and KollywoodToday.com.

Also read reports from Times of India, Sify.com, Thatstamil, Galatta.com, CineSouth, Web Dunia, KollywoodToday.com, Adhikaalai.com, News Today and TamilCinema.com.

[With inputs from Ananth]

[Picture courtesy: BehindWoods]

Link to video

Here’s a wonderful music video sent in by Arif, dedicated to Kamal on the occasion of Dasavathaaram. It features a fine mash-up of Kamal’s on-screen avatars, the editing being the highlight. Kudos to Arif and team! I’m sure, as fans, you’ll all join me in thanking and congratulating them.

In time for Dasavathaaram, Rediff.com provides continued focus on Kamal. Here, we cover a few recent pieces.

Madhavan declared himself a “hardcore Kamal fan”. Let’s have a few excerpts before you read the full interview.

After I started acting in television, people would call me for award functions. I accepted their invitations only to see Kamal Haasan in person. I would scream myself hoarse when he went to collect the awards.

That was when I met Kamal Sir for the first time in a hotel, where I was having dinner. He came over to me and said, ‘Madhavan, I have seen some of your work and they were good.’ You could have knocked me down with a feather, so great was my shock.

Working in the film was like studying in a university. Every minute I shot with him was pregnant with information. He was like a father figure to me on the sets.

What I learnt from him was that there is no shot in the world which is simple and can be taken lightly, and that you should give a hundred percent to every shot. It is amazing to see his dedication to each shot even after being in the industry for so many years. You see child-like enthusiasm, missionary zeal and extreme passion in each shot.

Then, we had a slideshow on some of Kamal’s movies in Kannada and Telugu. Check it out for some valuable information on unfamiliar movies like Kokila and Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu.

Finally, Rediff.com gives us an interesting look at his past heroines from Srividhya to Sridevi and Madhavi to Amala.

The last two pieces also feature some superb rare stills.

[With inputs from A1]

Just as we were rejoicing the audio / trailer launch and waiting eagerly for Dasavathaaram comes the dampener. Minor and insignificant political organizations continue the dangerous and irritating trend in India of gaining publicity at the sake of big movies. Of course, Kamal has been a favourite target due to his non-conformist / controversial ideas. One is worried about the negative publicity affecting the movie, similar to the ‘anti-Gandhi’ charges preceding Hey Ram

The matter has already reached the court! Here is the extensive media mileage derived by VHP, Hindu Munnani and other outfits that have sprung out of the blue: Behindwoods 1 | Thatstamil 1 | ChennaiOnline | MSN | Thatstamil 2 | IndiaGlitz | Buzz18 | Dinamalar | Dinathanthi | Behindwoods 2 | News Today | Webdunia.

As if politico-religious folks aren’t doing enough, we have undue criticism even in the blogosphere, without even the movie being released!

[With extensive inputs from Ananth]

[Picture courtesy: BehindWoods]

Recently, Madan (cartoonist-cum-writer who is also a film critic) threw some light on Kokila, an old Kannada movie featuring Kamal and Shobha. Madan, as we know, is part of Kamal’s circle of friends. Back to the movie, it happens to be the directorial debut of Balu Mahendra, with whom Kamal later colloborated in many movies including the famous Moondram Pirai (Sadma). Madan categorises the movie as a must-watch. Let me add a couple of tidbits:

• Years after Kokila, Kamal worked in a movie co-starring Sridevi and Deepa. Reminiscing his earlier work with Balu Mahendra, it was titled Meendum Kokila (Back to Kokila). Of course, the title suited the story too.
• Kokila was also the debut of another star who made a name for himself in the Tamil movies of the 80s. He is Mohan — yes, the “man with the mike”! In Kannada moviedom, he is still referred to as “Kokila Mohan”!

Have any of you watched the movie? We would love to hear from you in the Comments section.

[Updated 20 Mar 2008: Meendum Kokila did not involve Balu Mahendra]

Below are Kamal’s comments on The Name is Rajnikanth, the book on Rajni that is about to be released.

Dr Gayathri Sreekanth has a unique viewpoint. An angle Rajini fans most cherish. A low angle shot looking up at their hero.

Dr Gayathri has not destroyed truth for the sake of sensationalism.

A book of this sort in English is long overdue.

Precious, little, private details about the superstar fills the book. Though I know most of them, it is still a good read.

The rise of Rajini is a notable achievement and will be remembered in Tamil commercial cinema history. So will Dr Gayathri’s book.

Have a good read.

Dr. Gayathri Sreekanth’s interview in Mid-Day also features one question about the rivalry:

So does Kamal Haasan address their so-called rivalry in his note?
Oh, the two are thick as thieves. It’s just been us foolish fans fighting over them all these years. In fact, when Rajini wanted to quit the movies in the 80s to be a sanyasi, it was Kamal who made him come back.

Sujatha (alias Rangarajan), the multi-faceted writer who contributed to many a Kamal movie is no more.

Among all the writers Kamal worked with, Sujatha was right at the top. He began his friendship with Kamal long before Vikram and it continued till date, upto Dasavatharam. Sujatha worked closely with Kamal through the years. He is said to have even customized the script-writing software in Tamil for Kamal.

While we await Kamal’s message, here are a few more samples of their association:

• One of their first meetings
• On Marudhanayagam
• Participation in functions together
  
• Involvement in Dasavatharam
• Defending Kamal on Dasavatharam story controversy

[Picture courtesy: BehindWoods]

It’s difficult to write about something that has been analysed, written and talked about so much, even on this blog. But when the point of discussion is Hey Ram, there is always something new to say. In that belief, here goes my DVD-commentary-like post, best consumed alongside a repeat viewing of the classic. [Now, that’s a good excuse for not properly structuring this post!]

The movie begins with a dedication to Kamal’s mentor, Ananthu: “Thank you for directing me towards this direction”. Their relationship began while both worked under K Balachander, with Ananthu exposing Kamal to things like world cinema. Also, Hey Ram was supposed to be Kamal’s formal foray into direction, which was not to be. Anyway, we can consider it as the first movie Kamal wanted to put his stamp officially on.

In the Hindi version of the movie, notice the name of the movie appear in English last, after Hindi and Urdu. Kamal defies convention as always, while also granting importance to India’s own languages.

As I have mentioned a few times before, Kamal is to be treated as a creator whose chosen medium happens to be film. This is yet again symbolised in the title song. Kamal gives vent to his own agony and raises his (own) voice for sanity and peace, aptly in his own words (in Tamil). That pretty much summarises the objective of the movie.

In addition to donning the new hat of lyricist (to two of the songs), Kamal handles various usual departments including choreography. While his skill at screenplay has been proven in many other movies, this one features the Page-o-Minute technique — one minute on screen being written on exactly one page. Ironically, the script didn’t hold the attention of most movie-goers, with its multilingual dialogues.

Further on the technical side, this was the movie that brought back sync sound (dialogues recorded on the spot instead of being dubbed later). Of course, the voices for a few actors were dubbed. But you would notice that most actors remained unchanged for both languages of the movie. They were meticulously chosen for their background and also their ability to speak in either language.

Shah Rukh Khan was a big draw in the movie. Kamal openly admitted that: “Ask the distributors in North India what Shah Rukh means”. Among the movies I have watched, I’d rate this performance of his next only to Swades. Kudos for his effort in speaking Tamil too (unlike the recent buffoonery in Om Shanti Om).

Another person who had a great outing was Saurabh Shukla. More known for his dialogue-writing skills till then, he touched everyone’s hearts here.

A few gems in the screenplay are on display during the Kamal-Rani scenes:

• Aparna uses a pistol with no bullets to protect herself from potential intruders. Saket first makes fun of it, but it comes to his use later when he is held captive by the Muslim gang.
• While getting up from the bed, Aparna asks Saket to not disturb the mark-sheets. “Okay teacher”, he says. This is just one of the few references to her profession, without actually having a scene to establish it.
• After he ties the thaali (mangalsutra), he asks for some symbol for himself. She takes one of her toe-rings (metti) and gives it to him to use as a ring. Much later, when he goes to see Mythili and she touches his feet, he raises his hands to bless her and notices that ring, bringing back memories of his first wife.

Bollywood’s most-loved villain, Amjad Khan (also the name of Shah Rukh’s character) had a connection with this movie. His son, Shadab memorably played Altaf, the tailor in Calcutta who is responsible for Aparna’s rape and murder. Amjad Khan featured in Kamal’s Vikram one and half decades earlier.

Speaking of Altaf, Saket the common man very slowly realises the level of Hindu-Muslim tension in the country, culminating in the brutal end of his wife. Saket’s struggle is played out superbly with Rani Mukherjee’s continous screaming in the background.

Rani was at that time very new to the movies, with just the hits of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Ghulam behind her. Kamal the director extracted a very mature performance, which she is now known to be capable of, as the reigning queen of Bollywood.

While the director dwarfs Kamal the actor in Hey Ram, the latter’s performance is nevertheless not to be ignored. One image that stands out it is during the night of Saket’s wedding with Mythili — he shivers after pouring water on himself, as he struggles to bury the demons of his past.

Back to the director, a portion of “Nee paartha paarvaikku…” is simply brilliant. As Saket reminisces about Aparna fondly, a sequence of shots shows them both at various places in Calcutta doing a variety of things. It is structured as a few shots, but the camera moving from left to right combined with perfect editing lends to effective screenplay. Every place where Saket sees while roaming has a memory of Aparna.

Breaking the flow again, we need to get to Atul Kulkarni. He was a wonderful ‘discovery’ of Hey Ram. Kamal the actor lets him dominate in the scenes they share together, as per the needs of the script. Kulkarni rightly went onto win the National Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Just as the first twist in the movie, that of Saket’s peaceful life being shattered, the second one too comes up slowly. We are made aware of the Maharaja’s conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi bit by bit, starting from the air-port and ending at a secret location on the occasion of Dussehra. The last portion with Saket in inebriated state is filmed beautifully, with hardly any dialogues. All along, we also figure out the personal motives of the Raja and Abhyankar behind their plot to eliminate Gandhi.

The graphics is possibly a tad overdone overall, though it serves the purpose of projecting Saket’s thoughts.

The usage of Tamil (Saket’s mother-tongue) is effortless even in the Hindi version — be it “Balcony kadhava saathu, Aparna!” when he anxiously shouts out to protect her from the intruders or Hindu hymns in the Chennai episode. Kamal’s knowledge of Hindu and Brahmin traditions are pretty complete. It peaks with his rendition of “Brahmanandam…” when Saket renounces all relations before moving to Delhi.

The story is primarily the journey of one man. But it also travels to all corners of India and even to Pakistan. At every place, the rich cultural diversity of India is masterfully blended into the screenplay.

Though being a ‘period’ subject, the contemporariness is unmistakeable. After the decade of Babri Masjid demolition and Mumbai riots, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had just secured power in India. Warning bells ring in the movie with a reference to Savarkar, the Nazi Swastika morphing into a lotus (BJP’s election symbol). Kamal speaks through his characters at one point: “Religion and politics”, like “sex and violence” is a “pucca commercial combination”! Later in the movie, as a sign of things to come in the future of India, we witness corruption at Gandhi’s place itself.

Back to the movie, it thrives on sutblety and metaphors. One example is the Raja putting the mad / useless horse to death, with the rest of the horses in the stable being blind-folded. The man is ruthless in pursuing his objective and getting rid of useless items on his way. At the same time, he is careful to keep his other subjects unaware of his nature. At another juncture, when Abhyankar asks Saket to promise that he will perform the assigned task unmindful of his relations, he just turns to the left with sad eyes, the director merely indicating to us that his heart is hesitant to give up Mythili.

The protagonist of the movie is ordinary like any of us. As much as he tries to hide it from himself, he remains a confused man. Even in the end, when he argues with Amjad, he cries and convinces himself that Gandhi is the root cause, even as he struggles to maintain that belief. At the same time, the character also has a lot of the real-life Kamal. He himself said in an interview, sometime ago, that the movie was born out of the question “What would have I done had I been there?”.

The hotel in Delhi where Saket stays is the very place where Nathuram Godse stayed. There is a small reference to it in the movie too. Another interesting tidbit is that Kamal stayed in the same hotel while writing the script, to help him get into the head of Gandhi’s assassin.

The final part of the movie features an interesting character, Govardhan, played by Gollapudi Maruthi Rao. He had a memorable role in Kamal’s Swathi Muthyam (Sipikkul Muthu) too.

Naseer’s role as Gandhi was probably a dream-come-true for him. He was one of the actors who unsuccessfully screen-tested for the lead role in the 1982 biopic by Richard Attenborough.

Throughout the movie, Kamal effectively uses small facts to make his point — Jinnah’s daughter staying back in India, Rama coming through Khyber Pass (reference to Aryan theory), Mountbatten announcing that Gandhi was killed by a Hindu and so on.

As much as I try to detach myself from my sixth viewing of the movie, I get drawn in and forget to note down points for this post. Ultimately, the movie will remain to me, more than anything else, a textbook in film-making.

[Image courtesy: Philip Lutgendorf, University of Iowa]

[Link to video]

Thanks to ‘vivekforbes’, we get to see Kamal as we have never seen before! This footage compiled during Virumaandi, starts with a sarcastic dig at the politician who opposed the original name of ‘Sandiyar’ and moves onto show Kamal’s passion in direction, stunts and music. The source of the video is unknown.

[Via HAL]

Here’s a long, wonderful 2-part interview with Kamal done quite a while ago, by S Shiva Kumar. Shiva has been featured in multiple publications (including The Hindu. Times of India and Rediff.com), now has a blog and his admiration for Kamal comes through effortlessly. An earlier post on this blog provided delightful insights from Vishnuvardhan, the Kannada superstar, through the same journalist. We’ll have more from him in the future too.

Now, back to Kamal and the interview. From the focus on Hey Ram and direction, we can see that it was done around the turn of the millenium. Here are some highlights from a quote-collector’s delight:

I am not even rising above mediocrity. I am mediocre and have kept myself that way.

I keep trying because I’m a student of cinema and a film buff…I don’t care.

About this closet direction, no. Mine was a glass case. Everyone knew.

Even now, for me, the making of the film is more important. It doesn’t matter who gets the title. I can afford to say that because I have my face printed on celluloid.

I never wanted to be an actor. I love my crew. I want to be with them, not rise above them. Rising above them is easy. You become a tyrant, a genius or an eccentric. You rise above them and they give you a misnomer. They’ll call you a tyrant, a genius and vice versa.

Whenever I ask myself what stage of career I’m in right now, I don’t really know the answer. It’s very confusing.

I may not act at all. That’s what I tell people, but nobody takes me seriously. I might slip behind the camera. It would have happened if Hey! Ram had succeeded.

I used to be a common man and all that I’ve achieved is not real. It’s all piled on to me; it’s acquired.

My themes are very repetitive…Mine is a man’s suffering and his struggle to rise above it.

For the last 15 years, it’s my neck on the line every time. Nobody has the audacity to talk about personal losses, if at all there is any.

This dancing and prancing around and romancing heroines is on request. It comes absolutely from the audience. They want one dance and the request comes from someone in Silicon Valley

I expected from Hey! Ram whatever I expected from all my other films — success.

Even if you say I made Hey! Ram, it wouldn’t be completely right. It is not possible to do it alone. My cameraman, my art director and my costume department are equally important. I could sleep well at night because I had this crew….I don’t say this out of humility. I’m confident I would have made Hey! Ram without the Thirus and Sarikas, but that’s an arrogant way of looking at it. It would have moved away inch by inch from whatever little perfection we’ve achieved.

I felt it was high time someone at least felt sorry instead of licking their tongue like a Farex baby at the situation. That’s neither mamta (affection) nor sympathy.

It’s not chic to be a Gandhi fan. And it is clichéd to say Gandhi is a good man because it has been said a million times before. He is even on a damn rupee note. It is as boring as a non-detailed lesson. You are never going to get the moral of it till you get a detailed story.

…the debt is one’s own definition. Well, Rs 120 to Rs 150 million is a lot of money. I have to get it back and I am smiling. There’s no panic.

The only man I admire who transgressed is Spielberg. That must have been from (Francis Ford) Coppola, who must have been a great inspiration.

Especially Mani. I was astounded by him. I sort of vacillate sometimes. He never did. It’s probably that business management training. He’s very clear.

I am constantly in touch with Benegal because he’s my inspiration for Marudanayagam. He saw the script and his excitement was contagious. He thinks it is colossal and gave his suggestions. He’s a young man with a bald head. His spirit is great.

Govind and Manmohan Shetty, after Hey! Ram took a nosedive, had a small party, quietly and kept saying good things about the film. It was a touching gesture.

I recently saw a 25-year-old film. I was floored. It was shown on HBO and the film is Godfather. Absolutely classic…Performances do not have to be the latest when you’re looking at the greatest.

Move onto Shiva’s blog for the full interview.