Don’t read this book if you want to learn about Kamal Haasan, the person, more than what you already know, for you’ll be disappointed. Read this, instead, for a wonderful, thoroughly researched, deep dive of the major movies he worked in, how he selected his stories and worked his craft to delight audiences over the last six-and-a-half decades.
The book illustrates how film directors built with him through their films, a highly engaging social and political narrative about Tamil Nadu, reflective of the times they lived in.
K Hariharan, a national award-winning film director, has painstakingly detailed this cinematic journey. Hariharan chooses 40 films for this task, from the 260-odd that Kamal has done in his career.
He focuses on the plots of these stories rather than the process of making them and that is why the book is such a delight, as one learns about the underlying political and social messages that the films conveyed through their principal character, played by Kamal Haasan.
Hariharan begins the book with an analysis of five of the 28 films Director K Balachander made with Kamal in the initial years of his career. He takes you into the origins of the films that benchmarked some of the ideological issues that dominated the Tamil political discourse in those times including the non-Brahmin movement.
Balachander impact
Balachander uses Kamal Haasan to create a conscious and empathetic perspective of the urban, alienated life people had begun living in the tumultuous 70s. In films like Aval Oru Thodar Kathai, he pitches Kamal as a rationalist against the unforgiving nature of patriarchy by casting him as a hero surrounded by women struggling for independence from the restrictive clutches of tradition.
In the film Apoorva Raagangal, the falling apart of the utopian dream of a casteless Tamil society forms the backdrop of the film which stars both Kamal and Rajinikanth.
Balachander’s films Moondru Mudichu and Manmadha Leelai, explore why a woman is a piece of property in a marriage and why society questions a woman’s legitimacy to articulate her sexual desires, even as it is perfectly fine for a man to do so. Kamal was frequently placed right in the middle of such feminist discourse of Balachander’s films, which explains his fan following amongst both men and women.
Diverse films
Over several chapters, Hariharan analyses Kamal’s growth as an actor through his diverse films with different directors; Balachander for intellectual urban stories, Bharatiraja for rural themes, Balu Mahendra for women-centric films, Singeetham Sreenivasarao for comedies and SP Muthuraman for commercial masala films.
Sagara Sangamam, a terrific highly detailed plot of unrequited love and Pushpak, India’s only silent film till date, a dark and grim romantic thriller about the haves and the have nots are amongst my favourite Kamal films; and Hariharan didn’t disappoint in providing perspective that enriched my understanding of them.
Hariharan shares an interesting anecdote about the film Puskpak. Quite comically for a silent comedy film, without a single spoken word, it was required to be certified by the Censor board multiple times in all Indian languages with titles changed each time and ended up National award for best film in Kannada!
Hariharan points out how, in a lot of ways, in a one-of-its-kind generational shift, Kamal, on the one hand, took on the mantle from Sivaji Ganesan, doing the largely social message laden thematic films, while Rajnikanth, on the other, stepped into the shoes of MGR, creating one formulaic, commercial blockbuster after another to achieve superstardom.
As the century turned over, Kamal began to play roles in films like Indian, Uttama Villian and Virumandi that addressed larger social evils rather than individual angst.
From playing a dwarf, a woman, a blind man or twins, triples or even 10 different roles in one film, Kamal Haasan, will always be the true Behroopiya.
For most part, Hariharan’s analysis of films is interesting fodder for thought and sheds new light on some of Kamal’s films we have seen and enjoyed.
Pain points
Occasionally, Hariharan goes off the mark. In his analysis of Swati Mutyam, he equates the character’s travails to the emergence of NTR in Telugu politics, likening him to the principal character who came out of the oyster and glistened like a pearl. A very stretched and unbelievable argument.
Even his Spartacus analogy of the three films produced by Kamal himself, Mahanadi, Kuruthipunal and Indian, on the theme of emotional enslavement, seems quite a force fit.
The book could have done with a much better collection of photos, instead of just the publicly available posters, some photos of his dramatic moments on screen would have added to the narrative.
There’s also nothing about his craft, how he gets into character or how he can emote so well, endearing himself to his audiences.
With three big releases in 2024, Kalki, Indian and Thug Life, Kamal Haasan is still as prolific as he was when he started out. Get the book to discover how his films provide an incisive insight into Tamil history and culture.
The reviewer is the Founder & CEO of 91 Film Studios which produces and distributes feature films in Indian regional languages.
Check out the book on Amazon.
