Dasavatharam - review 2

This is one movie which lingers in your mind for a long time. It is happening to me. Its been a week and every day I remember the bits and pieces of this movie. May be Iam a fan of what Kamal does in his movies. But I feel anything that is done in a "grand" scale impresses me.

For example, the way the Tsunami scene is shown in the movie is impressive. I can see a bit of computer graphics, but only if you want to imagine that way. If you just see what is happening in front of your eyes, its quite amazing. Especially I wonder what on earth makes one even create such things.

Similarly in real life I always get amazed by when I see brihadeeshwara temple in Tanjore. Its grandeur makes me wonder what would have made Raja Raja Cholan to build such a massive and elegant structure which has been standing for more than 1000 years.

Talking of Tanjore temple, I have this strange feeling of choking whenever Iam there. I used to feel it as a very familiar territory and whenever I read about Raja Raja Cholan in Udayar by Balakumaran recently, I feel very close to the characters and description. I dont have any reason to believe in re-incarnation, but I feel most of us are recycled and keep appearing as our own fathers and sons.

Coming back to Dasavatharam, I feel Kamal has achieved and promoted himself to very far leaving behind all the rest in the Tamil or even Indian film industry. The troubles he would have undergone to do the 10 characters are completely not visible in the movie. Its because of his natural skills to portray different mannerisms or behaviours and his experience.

I also like movies which are not very seriously harping on some subject, instead has all elements of visuals and music exploiting technology to project a story. If there is no technology, then its ordinary story telling for which a cinema medium should not be used.

Maya and the Matrix

When I saw the movie matrix, I felt that they tried to visually portray the concept of "Maya" which is very much a ancient vedic philosophy. This whole world what we see is not as real as what we think. Whenever I sit in a Mall or watch the road from my office windows, I see scores of people busy walking, driving, yelling and so on. I do the same thing once Iam there in that maddening traffic. But away from the maddening crowd, it is kind of interesting to watch others behaviors.

This escapism from whats happening around you always builds a perspective that the people involved in the task wont get.You may ask how is maya connected to this. Once you feel you are not part of a thing, you dont consider it as something real. Its just a background noise. If you have this attitude towards the world in general and its happenings, then this is precisely a escapism into a non-worldly thing.

You may ask why one need to escape out of whats going on? By escape I donot mean physically going to a forest or sitting away in meditation. It is about having that background check to allow you to do things but still be retaining your ground. I mean not getting involved deeply and get assimilated by the system. A sort of beating the system by being away from it.

To confirm that you are in this mode rather than into the Maya (or Matrix :-)

1. You will not find a need to talk much as you had been doing before.

2. You will not find a need to do something without there being a need.

Rather nothing needs to be done and nothing needs to be spoken unless it be. Often we have the (imaginary) pressure of doing something and talking something without there being a REAL need. Thats precisely what I call as you reacting to the "Maya". If you react, you are dead. Just understand this and turn the focus to you and see that there is indeed "nothing much to be done".

The world as we see is created because of this "non-stop" talking and doing and indulging in what we talk and do. You do not need to react to this chatter. Just keep cool and see whats going on around with the background thought that the whole thing is a "maya".

All the seers and swamijis seem to be trying to do this exactly to all the "grihasthas" (those who indulge in material world) by making them practice all kinds of things. Nothing is going to get you out, unless there is a switch in your brain that starts looking at things differently. You may have momentary "satoris" or "escapism" by doing what they say. But nothing is permanent. You have to make that decision and start watching whats happening around you and take a decision of whether you want to get involved or not.

Again remember the above two rules that should be a litmus test for you to know if you have achieved anything at all in this world.

Dasavatharam review

The Dasavatharam story is rich in stimulating the movie goer with thoughts. That way I would say that it is more like a modern art leaving untold things strewn all across the movie. Few things I observed and probably many others have are

1.
The concept of re-incarnation where the 12th century vaishnavite kamal and asin are reborn in 21st century. You call it fate or chaos theory, the vaishnavite kamal seem to be holding onto the idol in 12th century and is drowned by the chola king. Whereas in 21st century Asin, who was the wife of 12th century vaishnavite holds the idol all along. The same Asin will tell her husband to tell the Om Namashivaya whereas in 21st century she will be a staunch believer (like the 12th century kamal) in God. Similarly the 21st century kamal seem to be a sort of a agnostic (not athiest) like the 12th century Asin.
OVER TIME, the roles have reversed :-)

2.
The NACL (sodium chloride) needed to destroy the vial containing the deadly virus REQUIRES a Tsunami and it is exactly driven to the place where Tsunami happens in Nagappattinam from the labs in the USA by a series of twists and turns brought in by the 10 characters. It basically inches closer to its destination / climax

3.

Now the people who are God believers may say that point 2) above was possible because lord ranganatha who is within the Sea (thrown in 12th century) has ensured that the Vial travels to the place where Tsunami is going to be triggered by him (it can possibly be done in Phuket also :-)
Where as, the non-believers can comfortably latch on to Chaos theory

4.
There is also a thread where concern for environment (illegal sand lifting) is brought out which could potentially result in a natural disaster (like a Tsunami) several hundred years from now. Effectively it is Man's greed that triggers all disasters resulting in killing of his own race. This is also true with the scientists working on producing deadly virus and chemical weapons.

There are few flaws with the makeup (Kalifulla khan's was really glaring), few logic flaws, but overall a very impressive and absolutely stunning performance of the 10 characters by Kamal haasan. Obviously combining multiple layers of information and still bringing out into a harmony is like the Western classical Fugue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue) which is brought out in cinema that too in a tamil cinema.

The Tsunami effects were brought out very well. Appreciate the work done by all the crew of Dasavatharam and to say the last, "I like anything that has a lot of effort and hardwork strewn with intellectual thinking in it". And that seem to be this movie.