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Is violence the way to conquer?
AT THE preview of "Alavandan", where the felicitations were mercifully kept to a minimum and the floral tributes were generous, the quieter interval such low-key formalities enabled and the slow progress through crowds of fans to get to transport together ensured plenty of time to digest Kamal Hassan's latest offering. It didn't, however, go down too easily. There's no better actor than Kamal Hassan in the Indian film world today and in every recent film of his, the technical excellence has been indisputable. The brilliant colour, the superb photography, the outstanding special effects, even the story line — despite the shades of Corsican Brothers, Psycho and Silence of the Lambs — ensured that he had everything going for him in the film.
Why then was it necessary to unleash so much explicit violence — more than half the picture seemed to revel in it — and such a blast of sound that made every punch sound like a thunder-clap and every fall like a tonne of bricks collapsing, shaking the listener, particularly in long, unrelieved sequences?
I know this is a violent world, but the chopping of heads and limbs, bites that vampire-like draw blood and crucifixions are the rarest of rare forms of violence in everyday life. Offering them as regular fare in films doesn't ensure winners. Nor does it make heroes of the righteous; rather, it tends to glorify the psychopath. And do we really need to do that in this day and age?
That Kamal Hassan is soon to take a different tack is news I welcome. He's to recall on screen one of the great influences in his life, Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, that great modern Tamil playwright and stage personality. Sambanda Mudaliar's greatest triumphs were in Victoria Public Hall, better known in his day as Town Hall, a venue now in a sorry state of neglect. Wouldn't it be a great idea if Kamal Hassan made a film not for the wide screen nor with the blast Dolby sound can produce if not gently handled, and had its preview in the Town Hall, which could be just basically restored for the occasion? Such a show for his well-wishers and all those connected with the Tamil stage could well lead to the long-promised restoration of what was once Madras's main entertainment venue getting underway. Now that would be really doing something different — and it might get him back to thinking about what could be his masterpiece, the almost-forgotten "Maruthanayagam Pillai".
S. MUTHIAH
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