Thanks to a delayed meeting, I missed the premiere of Dasavathaaram on Thursday night. Which also means I saved 300 bucks + good 5 hours of sleep. When Dasavathaaram was announced saying Kamal Haasan was the man in front of the camera, Tamil film audience were celebrating. They knew the movie was in safe hands. They knew history was in the making. But then on the first day, sadly Arun and I were in complete splits laughing all through the movie which claims to have a lot of AlGore and Ramanujar in it.
Dasavathaaram on a record breaking spree - After a movie like Aboorva sagodharargal or Michael madana kama rajan or even Aalavandhaan, who would have expected Dasavathaaram to be way behind Vijay’s Azhagiya Tamil Magan. ATM had created records for being crap but Dasavathaaram seems to be beating all of ATM’s records.
When Gautham Menon and Kamal Haasan came together, they gave us a stunning visuals. There were plenty of scenes shot in chroma and keyed to perfection. Expectations were obviously sky high for his next film Dasavathaaram which promised to be released along side with Rajnikanth’s Sivaji. News that Oscar Ravichandran has booked all premium theatres for Dasavathaaram and Sivaji has no theatres available was spreading like a wild fire. Finally, Sivaji released, created records, celebrated victory but yet no signs of Dasavathaaram being released.
Okay, cut the thought that I am a Rajnikanth fan. Whatever movie Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan make, they try to compete with each other. This has been going on for ages right from the time they decided not to work together. So the comparison just comes in.
Visual t(h)reat - Ten Kamal Haasan’s, all different from one another and almost 5 hours is spent on make up everyday. The movie is shot using the latest technology, people from abroad are roped in for technical expertise. The result is a visual threat. Kamal Haasan has been setting higher standards for himself and he has been successful many a times in reaching the great heights but here in Dasavathaaram the make up is pathetic, it is technically terrible. The first time while looking at the movie Indian, people were stunned. When Avvai Shanmugi released, people were amazed. But while watching Dasavathaaram, people only choked.
Honestly Kamal Haasan is someone who made Devar Magan and Anbe Sivam. He also made Panchthanthiram and Sadhileelavathi. But why Dasavathaaram? And now Marmayogi … Kamal Haasan definitely knows and loves cinema more than you and me, his mentor K.B. once said “Aalavandhaan flopped because Kamal was thinking way ahead of times and people couldn’t understand the movie”. This man could dance, he could fight and moreover he could act. When such a person dons ten roles in a movie and makes the movie for over two years and gives something worse than ATM, its definitely a flop.
How was Dasavathaaram made? There might be two reasons …
1. “Nobody has donned 10 roles in a single film so why not I do it”, thinks Kamal and he writes Dasavathaaram.
2. Kamal will definitely play the protagonist in the project signed by K.S. Ravikumar and Oscar Ravichandran. What if the antagonist gets all the credit. So the protagonist decides to be the antagonist as well. What if the grandma gets all the credits, so the protagonist decides to be the grandma as well. Slowly everyone were replaced by the protagonist. All of a sudden the protagonist realised he is donning ten roles and he aptly named the movie Dasavathaaram.
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But the movie was absolutely hilarious… Must accept though that they made an attempt to do something different.. anyhow i feel this film would have been different if kamal was jus an actor like Shivaji in Navarathri which had a story
nice write up
@ arun
except for balram naidu and vincent poovaragan, the other eight were just getting on my nerves …
@ srini
hmm why was i having a sense of deja vu about this movie….something was really off for me from the time i saw the promos n previews of the movie. I feel sorry for the people who wasted their time n money …..despite that movie will be a hit i think….since the curiousity was high!!!
Thnx for the heads up saved me my dollars!!
Hi Dinesh,
I think I had some more points to say! If you find time, read my review. Dasavatharam has its own forties too! You are right about the makeup. But think of kamal’s previous movies’ Anbe sivam, Panchathanthiram, Aalavanthan, Michael Madhana Kamarajan and sathileelavathi’. They were never commercially successful. This is a period where Tom Dick and Harrys like Vijay, Prabhudeva and Perarasu set standards. Being a big budgeted movie, I would appreciate kamal for not making an out of the world movie. Amidst hell a lot of trouble he has taken this out. I won’t say this is a bad effort!
This might interest you.
Anyway, i’ll watch the movie and decide for myself.
@ nandhini
but you should give it a watch … its anyway a kamal haasan movie, so dont miss it
@ capjack
first of all, speaking of big budgets, the movie’s budgets shot up plainly for one reason … break sivaji’s records …
speaking of make up, kamal haasan is pro in it … especially after indian and avvai shanmughi, the man has set higher standards for himself and what do you get to see in this dasavathaaram … its an eye sore …
i’am not sure about MMKR and sathileelavathi but anbe sivam and panchathanthiram made money, the movies were made in shoe string budget and cost was recovered as well …
even if you say these movies weren’t box office hits, then whats wrong with kamal, his panchathanthiram doesn’t make money and even a movie as heavy as anbe sivam doesn’t make money?
@ narain
it sure does
reading dasavatharam reviews seem to be more interesting that watching it i guess..
god review..
>>>>Nobody has donned 10 roles in a single film so why not I do it
exactly… it was so lame..
i wonder y asin was brought in… ?? kamal could have been the heroine too
Hi Dinesh
‘first of all, speaking of big budgets, the movie’s budgets shot up plainly for one reason … break sivaji’s records …’
– I agree. But thats where the pressure starts for Kamal. ‘To travel ahead of Sivaji’. By giving a classic movie you can’t defeat Sivaji. At the same time real Kamal fans wont be happy if he gives a nonsense movie. So he has tried to give a movie somewhere in between. i look at the brighter side. You look at his flaws. Same idea but from two different perspectives.
’speaking of make up, kamal haasan is pro in it … especially after indian and avvai shanmughi, the man has set higher standards for himself and what do you get to see in this dasavathaaram … its an eye sore …’
-Completely I go with you. I have mentioned the same thing in my review too.
‘i’am not sure about MMKR and sathileelavathi but anbe sivam and panchathanthiram made money, the movies were made in shoe string budget and cost was recovered as well …’
- kamal is one of the top notch actors and we expect a big box office from him. He can’t escape by saying it recovered the investment. Even in Anbe Sivam and Panchathanthiram there were hell a lot of flaws which prevented them from going up. I would say Anbe Sivam tumbled in the second half and Kamal’s attempt to tie up the movie commercially at the denouement crashed the whole goodness of the movie. Panchathanthiram went the other way. The screenplay didnt meet the excellent dialogues. Also most of us didnt have a quick ear to laugh at the verbal fun. So I would call them failures. I’ve heard kamal himself say in an interview ‘Sometimes people punish me for giving them classic movies like Anbe Sivam’.
‘even if you say these movies weren’t box office hits, then whats wrong with kamal, his panchathanthiram doesn’t make money and even a movie as heavy as anbe sivam doesn’t make money?’
The flaws which you shower on Kamal for his Dasavatharam applies to almost every one of his movies. For instance Aalavanthaan lacked originality since it was a loose mixture of a few pocket novels of the 60s inspired by Psycho, comic strips, a movie called Twelve monkeys(not the story but visualisation and characters- Compare Brad Pitt and Riyas khan!, watch Bruce Willis closely!) and the movie psycho(1960)(The mother illusion) itself. In the early 80s kamal serialised Aalavanthan( Under a different name) in a magazine called Idhayam pesukirathu edited by writer Maniyam. Anbe Sivam infact had a nice theme but too heavy for Kamal to handle. If you ask me kamal’s drawbacks His acting is not original at times(Not always). He still has a lot to know about writing screenplays(He looks smashing in his themes and stories!) Secondly Kamal should stop imitating western actors at times and do good characters as in Aboorva sagotharargal. (Kamal apparently imitates the guy who plays Hercule Poirot in the movie ‘Murder in the orient express’ in many of his movies. But he does that very craftily! People in theatrics may agree with me here.).
Thirdly I personally think he should let go the ‘Naan’ illusion which blindfolds his eyes in movie making. He has a lot of potential, but unused. If he corrects himself soon he can go heights. In Dasavatharam all these flaws are easily see through. Thats the difference. Kamal fans may not like me for saying this. But honestly this is what I think.
I would like to mention another thing here. Last week i saw two movies of Brad Pitt: ‘Fight Club and Se7en’ I discovered that Fight Club+Se7en= Anniyan. Even a scene from it was copied in Kakha Kakha
As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you