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Genius at work
 'When a baby is born, the mother forgets all about the pain she underwent during the tough period of pregnancy. Now that
'Virumaandi' is born, Kamal can sit back happily, and watch his baby laugh and cry, forgetting the tough period of making it.
As Kamal Haasan introduced himself from an electric pole as Virumaandi, his eyes had a gleam. The
focused gleam of an elated man, the experienced gleam of a man who's seen it all, the excited gleam of a man who is daring and willing to experiment.
The movie is a product of that very gleam. It
is a fascinating mixture of good and great, of deftness, defiance and
determination, of bravado and braveness, ah, the gleam of a genius.
Kamal's 'Virumaandi'
has a thought-provoking theme, and the movie, despite violence at its acme, highlighted the theme very well. The picturisation
is very good, especially the song sequences. The fights looked realistic, something rare these days.
Ilayaraja proves himself yet again with effortless
ease. The violin background score stands out.
Quite the most amazing thing about 'Virumaandi' is how the local flavour is maintained throughout. The dialect spoken in the film could easily be heard in
the villages near Madurai. Despite commercial pressures, need for item numbers in present-day cinema, Kamal maintains the local
flavour and that augurs well for the movie.
The bad points about this movie are few. Nasser, not given a meaty role yet again to prove his mettle; Kamal's fair skin does not blend well with the dark skinned villagers. And the most important, and that cannot be called a bad point, is the theme itself.
It confuses many people, yet
enlightens a few others. Kamal's movies are pieces of genius. They are not for the average person, they cater to a very few special, select audience who
'think'; the few who do not watch movies just for entertainment.
As yet another Kamal movie goes by, one cannot but stand in awe of the great man. What
versatility, what an actor, what a director, what a singer, what this, what that, what genius.
Great actors and directors do not care about the commercial aspect of their movies. They are in a different world, miles away from the routine rigmarole of commercial cinema. Kamal Haasan is at a stage of his life where money or fame have no meaning, the quality of his movie does. He achieves it to a very good extent in his latest
endeavour - 'Virumaandi'.
Srinivasa Ramanujam
Published on 20th Jan, 2004
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