Movie- Raavan. My thoughts

Let me come straight to the point. Raavan worked. For me, it definitely did. If you read further, you will come across spoilers. So if you're the kind that hates to know the story before watching the movie, and if you haven't watched it and you plan to watch it, then you will be well advised to to hit that small cross on your browser tab and say bye, now.

There are a number of things that I liked about the movie. I must admit, I didn't think the trailers were awesome. I liked a few songs and didn't like a few, when the album released. I didn't like what I read after the release. It turns out, the lowered expectations only gave me a great seat to watch the movie and the movie soared.

Yes, I liked the cinematography. Santhosh Sivan and Manikandam have done very well. But that's not the best thing about Raavan. Infact Raavan didn't surpass even Ashoka in camerawork. It definitely didn't out do Dil Se or Roja.

I liked the awesome BGM. The discerning ones among the ARR fans who've seen the movie would be able to recollect the Kannalane's Gum Sum Gum Sum Guppu CHUKK- inspired piece that comes twice or thrice. There is one interlude that reminds Thiruda Thiruda. And there is Jaa Re Udd Jaa Ree which gave me goosebumps when it came with Beera falling in SloMo. And there is this awesome Mangal Pandey like desi beats that run riot each time the Beera gang went on a rampage. But, there are bits where I felt Rahman could have done better. In the Song department, Kata Kataa and Behne Dee are my favorites. The others were good. But I couldn't appreciate Thok De or its placement or its relevance. So clearly, Music is not the overwhelming aspect causing me to care enough to write this review. That said, I have super high expectations from AR Rahman, higher than any other person who is credited for music in movies, and Rahman has lived up. Nice.

What really really worked for me is Maniratnam's brilliance. One thinks Mani has clearly reversed the goodness of the prime character's of Ramayan. Or that is what it seems upon cursory watching. That's what promos and pre release intuition would have us believe. But is that really the case, I beg to differ. If you notice carefully, Dev looks so unidimensional. We hardly adore the character. To top it Dev shoots Hariya. And he wears Ray Ban. And he utters hindi in rubbish accent. We naturally come to the conclusion that Dev is evil. We feel Mani wants us to hate the Ram of Ramayan and has been painfully obvious in his attempt. But look deeper. Did Dev commit any crime. Anything unworthy of a worthy police IPS. He did kill Hariya, but wouldn't it be naive of an IPS officer to let a dreaded criminal's aide go scott free. He could have taken him to custody or could have shot him, Dev chose the later, because Maniratnam was trying to fool us into thinking Dev was bad. I'll come to the polygraph test part later.

Lets come to Beera. Beera is supposed to be a dacoit known for killing police and looting guns for killing police. There is one scene where he is shown burning down a crowd of cops (2+ is crowd, isn't it). He kidnaps the IPS officer's wife to kill her because some khaki wearing people raped his sister. Yes shit happened to his sister. But Shit happens. The raping incident was never shown as Dev's fault. Beera's intentions of murdering Ragini changes only because he has a pretty_girl_jumping_off_the_cliff fetish. He is overcome by lust. From moment Ragini jumps off, his only agenda is to have Ragini stay with him. For all those overly concerned by lack of fear evoked by Bachchan in portraying Beera, he was supposed to act the seducing_married_girl act and not the spine_chillingly_cold_fear_inducing act. So chillax. In my opinion Abhishek Bachan did just fine. The plot mentions but doesn't delve on cruelty of Beera, by choice. Again Maniratnam's way of fooling us into thinking he is simplistically glorifying the Raavan of Ramayan.

Ragini is the witless, naive and fickle character. She falls for a totally_not_ubercool murderer who kidnapped her, gagged her mouth (the close up on Ragini's jaws forced apart by cloth was graphic, un-cool and un-sexy) and who is her husband's arch enemy from beginning. She is naive because the moment she knew that Beera is avenging for his sister, she starts feeling Beera's actions are justified. She is fickle because, at the slightest hint of being slighted by Dev she runs off and does and returns a Jhik Jhik Bukk Bukk to Beera to confess her love. But thankfully, she showed some decency by resisting the temptation of settling in Lal Mati with Beera till Dev takes care of the guilt part by questioning her chastity. If there is a character which is decisively different from Ramayan's portrayal, it is Sita's. Sita was as white as white, in Ramayan.

Do I even have to explain the Polygraph test. Dev never doubted Ragini. He reads Ragini's body language and learns that manipulating her could lead him to Beera. Which he does. Ragini falls for the bait. Dev follows her to Beera and kills him. I have come across reviews where authors have shown excessive concern about the future of Ragini's character after the movie ends. Guys come on, give me a break. She will either divorce Dev and live with her parents or marry again. Or she might even overlook that she was manipulated and go back to Dev. If she does it, in all probability the street-smart Dev would forgive and take the dancer wife back, for the high investment in mirrored bedroom that he has made.

If this version with a good Raavan and a bad Ram were the one that Doordarshan had shown us in scores of episodes in the eighties, Maniratnam wouldn't have had any problem in reversing the characters and showing Ram as good and Raavan as bad. Infact the Ram of Ramayan was guilty of doubting Sita. This Ram is whiter than that. Maniratnam has deftly attempted a double-double cross where ultimately Ram is not bad and a very smart, Raavan is a murderer and lusts married woman and holds married woman in captivity and waits for them to relent with no intention of releasing or killing or raping them, which the original Ramayan is anyways. The character that gets manipulated in all these manipulations is Sita's as I explained earlier. Mani Sir has just given his interpretation of Ramayan without touching the story. In summary, Raavan is a mindgame that is superbly shot and has great music. It is a pity that learned many could never get beyond the slow pace of the first half of the movie.

Dear Maniratnam, if you calculate lifetime value of your customers, us, double the amount that you expect from me. After Raavan, I will pay more to watch your movies irrespective of the reviews. Take a huge bow, Sir.

Kamal Hasan's Dasavatharam







The title of this blog is incorrect. It should have been named KS Ravikumar's Dasavatharam. Take a bow Mr. KS Ravikumar. Take a bow Kamal Hasan. Many congrats to the art directors the stunt director and to the talented cinematographer.

Dasavatharam rocks. It rocked big time for me. I have never seen a movie like this in any Indian language. Don't read me wrong. I am neither an ardent Kamal Fan nor someone who thinks Kamal is in the league of global actors of the caliber of the Al Paccino and co. I also didn't like the movie for its purported USP, i.e the ten made up Avtars played by the actor who played Avtar Singh. Yet Dasavatharam worked for me. If you need to learn more, read on.

The movie starts with a surreal aerial shot of Chennai. Chennai looks like Chennai in that shot (sounds trivial ? ). The bird eye camera captures the sky line (Earth-line is more appropriate) I mean the rooftops of the millions of two story buildings that inundate the city. The scene offers first glimpse of the non ordinary nature of the camera work in the movie. The shot zooms into a brass idol in a filled stadium and a Kamal's voice takes you to an episode of the 12th century.

If some understands the consequence of the events of 12th century to the rest of the movie, please tell me. I thought if one went to the movie 30 minutes late and missed all that, nothing would change. Anyways the shots of that part of the movie is has great camera work. The scene where kamal hasan is put through crucification inspired torture looks so real for an Indian movie.
This is the first Avtar of the ten. Kamal looks normal though one wonders how a 12th century pious brahmin who lives out of vegetarian food collected by Biksha (begging), as brahmins of those days lived, develop those well chiseled muscles. In one scene Kamal pushes a big statue of Perumal (Vishnu) which is shown to be too heavy for 6 people just seconds before. Aspiring for international standards Mr. Kamal Hasan?

The narrative returns to the stadium and quickly moves on to a biotechnology lab somewhere in US where a bio equivalent of nuclear weapon is being developed. The weapon is sold by the corrupt boss of the project to some international terrorist. This is where the protagonist Kamal, the 2nd Avtar who is the the top scientist of the project gets involved and steals the weapon in question to destroy it.

We are now into the first 40 minutes of the movie. Here a chase begins where the ex CIA agent now hitman, another Kamal in a foreigner getup is after the scientist Kamal. The make up of the hitman is okayish. It is very difficult to see Kamal in him so it is good but the man doesn't look like a human being, so make up is bad. But going by the standards of make up in this movie, this character is passable. During the course of the movie this character looks progressively less repulsive.

What I liked most about the movie is the lack of story in the plot. There is no clichéd hero vs villain both scheming against each other or superfluous romance or anything. There is just a chase. Plain and simple. The chase goes on for the next two hours and one is taken through a joy ride with so much comedy, nail biting stunts and 7 more Kamal Hasan's. This is where this movie stands out. This movie seems to be in the genre of Rush Hour or may be James Bond ones. Where the chase, the twists and turns form the plot. The movie could have been named Joy Ride as well which would have been more appropriate. The first half of of the movie is stunning without a single moment of slackness. A scene that involves an elephant, close to the interval, should be one of the best scenes that I can recollect in movies in general (not just Indian movies). Chidamabaram town is made to look so very lively with effervescent splendor and the song Mukunda Mukunda is beautifully picturised.


The post interval parts of the movie is slightly sluggish. It has typical Crazy Mohan's crazy dialogs. I am assuming the dialog writer is Crazy Mohan. Some scenes seem to last longer than required and some scenes seem avoidable. The movie would have been better if some 20 minutes of un-necessary footage second half were chopped. Any ways, I am still happy with the movie in general. attempts like this need encouragement and a bit leniency if one has to hope for Tamil movies to move out of Punch dialog and exaggerated nonsensical stunts of Vijay/Ajit/Captain movies.


My biggest criticism of the movie is its pathetic make up for some characters of Kamal. Almost all characters are played well and are lovable. But many look so un natural as if those characters were performed after sticking a department store mask on Kamal Hasan. For example the 90 year old lady Kamal Hasan is so endearing. It would have been brilliant had it been played by a lady. The make up for that role is pathetic. The worst among the ten. It is difficult to even keep the eye on the character. One wonders why Kamal had to endure it. Hours and hours of effort for such a trite looking result. Avoidable.

Same can be said of the 7+ feet tall Kamal. Again the character is endearing but un human looking. The Japnese Kung-fu artist is slightly better. So is the Poovaragavan character, although the entire character has no strong link to the story. The Raw agent kamal (Strong, extremely likeable Telugu accent and brilliant steriotyped mannerisms) looks okay. I already spoke about the ex CIA Hitaman. The two Kamal Hasans that look real good are the 12th century vaishnavaite and the scientist (protagonist). Avtar Singh is the best Kamal with a make up but the character was un necessary considering the plot.

One wonders why take the pains when technology has not matured enough for convincing (if not breathtaking) results. The dinosaurs of Jurrassic Park looked more convincing as earthlings than a few Avtars of Kamal. If Kamal had to show his penchant for doing different things neither the concept nor the results were worthy of praise (in my honest opinion).

Coming back to the good things of the movie (there are many), Mallika Sherawat is perfectly cast. I've not seen a better suiting character that Mallika Sherawat has played. Brilliant choice of the actor and a good performance here. Asin is too good. If the movie is lovable, which it is, then Asin is an important reason that the movie is that way. She looks honest, pesky, cheerful, and lovable. This is what acting is.

The Tsunami scenes are brilliant. Good CG. Best that I have seen in Indian movies. The link of Tsunami to the plot is good too. I thought it wouldnt be, but it was. The fight between the Japanese Kamal and the hitman Kamal is terrific, again the best that I have seen in Indian movies. Finally there is a subtle underlying acknowledgment of God , in a most logical manner. Good. Himesh Reshammiya is average. Mukunda number stands out. BG score is barely noticeable.

In the final analysis, I would say it is a collossal effort. And I give a thumbs up to its makers and actors (most of whom are Kamal Hassans :) ) and the art directors and the camera people and the stunt coordinators and the script writer (Kamal again- for having nail biting string of lively scenes in spite of the absence of any story as such). It is a risk taken and there are takers, like me, for the product. Congrats, Team Dasavatharam.