Spoilers ahead…
Kamal Haasan’s films suffer sometimes because they end up looking like vanity projects, but Uttama Villain, directed by Ramesh Aravind, couldn’t be anything else – for this is the story of a vain star named Manoranjan (Kamal Haasan). This is cinema about cinema, and because Tamil cinema is really about the hero, the film begins with a shot of a projection booth (in a theatre screening Manoranjan’s latest release) and it ends with the image of the star frozen on screen. Kamal has often called himself a limelight moth, but here his wattage is increased a million-fold. He’s the sun of his universe, everyone else a mere satellite in obeisant orbit. I’m not just talking about the fans who throng malls (what a perfect location, given that Manoranjan is, in a way, a consumer product; just like you go to a sports store to buy a pair of sneakers, you go to the multiplex to buy three hours with Manoranjan), waiting for a glimpse of their hero. I refer, also, to the Kamal Haasan repertory company (Oorvasi, Jayaram, Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Nasser, K Viswanath), who have to make room not just for Manoranjan and Uttaman (the character Manorajan plays in a movie inside this movie), but Kamal Haasan himself. It’s possibly the most head-spinning triple role in cinema history.
Has any Indian star bared himself – and bored into himself – on screen the way Kamal has in Uttama Villain? The closest cinematic cousin is probably Fellini’s near-autobiographical 8½, which was about a director grappling with a creative block. Here, we have a sixty-year-old actor contemplating his legacy, his mortality. At least part of the fun of watching Uttama Villain comes from that legacy, as we play spot-the-reference. Early on, we catch the name of Manoranjan’s new film, Veera Vilayattu. Is that title a nod to the film Kamal made with Gautham Menon a few years ago? We see a song with Manoranjan prancing about in foreign locations with a much-younger actress (Pooja Kumar). Isn’t this the complaint we had of Kamal in his overtly commercial films from the latter half of his career? Isn’t that why the song carries the word “Singaravela”? Like Kamal, Manoranjan specializes in the step where he leaps and taps his toes in mid-air. In a season of meta films, Uttama Villain is possibly the meta-est of them all.
Hello, old lady at the 2:30 mark with mortar and pestle!
After a while, I began to see Kamal movies everywhere. That point where he barks an order (“Sit down!”) to his female costar – is that from Punnagai Mannan? That point where he appears with a shaved head and fearsome face makeup – is that from Aalavandhan? The big man who lifts, with ease, Manoranjan’s long-suffering secretary Chockalingam (MS Baskar) – is that Bhim boy? That point where we see a minor character using a mortar and pestle – surely that’s not a nod to a beloved song from Meendum Kokila? But at least some of the nods are unambiguous. Manoranjan’s PRO is played by Chitra Lakshmanan, who handled the promotions for a lot of Kamal Haasan’s films in the 1980s and also directed him in Soora Samharam. Better yet, Manoranjan’s guru – allegorically named Margadharisi – is played by K Balachander, and like the legendary filmmaker, he finds it difficult to make movies with this star, who was a mere “actor” when they made a series of hit films together. We see a picture of K Balachander with ‘Chaplin’ Chellappa, in that bowler hat, and there’s a lump in the throat. The collaborations of this actor-director duo are so much a part of our growing-up years, their history feels like ours.
“Sit down!”
And do I need to say that there are many women in Manoranjan’s life? When his son asks him if he’s going to leave his mother for another woman, it’s like reading the headlines in a gossip rag – you have to wonder how much of this is real, how much fiction. Still, it’s clear that there’s room for only one great love in the star’s life: cinema. (Again, remind you of someone?) The rabbit hole gets deeper when we see that the film Manoranjan begins work on, playing the character of Uttaman under Margadharisi’s direction, is also named Uttama Villain, and it too has music by Ghibran. And this is when the real beauty of Kamal Haasan’s conceit kicks in. (He wrote the screenplay, but then, by now, you’ve guessed that.) Manoranjan is dying, and Uttaman cannot die. It’s one thing that actors never really age, let alone die. Every time we watch Kalathur Kannamma, Kamal is five years old. But Manoranjan will not be around forever, and playing Uttaman is the ultimate kind of wish-fulfillment. It’s Manoranjan’s ticket to immortality. (It’s no accident that Uttaman is an actor too.)
Uttama Villain – the overall film, that is, not the folklore-ish film that’s being shot within the film (and which is set in the eighth century) – now begins to play out as a series of contrapuntal scenes. Manoranjan has a tender moment with his doctor, named Arpana. (Rani Mukerji’s character in Hey Ram! was called Aparna. Just saying.) And we cut to a love song enacted in the film-within-the-film, the lovely Kaadhalaam kadavul mun. Manoranjan collapses. We cut to Uttaman singing about saagaavaram, the boon of immortality. Manoranjan spies his children from outside his house (for a change, he’s the spectator). We hear, on the soundtrack, En udhirathin vidhai (my bloodline…), and we cut to another father-son scene, between Prahalada and Hiranyakashipu, played by Uttaman. Both stories – the one about Manoranjan, the one about Uttaman – feature love triangles, and both feature scheming. The niggling doubt whether a star like Manoranjan, in this commercial climate (all the press wants to know in a scene is whether Veera Vilayattu will make a hundred crores), would make a movie Uttama Villain is pushed aside when we remember that Manoranjan may actually be Kamal Haasan, who has been at war with the definition of “commercial cinema” for quite a while now. Consider this: the movie Manoranjan was attached to earlier was about the life of Adi Shankara.
Apart from a typically solid lead(s) performance, Uttama Villain has a lot of what we’ve come to expect in a Kamal Haasan movie – from reclaimed archetypes (the vidushika) to pet phrases (satyameva jayate). There’s the expected mix of languages – Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, English. And there’s the play with language. A character is named Yamini simply so that a letter written to her can feature the words “yaam ini…” A line toys with the rhymes edai / idai / udai. That’s worth at least a small smile. But there’s a big laugh in store when the Tenali Raman-like Uttaman mounts a tiger and exclaims, “Ayyo… appa,” and an onlooker yells back, “Ayyappa!” I don’t know if I laughed at the scene itself or at Kamal’s cleverness, but there are many humorous bits in the portions with Uttaman. Even the production company formed by Manoranjan carries the whiff of wordplay. It has his name fused with his mentor’s: Manomaarga, the way of the heart. If that doesn’t define Kamal’s career, I don’t know what does.
“Satyameva jayate…”
But despite all this – all this appreciation for Kamal’s writing; all this acknowledgement of his (personal and professional) past; all these questions about his future – Uttama Villain is just a series of discrete scenes. It just doesn’t come together as a cohesive whole. And at least part of the problem is the people Kamal has chosen to help him bring his vision to screen. Pooja Kumar is pretty, and I was impressed by her athleticism when bound in chains (it’s not what you’re thinking, I assure you), but she’s a shrill presence. I didn’t buy her for a second as an eighth-century princess, not in that pixie-bob. Andrea Jeremiah, too, is incapable of pulling the weight her role requires. As for good actors like MS Baskar and Nasser (in Rasta hair and a Thai crown!), we see them in scenes that should have us laughing and crying, but we don’t do any of these things. There’s always a beat missing. There’s always some dead air. There’s a scene where Chockalingam reads out a letter in a screening room. We can practically hear the stage directions. He unfolds the letter. The room is dark. He squints. He gets up and walks to the screen and begins to read by the light of the projected image. In other words, what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction?
Kamal Haasan’s writing is so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent that it’s always a question whether even the best actors and directors in the world can come up with the kind of wit and timing needed to fully make the transition from page to screen – in other words, the best Kamal Haasan movies are probably locked up inside his head, where they reside in the most perfect possible manner. But with some of the lightweight cast and crew he’s been working with of late, this material doesn’t stand a chance. I saw a version of Uttama Villain that ran close to three hours. I hear it’s being trimmed to two-and-a-half hours, but that doesn’t change much except maybe save you a couple of leg cramps. From what I heard, the portions being chopped were from Uttaman’s story. I can’t say I’m surprised. This track is staged like a school play – the pacing is just off – and it doesn’t mesh easily with Manoranjan’s story. (Ghibran’s stirring orchestral passages are lost in this friction between the two narratives.) Even the much-hyped Theyyam sequence (why Theyyam in a Tamil kingdom?) plays like an afterthought – it isn’t organic, it’s just another cool thing we now know Kamal Haasan can do. The glass-half-full guy in me says I should be thankful that a film at least gives you so much to think about, but this film isn’t that kind of glass. It’s really a looking glass. How I wished the entire film had been a mirror on Manoranjan, about what it is to be a star of a certain age, at a certain stage, about what it means to be Kamal Haasan.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2015 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
p s krish
May 2, 2015
The film is just getting released. Did you catch it a special screening ?
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sanjana
May 2, 2015
Will it make some money and profits?
Will it get awards?
Can a common man understand it and appreciate it if he or she is not a fan of KH?
Is it narcissistic?
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Lovable guy
May 2, 2015
Totally a misguiding review. Hope you can find a better job !
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kans345
May 2, 2015
Someone needs to call up Kamal Haasan and let him know that Cinema is a director’s medium and not an actor’s. If he needs to make good cinema and also act in it, he needs to function at two levels one as a master directing his own alter ego (the actor), the way Orson Welles did Citizen Kane. This can be possible only if he realizes that art cannot be an excercise in vanity.
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Rajesh
May 2, 2015
For me, Kamal like Mohanlal, still cannot accept the fact that their best is past them. Am not sure Kamal can produce stuff like in Michael Madan.. just like Mohanlal is unable to produce sublime performances like he did in the 80’s. They know they have the talent in them, but dont realise that the train has gone past them in the form of ageing, and the ego keeps on growing, which make them think about themselves as complete actors and what not, but cant replicate excellence on the contemporary scene. Kamal seems to have this weird idea that getting more and more complicated, might make him look a better actor, writer and what not.
If only these actors sticked to simple roles ideal for their ages, which wont make them look like super heroes!!!
Kamal Haasan’s writing is so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent that it’s always a question whether even the best actors and directors in the world can come up with the kind of wit and timing needed to fully make the transition from page to screen – in other words, the best Kamal Haasan movies are probably locked up inside his head, where they reside in the most perfect possible manner
Just like he want to announce in every frame – look how good an actor I am, in all his writings he is packing up too much stuff. But if the final product is not fluent and attractive by itself, what is the use of trying to show off the knowledge and intellectualism.
An Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, who passed away recently said this: “People say Maradona had the ball tied to his boot, but Messi has the ball inside his foot. I like Messi, because he doesn’t think he’s Messi.” And the genius keeps on getting better and better making us wondering what might be the real limits of this artist on ground.
If only our superstars had that kind of attitude, they would have tried doing simpler stuff on screen, and might have come up with better performances than the past. Unfortunately, our stars grow so much that they cannot choose normal stories and characters anymore.
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Arvind Srinivasan
May 2, 2015
A problem of plenty is probably the word. Yes that’s how I would put it. Its a movie that has its focus misdirected for the most part through flabby, repetitive melodrama. While I could understand the innate connection between Manoranjan and Uttaman and the paradox involved (gosh this was sort of apparent when the songs were released), I was let down by the way it was presented. One could never see what Uttaman meant for Manoranjan on screen, how personal Uttaman’s story is. We are shown the haste at which Manoranjan wants to film a movie ( a one last ditch attempt with his maker and guru) and that’s it. What is Uttaman to Manoranjan? Why is this story so important that the guy wants this as the subject for his last film. We are just left to ponder.
And what we get in return is overextending, flabby melodrama. Though excellently written in most places it gets repetitive and dreary. It would have worked had it been just about the dying superstar-illicit daughter or the dying superstar-wife or the dying superstar-kalla kaadhali or the dying superstar-son, dying superstar-genius filmmaker-guru…It rather choose to have everything much like the man who plays the man himself leading to almost everyone (and I mean literally everyone) dropping their guard and breaking down at the count of three.
With all of this still, the movie within the movie came a cropper as the connection between the two was never properly established. The comedy looked staged (the whole movie at times gave me the same effect as well), the ones that I have come to associate with in stage dramas (me being a regular attendee of Crazy Mohan and SVS). The comedy never really got going and it hardly evoked more than a chuckle in a lot of places. Add Pooja Kumar’s inadequacy and there you go.
Despite all these problems, the movie worked for me solely because of Kamal Haasan. A lot has been spoken about his acting over the years. But this film will probably come up as a good example of a single handed gargantuan performance lifting a movie. He’s magnificent and easily eats up many of the movie’s small, insignificant single digit scores to get a mighty ton (much likes Sachin of the 90s).
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Akhilan
May 2, 2015
For the life of me, I can’t get my head around how Andrea continues to get acting jobs. She was decent in Pachaikili Muthucharam and that was it. Surely we have better talent than the likes of her and Pooja Kumar. If you’d expect anyone to know that, it’d be Kamal Hassan. So why…??
Also BR, you hit the nail on the head with regards to the Theyyam sequence representing ‘just another cool thing we now know Kamal Haasan can do’. That’s probably been my biggest gripe with a majority of his movies. Sometimes less is more; subtle trumps the overt. IMO, Kamal Hassan just comes across as trying too hard at times. I so often get the feeling that he’s ‘acting’ rather than just ‘being’. Like a snoozing alarm clock, I’m constantly reminded of Kamal Hassan the great ‘actor’, but rarely of the characters he depicts on screen. But this is just me, apologies if this sounds blasphemous to some people…
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Subbu
May 2, 2015
Kamal showing how all superstars in Indian mainstream cinema should leave behind a legacy, rather than just minting money.
Excellent performance, should bag his fourth national award. He broke the record with 3 national awards couple of decades back (youngest to achieve that before Bachchan/Mammootty took several years later to equal), then got distracted to direction and writing, which he still also excelled at.
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Shankar
May 2, 2015
Let me say this…I loved the film. And I may be in a minority here. As I walked out of the theater, the one word that kept coming to me was ….Audacious! Sure, there are many problems in the execution, but the pluses made it up for me.
@Arvind Srinivasan, I agree with what you are saying but I felt the Uttaman comedy was meant to be filmed like that. It was almost a parody and hence the high pitched acting by all in those phases. I grew up watching a lot of dance dramas and Kathakali performances during childhood and quite enjoyed those portions. Kamal was magnificent.
The whole paradox between mortality and immortality was fascinating to me. It was like trying to create “Unbreakable” with one character. As Baddy says, the whole movie was a self-reflection for Kamal including that part where he wants to make a movie with his creator before he dies (in reality KB sir was in middling health at that time).
And after a long time, I thought the music was well integrated, didn’t stand out on its own. It was superb.
Sure, the film has problems, but I’m glad such films are getting made. And not once did I really feel the 3 hour run time!
@Rajesh, I have to make a small observation with what you said. Sure, these folks are getting old, but at least Kamal is making some good films (despite Dasavatharam and M Ambu) that has something in it. Mohanlal, who is a favorite of mine, is just acting in rank bad films…with the likes of Dhrishyam and Thanmatra popping up rarely.
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Aravindan
May 2, 2015
SPOILERS
oh… I was actually very surprised that I really liked her.. in the best written scene for her. (what a lovely scene, the scene in the car!). the same goes with the actor who played the son – I actually walked into the film having prepared to hate him based on the trailer – but surprisingly his performance too worked.
I had no complaints about the Manoranjan parts – it was almost excellent. I was so happy when Kamal spoke about MS Bhaskar during the promos, about his caliber as an actor – and the best scene in the film was for him – hold on, it was almost as if Kamal wanted to give these actors a good chance, if not a last chance like Manoranjan gives himself – and they all did very well. (Except, may be, Pooja).
Most of the Uttaman film worked too. It was very unsettling to watch the film in any case – it’s the reality that I am reluctant to face about Kamal’s recent movies and it’s also the kind of Kamal film that I am eager to watch. (No wonder, he wanted to call it Bitter Chocolate). I am not a big fan of the comedies he make – and at some point from a funny scene of Uttaman to an emotional scene of Mano – I was a bit, I don’t know, grim. Is this what he goes through while making those quick, senseless comedies?
Anyway, one DVD parcel to Jigarthanda team.
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ramchanderkrishna
May 2, 2015
It wasn’t just lacklustre filmmaking. But unprofessional execution I felt. As a normal movie viewer, I could spot so many faults. In the first Theyyam sequence, in one wide-angle shot they had a body double doing Uttaman’s dance. In some of the emotional sequences, when shots cut back to the actors, there’s a jarring difference in their facial expressions. (especially the convo between Kamal and MS Bhaskar in the projector room). It’s evident they’re from different takes. Such mistakes subconsciously push a viewer away from engaging with the film.
The camerawork seemed to suffer from the “show-the-entire-set” syndrome that Kochadaiiyaan had too. The camera would start off from a wide-angle shot & swoop closer as the scene progressed. Or stay at a wide angle. I felt this too was a reason for us not being able to feel for the characters.
As an audience, we must feel what Margadarisi says about Manoranjan’s final performance. “Ennama perform pannirukkaan paarunga. Pinnittaan!” But, what we get is a Hiraniyan naadagam with zero impact. And why would fans in the film be dancing & howling & removing their shirts for the Hiraniyan naadagam climax? Wasn’t the Uttamavillan film in the film meant to be a comedy? Why are people reacting to it like that? Did anyone take their shirt off while watching Panchathanthiram or Tenali? Ok… maybe Kamal fans are weird. Oh sorry… Manoranjan fans.
And what’s the song doing at the start? If it was meant to establish that Manoranjan is a typical masala movie hero, then is having a song the only way to establish that? Isn’t that just lazy writing? The moment Manoranjan said he has a slight headache it was obvious he’s got a tumour. The moment Jayaram made a hand gesture showing a small baby, it was obvious Manoranjan has an illicit child. Why was so much screen time wasted in building that up as if it’s a ulaga maga suspense? Is Uthamavillan even a good screenplay?
@brangan: Wanted to know what you thought of the parallelism between the two storylines? Is there one? Can we equate Uttaman from the past to Manoranjan of the present? Or is Manoranjan actually representing Nasser, with the Narasimha avatar being replaced by brain tumour?
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Arvind Srinivasan
May 2, 2015
@ Shankar- All that I have to complain about the 8th century portions was that it really didn’t gel along with the main picture.There’s a very thin thread connecting reel and real which could have been explored. And it looking staged was pretty much intentional from the makers and I just said that as a fact. it’s just that it didn’t work for me. There were a few screamers in between though. And Nasser was terrific.
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kk
May 2, 2015
SPOILER ALERT
BR, do you think he really died in the end ? Or did he fake his death. That’s what I understood from that car scene in which Andrea asks all to promise etc..
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Aravind Ramachandran
May 2, 2015
Really enjoy your reviews but got to say the former half of this (the review) had me kinda confused … seems to weave in & out between the movie review & actor / personality review. Maybe I ain’t so deep.
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sen
May 2, 2015
I disagree on kamal barring it all.He is the most smartest and shrewdest guy in the industry. He only told what everybody knew.If he wanted to bare it all then he should have talked about how he bankrupted so many of the producers because of his indulgence.What was the purpose of K.vishwanath in the movie.Guess that was kamal’s way of thanking him for resusing “Salangai oil’s” core theme into this movie.Screenplay has been deliberately tampered to insert so much of his pet themes like atheism and the political undertones(king without an ear).
I also felt that kamal post vishwaroopam is doing a drishyam. He is trying to plant the idea into everyone’s mind that he is a legend.he is a man who is living for the art.But the time has passed there are more smarted and talented directors than him in business. Iam not sure how long we are going to notice the hidden meanings and symbolism and keep praising. for god sake how hard it is to give a movie with a clear and focused screenplay that only serves the story.That can only happen if kamal grows up and puts the story above his childish indulgence.Legend. what a joke.he has to grow up.
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Vasudha
May 2, 2015
This is a very complicated review. At the end of the review am left with only one thought- if one hasn’t followed KH’s career closely enough, it’s not possible to understand the movie just like I have no clue what to make of this review.
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brangan
May 2, 2015
kans345: If he needs to make good cinema and also act in it, he needs to function at two levels…
And those two levels, IMO, are acting and directing. The Kamal films that worked for me over the last decade or so (Hey Ram!, Vishwaroopam, Virumaandi) were all directed by him. Note the technical stuff too. The cinematography and editing in Virumaandi are astounding.
His kind of material needs a VERY strong and clued-in team, so even if you groan at the occasional self-indulgence, there’s still a ton to like.
The one exception to this is Anbe Sivam, but I guess that’s the exception that proves the rule 🙂
Arvind Srinivasan: One could never see what Uttaman meant for Manoranjan on screen, how personal Uttaman’s story is.
Uh, but it’s amply clear what Uttaman means to Manoranjan, a ticket to immortality, a wish-fulfillment. He’s dying and he’s creating a fantasy of everlasting life. How much more personal can it get?
The problem is more than the two narrative strands don’t really gel — tonally as well as staging-wise.
ramchanderkrishna: And why would fans in the film be dancing & howling & removing their shirts for the Hiraniyan naadagam climax?
I read this as part of the wish-fulfillment, that his swan song, so to speak, would be this grand thing that’s classy as well as a mass hit.
And what’s the song doing at the start? If it was meant to establish that Manoranjan is a typical masala movie hero, then is having a song the only way to establish that? Isn’t that just lazy writing?
Yes, it’s lazy, and that’s the whole point. That he’s acting in lazy crap masala fare — even his son observes that it’s “full of clichés.” This song is one of those clichés. That is, the screenplay mirrors this laziness by incorporating it. Full meta, no? 🙂
About parallelism, see reply above about what Uttaman means to Manoranjan.
kk: I thought he dies, but is resurrected on screen forever. That’s the way I read the ending, because he’s now… immortal.
Aravind Ramachandran: former half of this (the review) had me kinda confused – seems to weave in & out between the movie review & actor / personality review
You got it. That’s exactly it 🙂
sen: Oh please. No one really “bares it all.” I’m just saying there’s enough here to make a case for this as a near-autobiography.
Vasudha: Well, even if you haven’t seen those films, don’t you get the “general” idea that earlier films are being referred to
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Santosh Kumar T K
May 2, 2015
So, BR, do you see Ramesh Arvind anywhere? Or does he join the venerable Mssrs. Ravikumar, Sunder & Associates?
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venkatesh
May 2, 2015
“A superb core let down by lackluster filmmaking”
I would pay real good money to see him in a straight forward Masala movie befitting his age. No atheism, no pet themes, no meta nothing.
Just a straight forward cleanly done masala movie. An older version of Ghilli if you will
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Arvind Srinivasan
May 2, 2015
@bragan: Agreed the relationship between Uttaman and Manoranjan was very much palpable and was the ticket for Manoranjan to attain immortality…. that’s the fulcrum on which the whole movie is structured.. Completely understood…. But my point of intrigue is as to who’s story is this at the start… Margadari’s or Manoranjans…. whose figment of imagination is this… Was it ever implied that Manoranjan’s the writer of this just like the real life Kamal… It is Margadarisi who’s seen explaining the movie not Manoranjan or are we to just assume that its Manoranjan since its him who’s travelling along the character of uttaman and that Maragadarisi is just a கருவி ( an instrument).. That’s left ambiguously and its been bugging my mind ever since….. Close to the topic, we have seen a good number of films that closely knit the real and reel like personas in the movie… Black swan, the recent Birdman… to a certain extent Rang de basanti (the overlap of tonalities of both reel and real personas was more organic in my opinion).
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Srikanth
May 2, 2015
Quite surprised to see that this film is getting a lot of negative responses. I found it really entertaining, although I will admit that the Uthaman film and the Manoranjan story didn’t segue well and the melodramatic sentiments regarding Mano’s impending death could have been toned down significantly.
But leaving aside all that, quite a few things in the film worked for me. The main hero in a Tamil film entering into a marriage of convenience of sorts, and later shown to be having an affair with his doctor is something I imagine would call for a blaring background score and loads of guffaws from the audience. In this case, neither the film nor the audience seems to care – and isn’t that a symbol of progressive change? That our hero isn’t essentially a ‘hero’ in reality, but a flawed character? Never mind the fact that it is a Kamal Haasan film, and given his propensity for such unusual story arcs it may even seem normal to a few viewers. But for a Tamil film, it certainly isn’t and I think that is a point worth noting.
With regard to the general opinion that Kamal seems too full of himself to give any screen space to his co-stars, isn’t that actually the whole point of this film? He plays an egotistic movie star who is so good at what he does that he really doesn’t have the time to care for anything else. The film should be about him, and if there is one actor who can appear in almost every frame of a three hour film and still not bore you, it is Kamal. He puts in a rollicking performance, both as a brooding celebrity and as an effervescent “Mrutyunjayan”.
Also, there are so many things this film does right that an average Tamil film does not even try to do – the heroine’s lip sync is almost right (thank god), there are no out of place songs (if you ignore the first one, given its context) and the music is outstanding. When a movie gets so much right, I think we can forgive it for some of its obvious flaws.
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Raj
May 2, 2015
Finally one reviewer who didn’t let his integrity fail after paid press reviews or even fall for sympathy /empathy & tell this movie is master piece. Rest of ppl whose part or full time job as tamil cinema reviewers can feel guilty now. Premier show – in US , ppl walked away 20 mins before climax. Remember we don’t have intermissions here like u do. And for a patience tester ppl either walk out or meddle with mobiles. That’s it. Movie is done and done.
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Reuben
May 2, 2015
Loved the movie. It is the closest to a nolanesque treatment in Indian Cinema, certainly Tamil Cinema of a complex and abstract concept such as death and immortality.
I agree the writing is heavily loaded and layered that it requires further viewings to completely appreciate the nuances.
The references to his (Kamal’s) own life is very much obvious but the only disappointment is that it is probably not bold enough to bare enough of his “villain” qualities.
Kudos for simply attempting to tackle such a subject. I really hope it does not incur losses for the producers. Movies like these needs to be encouraged and the creators needs to be given a chance to push the envelope further.
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Ram Murali
May 2, 2015
BR, nice review. I am yet to watch the movie. But am curious- could you mention a thing or two about urvashi and kb’s performances?
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Arun
May 2, 2015
I watched this movie yesterday but inspite all the views (no disrespect here) I think this movie is about Kamal paying homage to K.B sir.. just swap real life KB sir with what Kamal is playing as an artist (minus certain details) – maybe this is why he says three ways to immortality – sage, writer, actor.. writer and actor (artists) are immortal ..
But overall the movie was a let down in the sense of whole package.. but I would take this any day better than Dasavathaaram 🙂 just saying..
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Aditya
May 2, 2015
After Kamal’s successful transplantation of Rashomon to Tamil by way of Virumandi, I was hoping for his take on Ikiru here. Sadly, this movie has some moderately interesting things to say about the career of Kamal Hassan but next to nothing to say about greater themes of mortality and legacies.
Couldn’t you have contacted him to make a ‘Conversations with Kamal Hassan?’ That would have spared us this movie…though we’d have missed out on one of the finest scores heard in Tamil cinema in years.
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venkat ramanan
May 3, 2015
@rajesh.. lol “their best is past them” wait till papanasam releases..for lal.. drishyam and ennum eppozhum are definitely among his fine performances.
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Ravi
May 3, 2015
Friends/BRangan, out of the 3, which would you recommend to watch at cinema with family:
Uthama Villain, Vai Raja Vai or OK Kanmani?
Live in the UK so taking the family out to watch a film will cost me around 3800 INR so please let me know which is the most entertaining.
I am interested in Uthama Villain but the historical moments alluded to in the trailers makes it seem like Kamal is once again too caught up in expressing his vast knowledge at the expense of boredom to the “commercial” audience. I do apologize if I offended anyone. But if it is up to the level of Vishwaroopam, then I am definitely gonna watch it. Just cannot tolerate the self-indulgent crap seen in Dasavatharam.
Vai Raja Vai looks like a “mass” film but something makes me think that it is just gonna be a shoddy film but if it is at least well directed to a certain extent like 3, then maybe it is worth the watch.
I hope you guys can get back to me soon.
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Kaarthik Arul
May 3, 2015
Uttaman story was dragging and disappointing though it has some hilarious moments and Kamal’s Kusumbu.
As Aravindan said, Andrea was quite a surprise for me and liked that Car Scene! And I quite liked the guy who played Kamal’s son. The scene between Kamal and his son is one of the best scenes in the movie. So as the scene involving Kamal and Parvathy. She could have been given few more scenes.
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bart
May 3, 2015
BR, so your final take is “Padam nalla illannu sollala; Apdi irundhirundha nalla irundhirukkum” ? Will come back after a view.
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Madan
May 3, 2015
Disappointing to read the verdict but not entirely surprising. I think from the get go the problem has always been that Kamal is so counter intuitive (and Aamir now seems to be following in his footsteps). It seems almost as if he is trying to second guess the audience and decide which Kamal to put on display each time. The spontaneity of a MMKR is long gone. Even so, he was probably better off trying to continue in that vein with a bunch of somewhat silly but successful comedies in the early noughties (Thenali-Pammal-Panchatantiram). Confusion seems to have prevailed post-Virumaandi. Serious Kamal a illa comedy a illa khicdhi of both with endless references to the Kamal legacy.
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Ram Sundaresan
May 3, 2015
The name Manoranjan also has a reference in Punnagai Mannan… Chaplin Chellappa refers to the interest that the Kamal character has on Malini (Revathi) as “antha payalukku un mela etho oru manoranjan irukku”… 🙂
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apala
May 3, 2015
Well, let’s take about 10 years (give or take a few) to come back here and talk how we are longing for movies like “Uttama Villain” – the same way we did with “Hey Ram!”, “Anbe Sivam”, …….. Till then let’s talk about how Kamal should grow up and learn a few things about film making……… Respectfully yours.
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mandas
May 3, 2015
I am sorry to say that I am disappointed yet again, Kamal is more interested in proving to the world that he is a living encyclopedia, Well there are lots of people who are intelligent and talented as him but just do not have the opportunity to show case their talents. We are not looking for a talent contest but to watch an interesting film. May be Kamal should just bring in the knowledge and leave the story telling and narration to some one else who is good at it.
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Girish
May 3, 2015
@BR, yet to read a review (including yours) who have written a word or two about the director. Or as some of Kamal’s recent movies directors take a back seat?
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Anand
May 3, 2015
I look forward to every Kamal film and the subsequent review from Rangan. Fun to watch all Kamal haters watch the film in the first weekend every time and then tear him apart.
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MANK
May 3, 2015
Kamal Haasan’s writing is so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent that it’s always a question whether even the best actors and directors in the world can come up with the kind of wit and timing needed to fully make the transition from page to screen – in other words, the best Kamal Haasan movies are probably locked up inside his head, where they reside in the most perfect possible manner
Brangan, The line of the review for me. It perfectly sums up KH’s career in past decade or so. Compared with other writers, Kamal suffers the opposite of writer’s block, he just doesnt know when to shut his writing off. Aalavandhan, Dasavatharam- both suffered from this overwriting and being saddled with directors and co actors who have no clue about the inner dynamics of the scripts they are executing or the characters that they are playing. As you pointed out, the only director who can execute atleast50% of his vision as a writer is KH himself. Virumandi and Hey Ram are testaments. This ghost directing thing which he has been practicing with his cronies and accomplice directors jut doesnt bode him well . He really needs a powerful director like Mani rathnam or Bharathan to tell him off and control his over indulgences. Have not watched the film yet. I am disappointed to hear that film goes the Aalavandhan way – Great ideas. bad execution. Planning to catch it today. Will be back with more thoughts after that.
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Pranesh
May 3, 2015
@Ravi: Since you asked non-BR people too, I suggest OK Kanmani, then Vai Raaja Vai or Uthama Villain.
Uthama Villain was mediocre throughout, and Vai Raja Vai had a brilliant first half but a terrible second half.
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praveenswami01
May 3, 2015
This is one of BR’s most disappointing reviews… This film is a wonderful one…. Rarely does a 2hr 55min film is engaging(and you are talking about leg cramps). The movie inside the movie is just brilliant… Slapstick, yet it works… The emotional sequences are so true and good…. Maybe, the one problem is that Manoranjan has too many loose ends to tie, that could have been trimmed…but hardly did i find it lengthy… the ending just brings a tear in the corner of your eyes just knowing that one fine day,this could be a reality….
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p s krish
May 3, 2015
BR and others noticed the meta-ness and self references.So taking the metaphor a bit further can we say the whole movie is about the death(or fading away) of Kamal the star. You know the star who isn’t really the draw he used to be, the star whose trailers don’t cross 1 million views on Youtube, the star who is not really that popular with the young set.
So when the movie ends and Kamal sings ( and then recites ) “Sagavaram pol sogam …” I get the feeling that Kamal is talking about his glory days as a Star coming to an end. You know, Death of a Star?
With the KB reference, women references, and Ghibran’s cameo to me it looks like Kamal is baiting us onto something. And what with Uttama Villain , Papanasam and more films lined up it seems like Kamal is breaking away from his norm(of one film a year) for one last shot at glory. Marakkama irukkururadhuku something. Does this even make sense?
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p s krish
May 3, 2015
P.S: That is the cancer and literal death of Manoranjan serving as a metaphor for the death of Kamal the Star.
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Roopa
May 3, 2015
Watched the movie in a premiere show. Kamalji, undoubtedly is one of the best actors of this era. I really could not come to a conclusion if i liked the movie or not. There are lot of scenes which were simply too good. The scene where Manoranjan’s son learns about his illness,their subsequent conversation and reconciliation… it just broke my heart.. the other scene between Manoranjan and his illegitimate daughter… another fine moment in the movie… I liked Andrea’s performance in the movie. Pooja Kumar’s act was a complete let down. I just could not buy her performance as the princess.There must be lot of actresses dying to work with Kamal. Why is he just stuck with these girls? Uthaman’s scenes reminded me of Vadivelu’s 23am pulikesi..The latter was certainly more hilarious. Uthaman (movie in the movie) started off well, but lost the plot soon. I lost my interest and just wanted it to end.If the movie was just about Manoranjan and his life, it might have resulted in a more engrossing watch. Sadly, the movie was neither here or there… Nevertheless, except for Pooja .. the casting is apt and most of them notably Urvashi,Ashwin,Parvathy,M.S Bhaskar put in a commendable performance.
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brangan
May 3, 2015
Santosh Kumar T K: I haven’t seen any films directed by Ramesh Aravind, so I don’t what his signatures are. But this wasn’t a well-directed film at all.
Ram Murali: Oorvasi was competent — meaning, she did what she had to do. KB, on the other hand, I felt was real uncomfortable. Maybe it was his health or whatever, but he looked somewhat out of sorts.
Kaarthik Arul: About that car scene, like many other scenes in the films I loved the way it was written and I loved the idea behind the scene (the chauffeur touch was genius), but the way it was acted and staged just did not put the scene across for me.
As for Parvathi, I thought she was wasted. She had nothing to do. I really wish this had been Manoranjan’s story, in which case Parvathi, Oorvasi and everyone else (including MS Baskar) would have had better parts to play.
Anand: Kamal haters? Wow! 🙂
MANK: directors and co actors who have no clue about the inner dynamics of the scripts they are executing
So this is what I don’t get. If KH is indeed “ghost-directing” these films, as people claim, then the end result should be as good as Virumaandi etc. right? Even Vishwaroopam, a lesser film than Virumaandi certainly, was pretty damn good — superb photography, great editing, very little dead air (except say, in the scenes with Pooja Kumar and Zarina Wahab etc.)
So I’m thinking this whole ghost-directing thing is nonsense. I mean, I can understand if Uttama Villain achieves 70% of Virumaandi’s competency (if we take the latter as 100%), given that Kamal is not 100% director on the sets here. But we’re talking about something like 40%, and all the good stuff is already in the screenplay. There’s so little “direction.”
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sanjana
May 3, 2015
Mera Naam Joker, Kagaz ke Phool come to my mind. Well made films but failed. If failures are this magnificent, let them be made.
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Madhu
May 3, 2015
Pooja Kumar was actually perfect for that self-absorbed actress – that scene with her and Manohar is exactly right – not genius or anything, but just right. She, as a princess is also fine…but the romantic portions and her being all that brave, clever, coy princess – that she definitely couldn’t pull off. And that beautiful kaadhalaam kadavul mun got wasted on that sequence! But, as the movie proceeded, I was beginning to get worried that it might be a song between Manoranjan-Yamini – namely Kamal and Parvathy (as Yamini) – thankfully, that didn’t happen.
I actually liked the women in Manoranjan’s life – they have a defined character, except may be Parvathy’s which wasn’t fleshed out well. I liked the indulgent, childish, cruel but nice Varalakshmi (was anyone else reminded if Varalakshmi Sarathkumar when the people around her kept calling her “Varu”?). Andrea’s character too…nice. I thought she was perfect for this subdued role. Yamini, who loved him and his child, but was strong enough and selfish (thank you!) enough to move on with her life and by all means had a much better and fulfilling life than him. Really nice!
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Raghu
May 3, 2015
On the Theyyam bit, there are a lot of references to Uttaman/Senguttuvan being from Chera kingdom and the action happening in neighbouring pandya kingdom. Still, the criticism rings true – knowing kamal, he might have added these references just to showcase theyyam. 😀 Not complaining though. The songs and visualisation were fantastic. Ghibran has just nailed it, imo! \m/
Otherwise, generally agree with your views on the movie. Keep reviewing!
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Prasad
May 3, 2015
Hi BR,
Nice review as always. But don’t you think this outcome was so predictable?
“https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/a-place-far-far-away-from-tamil-cinema/”
We discussed the same aspect here and see the comments which you had written and my response to them.
BR Wrote:
“So the problem isn’t that he(Kamal) does everything. It’s that there’s no one else in his films — either in front of or behind the camera — who can give him the least bit of challenge or measure up or lift a scene.”
I agree to views partly. But my question is what is stopping him to get the crew he wanted? All his movies are also big budget movies so what can’t he have any actresses/technical crew /Director who can bring a difference? As somebody pointed out maybe he doesn’t want. He wants to be surrounded by peope who just say “YES” to him and this time it is Ramesh Arvind for Utthama Villain.So don’t you think there should a change happening in him also?
BR Wrote:
“Kamal’s highly dense mix of wordplay and conceits and this and that needs people who are at his level, and he — I don’t know intentionally or not — settles for far less”
I would slightly disagree here. Let’s take the example of “Utthama Villain”…there are quite a few songs which has “wordplay” , yes it is really daunting task to write the lyrics for these songs, considering the details of research done. On a second thought we need see to how effective this comes across in screen. If it is forcefully fit, an average viewer may not even bother to understand. The exact statement which you made after watching “Interstellar”..why would an average viewer bother about so much about Space and fourth dimension.
Just see the outcome. Again, as you had mentioned we know he can dance Theyyum, write good lyrics but the end result is so ineffective.
But again the question of TALENT Vs OUTPUT comes? But we can’t keep on blaming Pooja Kumar and Andrea right for the film’s failure. It’s high time Kamal also has to take ownership. Even the screenplay including the whole thought process has misfired. Why does the spark fades off for Talented people like Kamal and Manirathinam (Ok Kanmani worked for me though) but we expect more matured piece of work from them with their age but we get the opposite.
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Venkat
May 3, 2015
A review that can’t be read and understood in three minutes is not a review. What do say BR? I think you have shagged all over the place. May be its the effect of seeing the movie. IMHO a person should write a review only 3 days after watching a movie. Some times you don’t want to say anything about the movie after 3 days. If you still feel that’s its worth reviewing, you would have put your thoughts and the most important things on the movie will throw up in the review.
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Subbu
May 3, 2015
Basing trailer views to deliver judgment of star status. in which case, Uttamavillain has over 5 million if you add several different youtube sites.
I trailer has several million views that the producer is now in debt for several crores. Lingaa story is known world around.
Dasa and Vishwaroopam had less than a million view, but is all time blockbuster film.
You don’t need sleeper cells in internet to make successful films.
For a film like UV to have 1400 screens worldwide is only possible for Kamal. Ask Mohanlal, Mammootty or Rajini (when he opts to act in films like this).
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Naveen
May 3, 2015
Height of self-indulgence!! ‘Dasavatharam’ is a close competitor to this, or the other way round.
“…But with some of the lightweight cast and crew he’s been working with of late, this material doesn’t stand a chance.”
Why blame the cast and crew when the problem is with the material?
I get a feeling that you are a bit soft when it comes to criticizing works of reputed names like Kamal Hassan, Mani Ratnam , Gautham Menon etc . On the other hand, you go into an “all attacking mode” with lots of sarcasm while reviewing works of lesser names. Of course, I understand that it comes out of respect for their craft and past works. It’s ok if you are respectful when you are analyzing their complete body of work. However, I feel that in a film review, you should treat the film as a stand-alone work and just be fair to all(reputed or not). Frankly speaking, I’m a bit disappointed with you on this front.
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Anon
May 3, 2015
Venkat –
Interesting you say that. Because only today I was telling a friend how important it is that you bring out all your thoughts on a place you have traveled to or a piece of work you have relished (say a book or a movie) when you are fresh out of the experience, as those first thoughts brimming in your head are probably the truest and closest to what you have experienced, are unadulterated and untinted when produced back on paper/screen. At least that’s how it works for me 🙂
(I am not a professional writer or reviewer or anything, but love/tend to pen my thoughts on anything that touches me deeply, and I do that often)
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MANK
May 3, 2015
Brangan,
Firstly as we both know ghost-directing is not as same as directing it himself. Here some of the sensibilities of the official director also gets inside and the combination doesnt necessarily work especially since he chooses to work with directors who are far inferior than him. Again i dont think he does\can interfere in films like this or dasavatharam or aalavandham – which requires heavy makeup and physical transformations -on a day to day basis wrt to shot compositions, Performances of the co actors etc etc – may be thats the reason why he deputes somebody else to direct these films in the first place. Even with everything written down in his script, it definitely depends upon the skill of the official director to execute the scenes on how well they turn out. The only time he gets back into the filmmaking process is in the editing stage and by that time its very late and reshootings are very very expensive proposition and not possible if you are not the producer (and when you are currently not a the height of your superstardom), So he does whatever he can with the available material. which brings me to the second point.
Virumandi and vishwaroopam were his own productions and he could do whatever he wants which i dont think he could do in the case of this film as well with Dashavatharam and others. The public fights that he had with Kalaipully S. Thanu over Aalavandhan are legendary and it almost ruined his reputation with distributors refusing to finance him for a while which were followed by a string of all those comedy films he did after that. I am sure he doesnt want that to happen again. If you look at films which he made in the 90’s like Guna , Mahanadhi, tevar makan,….. which were all made under his home banner – and were written by him- were all well made and crisply done.
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Arvind Srinivasan
May 3, 2015
@Prasad: Interesting thought. But like how brangan said in one of his earlier posts, the fault isn’t squarely on Kamal but the director who are just incapable of keeping pace with the screenplay. To curb this Kamal would have to collaborate with a much more free thinking director, a guy capable of executing his own vision on screen. This may come at a cost for Kamal if there does appear a difference of opinion. It hardly happens with his cabal. A good example is Anbe Sivam (eventhough it turned out good). There were creative differences between Priyadarshan n Kamal and whoof off he went.
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MANK
May 3, 2015
On a similar note , i wonder why these great artists like Mani and Kamal just cannot keep their ego aside for working together like say Scorsese and Deniro or Tom Hanks and Spielberg.
When Kamal was as asked about not doing films with Mani anymore, his reply was – Mani like to make his films exactly the way he wants it and so does he and since both of them become impediments for each other in this process, they are right in removing one another-. Ha !. I wonder why he cannot submit himself fully as an actor to Mani once again instead of doing all those terrible comedies with KSR.So what Kamal needs at best is a clerk who could type his script out onto film rather than a director with skill and talent and May be Mani finds it more convenient to work with ABJr and Kartik Jr.
As for the lack of good coactors, I think its the same problems with comfort level. He just keep working with the actors he is comfortable with rather than who might suit the role better.
May be there is a monetary aspect to this as well. I believe Kamal (& Rajni) gets more than 50% of the total budget of their films as their salary. So after his fees, there is hardly anything left to pay the other actors, so the natural choice is to hire his stock company actors who works less for the money and more for the honor of working with Kamal Sir.
I am extremely grateful for the fact that we have a Kamal Haasan who loves cinema and lives for cinema and has the skill and talent to conceive and sometimes execute ideas on par with the best of international cinema , i only wish he was a little less egotistical & more consistent .
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Madan
May 3, 2015
Anon: An ‘instinctive’ review does work best imo when it’s written fresh after the performance/experience. A better review with more insight and depth can be written later…but much later than three days. I am thinking maybe a year or more. By that time, you are able to better contextualise the work as to where it stands in its contemporaneous art scene. A movie or music album that looked like a sureshot masterpiece the first time around might have aged badly upon such long term re-evaluation or, vice versa, a movie that wasn’t understood well upon its release might make more sense with the passage of time. Reviews for Wall Street were a bit mixed upon its release, if I am not mistaken, but it later acquired the status of a classic. Certainly, I don’t think three days makes much of a difference and it might just make the review a bit more stale, a bit lacking in the enthusiasm that comes with having just watched the film/listened to the album/read the book as applicable.
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Madan
May 3, 2015
MANK: That’s an excellent point. I think as such our stars have a huge difficulty in sacrificing themselves, their ego as such, for the role. I don’t know why that is, maybe the mass adulation gets to them. But then you have Tom Cruise who has been a huge star for years in Hollywood and has been part of so many interesting, bold films. Likewise De Capirio has come such a long way from the romantic sugarboy of Titanic to the abominable, love-to-hate-scamster of Wolf of Wall Street. Are actors like Kamal or Rajni even comfortable contorting their face the way Leonardo does in that film when he gets that high? I mean, I know Kamal transformed himself for Anbe Sivam but that’s in a context that evokes sympathy…not an ultra-nihilistic, hateful character. When either Kaml or Rajni play villains, it’s in a double or multiple action context with a hero Kamal/Rajni to balance it out. I don’t think the blame for all of that can be laid only to the doorstep of the audience or the filmmakers (not saying you did by the b); they both want to promote a certain self image all the time now. Not particularly surprising in the case of Rajni but quite disappointing in the case of Kamal.
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MANK
May 3, 2015
Madan: When either Kamal or Rajni play villains, it’s in a double or multiple action context with a hero Kamal/Rajni to balance it out
Yup,In Rajni’s case its understandable. He doesnt make films but rather biennial festivals\events and his films doesnt pretend to be anything other than that. But Kamal’s case is different. i wish Kamal had played only the elder character of Abhay in Aalavandan, the film would have been so much better. The moment he plays both the roles, it becomes an ego trip and break the whole illusion of the film. This is something that hollywood is very conscious of. Thats why we have Al Pacino and Robert de niro playing cop and thief in Heat. If it was made in Tamil, Kamal would have played both the roles.
Or for that matter Silence of the Lambs- which was a chief inspiration for Aalavandhan- Its the electricity between Jodie foster and Anthony Hopkins that fire the film. Just take their first meeting scene – man real creepy and intense- and see the corresponding scene in Aalavandhan where the younger Kamal goes to meet the unhinged one. It looks so silly and unintentionally funny. No matter how much muscle he packs on, how much hair he shaves from his head, it just cant escape from the frivolity of the scene that Kamal is screaming at Kamal. Thats the problem, with no solid co star to fire off he just comes across as inert.
The greatest actors does their best comes of best when they are pitted against one another and and feeds of one another. They are all more reactors than actors. now Kamal doesnt react anymore, he just acts
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brangan
May 3, 2015
Venkat: a person should write a review only 3 days after watching a movie
Actually, I think it should be 8½ days in the months that have 30 days and 5¾ days in the months with 31 days. In February, the review is ideally written on the day of the full moon.
Naveen: Regarding my “all attacking mode,” I only deploy it, if that’s the word, when the film is brainless and has been made with nothing on its mind but becoming a hit.
When it comes to Mani Ratnam, Kamal, Gautham Menon etc., whether you like the end product or not, there’s a TON of thought and work that’s gone into it. You have to respect that. So I take a professional/respectful tone, in the sense I don’t make the kind of sarcastic jokes I do with, say, a “Nannbenda.”
Even with my reviews for the films made by newbies – if there’s a spark of sincerity visible, then I review it with respect, even if I have issues with it.
Check out, for instance, this review of Chennai Ungalai Anbudan Varaverkirathu. I say things like “it’s filled with actors who can’t hold close-ups, scenes that go on too long, and the director, M Maruthupandian, just won’t stop throwing new characters into the mix” — but there’s no “attack mode” here. Just reviewer mode.
MANK: About Kamal getting a huge salary and not being able to afford good actors, I’d say no. Abirami was a good choice in Virumandi. I am sure there are enough capable (i.e. talented) actors who’ll charge next to nothing for the exposure a Kamal film can get them. That’s still not an excuse for casting Pooja (she’s simply terrible in the Uttaman scenes) and Andrea in important roles (Andrea doesn’t even move her lips during dialogues; and her default expression says “I’m bored”).
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MANK
May 3, 2015
Actually, I think it should be 8½ days in the months that have 30 days and 5¾ days in the months with 31 days. In February, the review is ideally written on the day of the full moon.
Brangan, ROFLing with tears in my eyes. I was just waiting for your reply on this and thanks for not disappointing 🙂 Ha ! 3 days ideal period to write review, enna sir ithu, weekend box officea 🙂
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Oh I loved the film (and needless to say, the writing). Reg. filmmaking, I’m pretty much a layman, but the editing was very bad. Parvathi’s performance didn’t really impact me possibly because of that.
But your ‘greatest hits’ can easily be expanded further. Of course mottai ALavandhAn struck. That Sardarji, as a friend noted, was who that reminded Bheemboy for us! A dialogue (can’t recall now) evoked MMKR’s “unguLukku oru vAram time tharEn. “edhukku gudhuchu practice seyyavA? oru vArsham AnAlum mudiyAdhu” Nagesh at several places of KB (from Long long ago, so long ago, nobody can say how long ago and felt a hattip subconsciously to Sivaji at a few places of Uthaman’s dialogue delivery). That Ayyappa portions threw me back to Aboorva Sagodharargal; with Appu riding a tiger after killing… who else but Nasser! and later Raaja getting arrested clad as puli man (“Deiva piRaviyA nee?” Janaki asking him inside the prison). And “thalaiva award confirm” thrown just like that. So affecting.
I found the 8th century portions consistent. It was a caricature, yes. But I found it was intended to be that way. That the clownishness (around Nasser) extend well into a song as haunting as Kaadhalaam Kadavul Mun makes me feel this was deliberate. Also, as a friend of mine noted, Kamal has juxtaposed Bhasmasuran’s legend inside Narasimha (he is the Asura who dies if he touches anyone, including himself), juxtaposing it with “Hari Hari (and blasphemy!) Sori Sori!” And the same gall to call Arjunan villain, Sivan VillAdhi Villain! And I certainly felt a throwaway hattip to Kalki in the very climax where Uthaman turns out to be the neighboring King, a la Narasimhavarma Pallavan from Parthiban Kanavu. And what a climax it had. The metaness of killing the hero (who is the narcissist and everything wrt mainstream) and the mind superimposing it with the image of Kamal all over (“one of the ways to immortality is through art” after all), too much for a fanboi for life like me. Was in tears.
Can’t help think as another fanboi (not to start anything of course) that Ilaiyaraaja in THIS (Ghibran did very well) would have meant my heart wouldn’t have been able to handle whatever would have come out.
Actually a lot more throwaways to Kamal, his career hits and Nagesh were visible during watchal. But unable to recall now. I speculate this might have a cult following a decade or so from now. Easily his best writing since Virumandi for me.
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Nathan
May 3, 2015
Kamal Haasan’s writing is so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent that it’s always a question whether even the best actors and directors in the world can come up with the kind of wit and timing needed to fully make the transition from page to screen
Keezha vizhundha meesaila Mann ottalai solvanga…neenga enna sir keezha tharaiye illaindreenga
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Aside from the motta Aalavandhaan, there was a more explicit Kadavul Paadhi Mirugam Paadhi reference in the film itself (see more of his hits come back. idha innoru vAtti dhAn pAkkaNum). Also, that friend of mine was mentioning how every character from Oorvasi (what a performance in that hospital bed!) to KB to K Vishwanath were speaking to their mirror images (as in, KB in his deathbed making a film with Kamal and KV touching the feet (basically Kamal in KV’s space) of KV himself and so on. Industry insiders would be able to relate to the writing on an even more personal level. On some levels, this isn’t just about Kamal’s vanity but Kamal satisfying everyone’s vanity around him.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Oh and I enjoyed Andrea and Pooja’s performance. Logic would dictate he cast someone like Pooja (middle aged?) as a mature doctor and someone young as Andrea as a film star. But Pooja being the classical dancer and let it go performer (as was evident in the puli-eli sequence) was perfect for the Princess whereas Andrea’s mature look carried well with the Doc. The casting to me (of every character from the driver to the Hero-Narcissist) was perfect.
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Iswarya
May 3, 2015
For once, BR does sound very indecisive. Even with movies that he admires despite their flaws, like say, Aayirathil Oruvan, it would never be really unclear what his final impressions are (or at least that’s how I’ve always felt). And I’m obviously not talking about the ‘Go’ or ‘Skip’ kinda decision.
Apart from the clear header, there’s only a vague sense of uneasiness. While the main contention seems to be that Kamal’s interesting vision seems to have been lost in translation, the last part of the review belongs to a different territory altogether:
The glass-half-full guy in me says I should be thankful that a film at least gives you so much to think about, but this film isn’t that kind of glass. It’s really a looking glass. How I wished the entire film had been a mirror on Manoranjan, about what it is to be a star of a certain age, at a certain stage, about what it means to be Kamal Haasan.
So, even if not 3 days or 8.5 days, maybe BR should allow himself a little more time to review movies that he genuinely cares for. Just some kind of curing time, if that isn’t too much of a luxury.
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Iswarya
May 3, 2015
Adding to the Drunken_Monk’s list, there’s a line where the minister says ‘Ivar nammavar than’ and several other references. Spot-the-reference was really the most entertaining part of the ‘outer’ film.
Further, the amateurishness was completely understandable in the folklore-film. In fact, the slightly embarrassing CG tiger and the weirdly waxen-looking palace with all those soldiers standing with lights were all made excusable with an early hint in the movie. The scene where Manonmani is introduced, the father and daughter make their entry in front of a truly cringe-worthy green-screen like background. I really groaned in despair to think how much this kind of computer generated background would shatter the slightest illusion of reality and throw me right out of the movie. The joke is that this simulated background is then revealed to be a set prop carried away behind them (Hat tip to the temple set in Avvai Shanmugi where Kamal first gets married). So, the over-the-top quality as well as the amateurish sets of the inner film are acknowledged ironically and are even probably intentional.
(Of course, a big fangirl like me is probably the easiest to convince, since I’m myself too eager to excuse anything in a Kamal movie, especially an intelligent one. Still, the movie shows a lot more self-awareness than anybody is willing to give Kamal credit for. See, for instance, the idea of Manohar taking up screen writing being an acknowledgement of the long-time demand that Kamal put himself in the hands of young, capable filmmakers willing to work with him.)
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Iswarya
May 3, 2015
Finally, my critical apparatus that had shut down because this was a Kamal movie is now slowly coming back to work. The line where you mention Nasser and M S Baskar has a ‘seem’ in the place of ‘see’.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Afterthought. Strikes me now. Manoranjan removes his Theyyam mask (painting) as Manonmani reads his letter to her mom, an unmasking of his real self/face in Manonmani’s eyes. Hits me as very beautiful. This is the Kamal I know 🙂
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brangan
May 3, 2015
Iswarya: Fangirl, are we? You may enjoy this about the “cool Kamal”… 🙂
http://tinyurl.com/mqrm3jn
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vijay
May 3, 2015
BR, why was the comments space forcing ppl to get an account all off a sudden? All along I needed just a name not attached to any account to post here. Is it for moderation reasons? It is annoying
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Come to think of it, from the snake bite to the do-gooder King incognito saving the masses from a tyrant IS a very Rajnikanthish portrayal on one end while at the other end, the mega star doing masala films and having health problems… Ayyo. Only, it was done subtly. And a few friends on my twitter TL were noting how the son going abroad to write a film for his ‘father’ was a very Kamal to Sivaji in Thevar Magan level meta. Ayyo need to soak the film in. Will stop rambling here.
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KayKay
May 3, 2015
“Well, let’s take about 10 years (give or take a few) to come back here and talk how we are longing for movies like “Uttama Villain” – the same way we did with “Hey Ram!”, “Anbe Sivam”, …….. Till then let’s talk about how Kamal should grow up and learn a few things about film making……… Respectfully yours”
Apala: Spot on! Thanks for that. I couldn’t have said it better.
See, I’m just glad as a pig wallowing in mud that we have an artiste like Kamal in our midst, Still relevant, still churning out a body of work that lends itself to so much dissection. Still so….INTERESTING. Note, I didn’t say Good or Great. Just consistently interesting.
I’ve trawled the vast wastelands of online and print domains where criticisms of his work and of himself traverse well-trodden arguments concerning his lack of collaboration with directors of genuine vision, his narcissism (this, mind you directed at someone working in the most narcissistic industry on the planet), vanity projects etc. I don’t exactly disagree with these points, merely bristling at the suggestion that this somehow negates the quality of his output, flawed though many of them are.
My own pet peeve of Kamal isn’t that he doesn’t work more with Mani. Gautham, Shankar or some other New Hot Director On The Rise, but that he doesn’t pick up the damn megaphone himself more often! Virumaandi and Vishwaroopam are such finely-tuned and assured pieces of work that I actually dread him entrusting his vision, warts and all, to another director.
Until then, I’m happy he’s still making movies that let you masticate, pull apart, ponder, textualize and bicker over it’s content, which, let’s face it, is the long satisfying drag of a cigarette after sweaty sex for any lover of movies.
Thing could be worse. We could be talking about the sub-text of dam-building in Lingaa.
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venkatesh
May 3, 2015
I am actually looking forward to Papanasam , (I have seen Drishyam multiple times and love it). I am wondering if Kamal can just be an actor anymore. Just that, an actor in service of a decent script where everyone else is equally important , relevant and good.
Re : MR and K.H collaboration there is a very telling comment made by MR on talking about Nayagan.
There is a scene in the movie where he removes his shirt in the brothel and looks at the girl in the mirror and is surprised, indecisive, conflicted etc. Apparently, K.H did a brilliant job of bringing all these emotions on his face and enacting it. MR had to ask Kamal to tone it down because as he said “I knew the scene would have background music , with the background music that scene with his acting would have gone over the top , so i had to ask him to just remove his shirt and not do anything else, with Kamal you have to know when to say enough”.
That , in a nutshell, is Kamal’s problem for the last possibly 2 decades . He doesn’t want strong, decisive collaborators, is surrounded by yes-men/women and so essentially has no-one to say enough to him be it his writing, acting, screenplay, lyric writing, dancing etc.
I love all the self-referential, allusive wordplay, mental gymnastics that he does in his films, screenplay but that does not make a film. Its a good exercise but its by no means a film that will last in time or is entertaining now.
I suspect in 30 years time when people look back at his legacy post-90’s, may be a Hey Ram or a Virumandi might get a foot note but by and large it will be slim pickings.
In some ways, for a fan like me this is heart-breaking.
I grew up with him, from the mid-80’s till around Thevar Magan he could do no wrong and his films were so far ahead of the rest of the bunch and hugely entertaining. It was unreal.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 3, 2015
Just coming back, the mirror in his scene with Manonmani (enakku reNdu theriyudhu boss! 😛 ) sort of foreshadows what finally happens when his face is unmasked. The face that is apparent first to Manonmani and the other that is hidden. His love with mirrors is a post by itself. For more: http://dagalti.blogspot.in/2013/01/there-cant-be-smoke-and-mirrors-without.html
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brangan
May 3, 2015
vijay: Not sure about that. I haven’t changed any settings of late.
venkatesh:I’ve only seen “Drishyam” once and I’ve refrained from another viewing. Don’t want it in my head as I’m watching the remake — and yes, hugely looking forward to Kamal’s take on the character here.
You wrote my exact thoughts here..
I love all the self-referential, allusive wordplay, mental gymnastics that he does in his films, screenplay but that does not make a film
Exactly. These are fascinating Easter-egg hunt trails, and as a fan of Kamal I find these fascinating (or as KayKay says, “interesting”) at one level. Heck, I keep re-watching Manmadhan Ambu for some of the “Kamalisms”.
But as a fan of cinema, you can’t just be happy with being happy that you find these Easter eggs. You can’t just be happy with the brilliance of individual moments, scenes. You have to consider the making, the staging, the craft, the smoothness with which shots weave in and out of each other, the UNIFIED WHOLE. Even the Mani Ratnam and Gautam Menon movies I’m not all that fond of (Roja, Bombay, Thiruda Thiruda, Nadunisi Naaigal)… all these are “films”. They are the work of DIRECTORS.
It would be easier to take if the screenplay was terrible and the direction was bad too. But given this screenplay, the near absence of “cinema” here is heartbreaking.
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KayKay
May 3, 2015
Venkat: Seriously, dude? So, now, on top of exercising the right to disagree with the reviewer and rebutting his points, we’re also going to offer advice on WHEN he should be writing them?
BTW, I wrote this comment exactly 24 minutes after reading yours, using only my right index finger to type after having changed into my Hard Rock Cafe Johannesburg T-Shirt and blue bermuda shorts as I believe these to be the optimal conditions for my comments to strike just the right note of snark without condescension.
It will take you exactly 39 seconds to read this pausing with a deep breath between paragraphs.
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Prasad
May 3, 2015
@Aravind
“. To curb this Kamal would have to collaborate with a much more free thinking director, a guy capable of executing his own vision on screen”
Exactly. That’s my point. Collaboration is the key! Just take a example of Aamir on how he goes all out to shape any of his movies and how effectively he collaborates either you take 3 Idiots , PK (With Hirani), Talaash ( With Anurag/Farhan/Zoya/Reema)… Also Trusting Directors who have the vision to produce something great . The way he trusted Ashustosh for Lagaan and Rakesh Om Mehra for Range De.
Collaboration is happening in Hollywood too. Steven Spielberg’s next ” Bridge of Spies” is being written by Coen Brother’s. Can you see the difference? Even the greatest of directors are able to shed their ego’s and work towards shaping a Movie. This is exactly what Kamal lacks.
Just a simple Question. Why Can’t Uttama Villain couldn’t have been directed by a Myskin or a Karthik Subburaj? I read in a interview how Ramesh Aravind was excited to get the call from Kamal to direct this movie. Just imagine if Karthik Subburaj ( The Master of Twists and inventive screenplay) for that call for DIRECTING this movie?
Am not even talking about colloboration of Kamal and Mani but can’t he collaborate with Myskin or a Karthik? 🙂
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Iswarya
May 3, 2015
BR: Well, I can’t be playing the unofficial copy-editor of this site and not have read that before. 🙂
Not only a Kamal fangirl, you see.. 😉 Anyway, thanks for the link.
But then, IIRC, as somebody had pointed out in the comments section of that post, I belong to the generation that grew up in awe of Nallasivam, rather than ogling at say, a Vikram. The ultimate marker of intelligence in my set of school friends was to be one of the very few to have been blown away watching Anbe Sivam on the big screen, while the ‘plebeians’ were lapping up Dhool!! So, the longing for the dancing star seems quite remote to the likes of me.
I’m the sort to be quite happy with (gulp!) the ‘pondering’ portions of Dasa and to easily excuse the ‘pandering’ portions as the inevitable chocolate wrapper! I know I speak for a minority and that critics have reasons to be less forgiving, but then, as KayKay says, let’s be thankful that we have somebody like this amid the assembly-line panders of K’wood!
Talking of pelting, that was another Dasa reference joke in the movie, as were the tied-up drowning scenes!
Oh.. I’m going to watch this again now! 😀
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Raj
May 3, 2015
This review seems to be neither about the movie Uthama Villain nor about the actor KamalHassan but rather about the critic himself- an opportunity for Ranjan to showcase his ability to write a long winding review. Isnt it ironic that he calls the movie “a vanity project” which is equally if not more applicable to his review of the movie? Dont take my word for it – look at all the comments here where people say they have no idea what he is trying to say. And mind you, these are not people on the street so to speak,but, these are readers of TheHindu! I say, that is no accident – because, this review was not written for the audience either – it is written for his fellow critics so they could pat themselves on the shoulders!!
Doesn’t TheHindu have good Editors to advise him? Oh wait, he is one of the editors!! Poonnaiku yaar mani katuvathu?
He goes on a wild goose chase finding all references to older Kamal Hassan movies – that is cute for a student who is trying to score an A in “Master of Arts”. But, what is the implication of his review – unclear! By the way, comparing Choku to Bheem boy – what was he thinking?
Is the movie overstuffed and multi-layered? Yes. Is that good? Absolutely! For all the money that I pay as a moviegoer why would I settle for a simplistic script? Arent there enough of those simplistic movies in Tamil where the hero and heroine meet in the first frame, fight the girl’s dad in the first half, fight another villain in the second half and unite by the last scene? Uthamma Villain is like a “Kalyana Samayal Saadham” – why would anyone settle for just a Bhagalabath?
Contraty to his view, this movie came together very well as a cohesive whole! This is one of the few tamil movies in the last ten years that I have been able to sit through without checking the watch. As for the Nasser scenes he is referring to, indeed I was laughing and crying!! I think Ranjan’s problem (which unfortunately is his profession’s liability) is that he is trying to look through his magnifying lens the whole time trying to critic without ever letting himself be carried by the movie. This is similar to when you go on a tour to a new place,say Taj Mahal, and you are busy looking through your camera the whole time and you never get a feel for the real thing! I think that may be Ranjan’s biggest shortcoming – the ability to feel the movie as “Ranjan the moviegoer” rather than “Rangan the critic”.
When I ask myself what made the movie complete – I would give 40% the actors, 30% to the tight screenplay, 30% to the word plays! And BTW, I am neither a movie critic nor a critic critic,but, someone who watched the movie on friday and thoroughly enjoyed and found this review completely off and was compelled to write this.
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Arvind Srinivasan
May 3, 2015
@Prasad: Karthik Subburaj with Kamal. interesting. I am hopeful of the day Kamal starts acting in others direction. Paapanasam is a start. He shouldnt be involved in anything except the priniciple photography. Too much of a conflict between the writer n actor leading to the actor missing for a number of years. Interestingly the reins of dasavsthaaram was offered to GVM. Wonder how that would have panned out in an alternate universe
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Iswarya
May 4, 2015
BR: I read the version on the newspaper’s website for the first time today. The comments regarding your language are all pretty much what I expected, but somebody has compared your writing to Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness”!! (And to think this is a Kamal movie that you haven’t even analysed as ‘existential comedy.’)
Plain curious: do you read all the comments on the newspaper page too?
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Blasta
May 4, 2015
One Line:
In other words, what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction? (Vice Versa for OKK?)
For :
Virumaandi and Vishwaroopam are such finely-tuned and assured pieces of work that I actually dread him entrusting his vision, warts and all, to another director. Until then, I’m happy he’s still making movies that let you masticate, pull apart, ponder, textualize and bicker over it’s content, which, let’s face it, is the long satisfying drag of a cigarette after sweaty sex for any lover of movies. (Memories of Onan!)
When a movie gets so much right, I think we can forgive it for some of its obvious flaws. (The girl was beautiful, the )
Against:
Like a snoozing alarm clock, I’m constantly reminded of Kamal Hassan the great ‘actor’, but rarely of the characters he depicts on screen. But this is just me, apologies if this sounds blasphemous to some people…(He is still doing that? Guna was another, among others)
I would pay real good money to see him in a straight forward Masala movie befitting his age. No atheism, no pet themes, no meta nothing. (Me too, he is a charmer, which he forgets)
I am interested in Uthama Villain but the historical moments alluded to in the trailers makes it seem like Kamal is once again too caught up in expressing his vast knowledge at the expense of boredom to the “commercial” audience. I do apologize if I offended anyone. (No, don’t worry, everyone understands)
Compared with other writers, Kamal suffers the opposite of writer’s block, he just doesn’t know when to shut his writing off. Aalavandhan, Dasavatharam- both suffered from this overwriting and being saddled with directors and co actors who have no clue about the inner dynamics of the scripts they are executing or the characters that they are playing. (You say that he had a clue?)
May be Kamal should just bring in the knowledge and leave the story telling and narration to some one else who is good at it. (Mirror, Mirror on the wall)
Cats and Cream:
You don’t need sleeper cells in internet to make successful films. (Insight!)
Actually, I think it should be 8½ days in the months that have 30 days and 5¾ days in the months with 31 days. In February, the review is ideally written on the day of the full moon.(Anyone improve on that?)
Premier show – in US , ppl walked away 20 mins before climax. Remember we don’t have intermissions here like u do. (The length of film= length of bladder – Hitchcock, always the latter)
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Blasta
May 4, 2015
“The Kamal who was cool way before cool came to Tamil cinema.”
Perfectly said:
“Kamal Hassan was, quite simply, one of the coolest people on the planet.” “He was cool because he embodied an imported-from-the-West panache that few Tamil stars had before him, few Tamil stars possess even today.”
>> Note the point
“I wish Kamal would transform into a cheerful actor-for-hire like Amitabh Bachchan today, who’s having the time of his career playing ghosts and pedophiles and gangsters and cheeky bit-parts.”
“I’d like to see him surrender to younger filmmakers who’d surely salivate at the prospect of creating vehicles worthy of the cinema-lover whose shadow they’ve grown up worshipping.”
“He’s done enough for Tamil cinema. I’d like to see him shrug off that responsibility. I’d like to see him back where he began – as, quite simply, one of the coolest people, if not on the planet, at least on the Tamil screen.”
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Prahalad
May 4, 2015
Actually, the movie offers a possible answer to why Kamal overstuffs his films with ideas. Could it be because he fears his mortality and hence feels a need to showcase all his ideas as quickly as possible?
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Blasta
May 4, 2015
“Kamal Hassan was, quite simply, one of the coolest people on the planet.” “He was cool because he embodied an imported-from-the-West panache that few Tamil stars had before him, few Tamil stars possess even today.”
Change that to “no Tamil Star possesses today”, nobody in near sight or far, and no, am not a fan boy. Find him painful these days, a male Suhasini.
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sen
May 4, 2015
venkatesh: Bang on. Really loved the way you have written that post. So clear and precise.
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sanjana
May 4, 2015
Superb show with lacklustre film making. Contradictory?
The woman is very pretty but she looked very dull.
The food is superb but looked unappetizing.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 4, 2015
@KayKay: Was that directed at Should soak the film more. Will stop rambling here? Err, dude, I meant I ought to soak it in more and stop rambling. Not Brangan.
But hey, good snark. Enjoyed the comment 😛
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MANK
May 4, 2015
Brangan, its a pity that you used up your C-centre distributor joke on OKK. What about this one. Even the A centre distributor must have been shocked out of his wits when he saw this. This is a film that cannot be classified easily. Its neither a comedy, nor a historical epic, nor a straightforward drama, and for a Kamalahaasan film, absolutely no violence and sex. The fact that he convinced the producers and distributors to invest in this picture is in itself an achievement. At least for that Kamal deserves an award. As somebody said here, hope the film doesnt bankrupt its producer- who’s already reeling under some financial crisis- It would become impossible to make ambitious films anymore.
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Suja
May 4, 2015
Wow.. your review was like a Kamal movie in itself… Had to read around 3 times to really understand what your feeling towards the movie was! But hey you have convinced me enough to now go watch the movie 🙂
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knittins
May 4, 2015
BR and others – Apologies if this is a silly question. I read somewhere that this movie cost 60 crores to make, while OKK was made on a budget of Rs. 6 crores. I just cannot wrap my head around this disparity. Given than Kamal is part producer of this movie, I am guessing his remuneration was not a factor, unless his salary was his contribution to the kitty. (And I am not sure how that accounting works either. Is his salary, say 40 crore? And was that, or a part of that, his contribution as part producer? In which case, was the actual money ‘spent’ on the movie Rs. 20 crore? Is KH, the actor’s opportunity cost added in to the budgets of movies produced by KH the producer? Makes no sense to me if it does) But even so, OKK had heavyweights like PC Sriram and ARR involved, plus was shot on location in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. UV was shot in Chennai and Bangalore, and the movie in UV (eppadi, rhyming!) in front of tacky sets, with poor CG (which was smartly justified in the movie) all of which would’ve kept costs even lower. Moreover, while Dulquer, Nithya Menen and Prakashraj aren’t expensive actors, they surely command as much, if not more than Andrea, Pooja Kumar, Urvashi, Jayaram, Nasser and co. (who, being company actors, probably do these movies at big discounts anyway).
Miscellaneous expenses… Thamizhla… Idhara Selavugal. Oru 60 kodi roobai odhaikkudhu… Con. Few. Shan. NEKKONNUM PURIYALAI!
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knittins
May 4, 2015
And while we are at it, a couple of superb posts on the movie:
https://lowlylaureate.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/death-becomes-him/ and
http://complicateur.blogspot.ie/2015/05/uttama-villain.html
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Ashutosh
May 4, 2015
The film was really lost in its execution. The film inside the film didn’t gel well because of poor execution. I read the following in the film:
Manoranjan is living this life where though superficially he seems to have it all, he is actually doing things he doesn’t really want to do. He acts in lazy films for popularity, he has married a woman he didn’t love etc. Basically, Manoranjan is a smart, ambitious (he uses the word to describe himself) and takes life seriously. To escape from the compromises he has made, he takes to having affairs, drinking etc. Basically exhibiting “bad faith”. When he realizes he has only a few months to live, he starts taking life seriously in a more real sense. He, for one last time, escapes from his reality by crafting a film that will be remembered for much longer than his personal life will be… when confronted with mortality, he creates an alternative narrative of his life which will outlive the real narrative.
Points 4-6 are really what give the film’s name and premise. When things happen to Manoranjan we perceived them as betrayal. But when Uttaman does the same things, we cheer, suggesting that whether someone is good or bad depends on the perspective. Uttaman is actually a schemer who is ironically named. Vishnu schemes and comes in as man-lion, but Uttaman as Hiranyakashipu tricks him and achieves immortality.
So, the inner film’s hero achieves what the outer film’s hero couldn’t achieve. By merely subverting reality through imagination and recording it as art, Manoranjan used mortality to achieve immortality for himself. That’s why the film ends with ‘saga varam pol sogam undo’. Manoranjan created something immortal because he was a mortal. Uttaman, being immortal, will never create anything immortal. Man is immortal only because he is mortal.
So, like BR says Kamal’s core idea was pretty kickass and was wholly let down by the execution. I don’t think those who were executing Kamal’s ideas were really clued into what he really meant.
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abby
May 4, 2015
Hi Rangan,
Since you go on about how it is all screenwriting and how there is no directing involved, can you illustrate with an example or two of what the director could have done to enhance the scene when it comes to the “squinting and getting up to read in the projector light” scene you referred to. Thanks in advance
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Rahini David
May 4, 2015
Iswarya: Being the unofficial copy-editor of this site, how do react to the comments of those who are gramatically challenged? I sometimes hit the post button and then cringe at what I just wrote. And on top of this you read the comments at the Hindu too? OMG.
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S N Dayanidhi
May 4, 2015
You simply cannot put your brain into someone else’s Head. The Tumour in Uttama Villain is simply the result of this-Kamal cannot expect such a Novice Director as Ramesh Aravind to translate such wonderful Idea of Mrutyunjaya & Mortality from paper to Screen and any day you would watch a Sagara Sangamam or Virumandi many times and to sit out Staged History with Mediocre acting by the sides including the Tamil Writers and Pooja not to take away the brilliance of Kamal or Nasser, the only golden moment is the satire on Vadais and Athirsam feast over the dead.
There was so much to offer and so little it offered in those wonderfully beautiful Moments between three legends-Kamal, KB and KV, Kamal & Urvasi , Kamal & Bhaskar , Kamal and his children but definitely not Kamal and Andrea who was terrible. But these moments does not make the Movie complete. We know Kamal can act brilliantly, he can dance in various styles and he can do wonderful makeups, but Kamal should know by now that his audience is extremely intelligent. What could have been a Grand Budapest became a bland Tempest for KB. KB would never dream of making the Uttaman Movie in this style even if he was made a Margadarsi. The pat was for Kamal the shishya and not for the Uttamar.
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MANK
May 4, 2015
Brangan, a question about the movie within the movie. Obviously its shot like a stage play, but why do you think is that?. Margadarshi is supposed to be this great filmmaker who have made 5 back to back classics with manoranjan. Does it even remotely look like the kind of film he would be making, or is it done to suggest that Margadarshi is a filmmaker from another era – one of the sivaji ganesan costume dramas – where everything look static and staged.
And the length of the scenes too , they just go on and on ad nauseam. That puli – eli scene is such a good conceit, but god it is pushed to to its limit. at the end of the scene , i was asleep like Kamal in the film
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KayKay
May 4, 2015
@KayKay: Was that directed at Should soak the film more. Will stop rambling here? Err, dude, I meant I ought to soak it in more and stop rambling. Not Brangan.
Er…no. Not unless you’re the same Venkat above who said:
“IMHO a person should write a review only 3 days after watching a movie”
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Shankar V
May 4, 2015
knittins – simple. The movie was made with a shoestring budget of probably 4-5 crores. But they inflate it so that they can sell it at a higher price to the distributors.
OKK had a lot of CG as well for that Mumbai 2.0 game stuff. UV is bland in comparison.
Good catch there on the budget.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 4, 2015
Er…no. Not unless you’re the same Venkat above who said
Oh idhula rendu koalty irukkA? naan dhEn jaari, naan dhEn jaari.
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DVP
May 4, 2015
I enjoyed your review much more after watching the movie than before that. Thanks.
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KRV
May 4, 2015
There’s a scene where Chockalingam reads out a letter in a screening room. We can practically hear the stage directions. He unfolds the letter. The room is dark. He squints. He gets up and walks to the screen and begins to read by the light of the projected image. In other words, what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction?
What do you mean..he moves to the screen because it has utthama villan displayed..clearly choks stands on the uthaman end and watch kamal going slowly to the villain end of the text..and this while reading the letter which portrays the opposite..Nothing ground breaking but its not blunt as you put it either..every scene has been clearly thought thorugh
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Shankar V
May 4, 2015
I liked a comment above that said Kamalahasan is now the male Suhasini. 🙂
He has failed miserably since the turn of the millenium. The last movie of his that I enjoyed was Tenali. After that, it has been a disastrous climb down.
Panchatantiram had a few funny moments.
Aalavandaan was weird and horrible.
Anbe Sivam was tolerable thanks to Madhavan. Else it was too preachy.
I could not go beyond the first hour of Virumandi. It was puke worthy.
Vasool Raja was a bad remake.
Mumbai Express – what was that again?
Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu – first half was good, second half spoilt it completely.
Dasavatharam – a fancy dress competition. Horrible movie from almost all aspects.
Unnaipol Oruvan – he did not fit into the role. The moment you hear him speak, it was obvious what was going on. There was no twist that Shah could provide in A Wednesday (I saw the Wednesday after watching unnaipol oruvan)
Manmadan Ambu – probably one of his worst ever? It was a chick flick that turns into a poor slapstick comedy.
Viswaroopam – a badly made film. Very poor characterization. Plot building was too weak focussing on unnecessary aspects like his dance classes that added nothing to the story (Kamal has to dance, no?)
And now Uttama Villain.
I heard this somewhere – seems Kamal heard that the movie at 2 hours and 53 minutes was a tad too long. When asked how much he should prune to make it watchable, the popular response was 2 hours and 53 minutes of the movie. 🙂
PS: A die hard Kamal fan who is today disllusioned by the crap that he is dishing out.
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Deva Fan (Original!) (@DevaFan)
May 4, 2015
I was expecting a Vellithirai + Birdman collage. This movie had excellent potential. Only if Kamal had spent time chiseling the screenplay….. This is applicable to most movies with potential. But here, it takes on a whole different meaning. It is just so close to being a master-class film. If only. Sigh.
I did not watch the trailer, so from what I heard I was dreaming about the story of an ageing star going through the arc of glory to sunset. If you “focus”, you can do so much with this line. But as someone commented above, Kamal is increasingly complicating things to make him look a better film-maker. He has to understand that he has nothing to prove. No one expects complex stories from him. We all know he has done those. Now, we want focus. Take all his brilliant movies from recent past, all of them have one common thread – focus. Whenever he loses focus and ends up doing 10000 things, the movie suffers. Virumandi had focus, with very little gimmicks. Manmadhan Ambu had focus in the first half, but lost it in the second. All his comedies worked because of focusing on ….. comedy. Simple. No gimmicks (Avvai Shanmughi had gimmicks that the story warranted).
On a side note, Balachandar should have acted more in his prime. He is such a treat to watch. He is wasted here (ill-health to blame).
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Iswarya
May 4, 2015
Rahini: Life’s so tough when you have a grammar manual ticking inside the brain. But then, I deliberately snooze it out when I see comments typed in haste. (Well, I post from the phone all the time myself.) So, some of the unintentionally muddled up stuff I’m schooling myself to ignore.
Over time, we get to know the commenters and so, the spell checker shuts down to simply look at what someone has to say, and that’s mostly interesting. But on the very rare occasions when some of those semi-literate trolls or honest-to-goodness morons land here taking a pitchfork to the review as well as the rules of language, that’s when I start wishing I had moderation powers here.. 🙂
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S N Dayanidhi
May 4, 2015
Come to think of it, If Kamal was Ghost directing, Was Uthaman the Good Ghost that Kamal wanted to project himself ( After all Ghosts are Mrutyunjayas), the world sees him as Villain, and if he was not Ghost directing, why all the brickbats only on him (the stones were thrown at Uttaman and the cheers to Manoranjan) if he was only the actor in the movie which he did so well as only Actor and the script was not after all too bad whilst the Direction was mess-merizing. KB says to Kamal,”everyone loves you, yes we do, but Kamal also loves everyone, perhaps he loved Andrea and Pooja too far post V Roopam..
If given the Paradox of Choice, Kamal should get back to good old days of acting or if he wants to make movie, he should not act in it. After all Who shaves the Barber.
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sanjana
May 4, 2015
Whether I agree or not, the one line reviews by Shankar V are simply wow.
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Oliver
May 4, 2015
“Uthaman” is the villain of the movie. Either it is so poorly written or so poorly executed that the entire part looked very amateurish. The Manoranjan part was OK.
This is what happens when people are afraid to give feedback to Kamal while filming. I see this trend very much in social media for most of the tamil films nowadays. The industry praises itself so much (preview shows, twitter etc) that I think even poor movie makers (not saying Kamal is) think they made a great film.
Kamal should leave the comedy dialogues to Crazy Mohan for sure. As many people have said here before, Kamal should choose good scripts written by others. There are many good directors now. His last 3 or 4 attempts have been mediocre to say the least.
Kamal has nothing to prove anymore. He can act in good roles and prove that he is a great actor. Hopefully Papanasam will start that trend. Kamal can always experiment as an actor.A different performance is not necessarily a great film. That sums up Kamal’s films off late.
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Ram Murali
May 4, 2015
Shankar V, while I disagree with your views esp. on Anbe Sivam and Virumaandi, I’ve got to say that you have your own convictions and you’re bold when expressing your views. Plus you said that you are a Kamal fan who’s just saying what he’s saying because he’s genuinely disappointed. Fair enough. Now, two questions for you:
You wrote, “I could not go beyond the first hour of Virumandi. It was puke worthy.” Care to elaborate? I am asking coz I thought Virumaandi was a damn fine piece of filmmaking, very tight and very, very creative with its use of alternate storylines and how they come together. Not to mention that it was very well acted.
What Kamal movies of the 80s/90s are your favorites?
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Subbu
May 4, 2015
None of the comments deal with film..
Found this insightful: http://complicateur.blogspot.ie/2015/05/uttama-villain.html
Hope we have some sensible discussions, rather than blindly regurgitate nonsense,
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Ram Murali
May 4, 2015
Oliver, “Kamal should choose good scripts written by others. There are many good directors now”
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sabharinath
May 4, 2015
“Regarding my “all attacking mode,” I only deploy it, if that’s the word, when the film is brainless and has been made with nothing on its mind but becoming a hit.”
Then y didn’t u review kanchana-2 and lay out ur “all attacking mode” on that? We could have enjoyed the sarcastic branganisms…… Maybe u liked it or didn’t watch it I guess…. 🙂
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Oliver
May 4, 2015
@Ram Murali. I was only talking in terms of last 3 or 4 films. Kamal always says that Sivaji was wasted later in his career by choosing random scripts. By writing his movies he is making sure that his movies are at-least different ( and most of the times good). But he is being cautious in doing so.He is not giving a chance for another Nayagan, Salangai Oli, Pesum Padam or Indian. I think if he works with good directors like Mysskin he can give classics. Also he is playing too safe now (a different makeup , a new skill to show off in each movie) I think Kamal was much more experimental in his Mahanadhi days.
That brings us to another issue here. Are n’t most of the directors making good movies writing their own scripts nowadays in tamizh cinema?
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Shankar V
May 4, 2015
@Ram Murali
I loved Kamal’s rom-coms, comedies and serious movies. As a child I have enjoyed his masala films like Sakalakala vallavan. I cried when I saw him lose Sridevi in Moondram Pirai. I loved his combination with Radhika in per sollum pillai where the two bring the house down with their ‘thapputhanda.’
I was mesmerized by Salangai Oli and torn apart by Ek Tuje Keliyae. I have enjoyed his Tick tick tick even as I laughed my heart out on Ellam Inbamayam.
Nayagan made me realize what a fantastic actor he is. And I felt like fighting against this sick society joining hands with Sathya. I yearned to learn Karnatic music after Unnal Mudiyum Thambi. I have the entire collection of Kamal-Crazy Mohan combination films.
Devar Magan was IMO his best movie ever. He polished off some of the poor stuff from Nayagan and re-made the godfather movie brilliantly well. Hey Ram was another excellent movie despite the Shar Rukh Khan irritation.
About Virumandi – the movie started well in the jail with Pasupathi’s version. But I could not tolerate the grossly extended drunken scenes. Found almost all the characters to be too loud and extremely crass. Maybe that was how he wanted to show those characters – but I could not digest that nonsense beyond a certain limit. I did not have the patience to see the other versions of the story. Nor did I feel like going back to it.
Did I answer your question?
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Ramanan
May 4, 2015
@brangan :
just watched the movie .. post reading your review. the review did’nt alter my expectations, although your reviews are usually the “go/no go” call for me.
watched the shorter version, about 2 hr 40 mts. granted there were a few sagging moments. nonetheless, imo, the movie was a high quality movie.. all through.
you seem to be faulting a movie for “not being what you wished it was”, or “what you wished it emphasised or dwelled on more”.. that is an unfair criticism. he made the folklore uthaman part, perfectly understanding and taking risk that it might come across as “out of line” with the story. but what story? the story is about an actor “trying to make one last good movie”, and it is ironically about a man who beats death supposedly, and comically. he only wanted that movie to be funny .. the whole tale of uthaman was not rip-roaring laughter but was certainly subtle at times, and slap-stick, and wise cracking a lot. it would have required a keener sense of vocabulary in tamizh to have totally enjoyed the repartee. even other wise, there were many silly yet boisterous scenes that would make you giggle. found no sulking moments.
and the remininiscence between the actor kamal and the actor manoranjan seems to be bearing out to an ennui, don’t understand why .. because, even if that were true, that really does’nt affect the quality of the movie.. its just our own baggage we carry as the audience imagining kamalhassan’s real life past. he is a character actor. so what if there is some resemblance. he had an affair with srividhya.. she died of cancer, did he have a child with her? is he juxtaposing roles? who knows .. who cares. this movie did’nt really remind any of kamal movies. the only thing it reminded of was the “relation between the kamal and KB” … it was taken from real to reel such as, in the fact, how he started with those arthouse movies of KB genre before shooting off to crass masala and stardom.. the thing about “sit down” yell, you really really seem to be overworked connecting the dots. not that obvious at all.
the talk about ‘poor execution’ of uthaman lacks specifics. the inner movie was made to look, in my opinion, a bit amateurish.. for a purpose. the sets & the choreography were driven to remind the audience of a “stage play” folk lore or therukoothu at times… you cannot overwork the sets on a period movie as the inner movie, simply because you need to keep the audience aware of “inner movie” feeling. note that this is starkly different if he were telling the story as a “flashback” or his past life or as recited by someone… then he should have shored up his choreography to look prim and proper.
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Ram Murali
May 4, 2015
Shankar V, thanks for the detailed response! Much appreciated…with Virumaandi, maybe you should give it another chance! Just kidding…
Oliver, you wrote, ” I think Kamal was much more experimental in his Mahanadhi days”
–> I don’t know if experimental is the word that comes to my mind but I kinda see where you are going. I think Hey Ram made him make a few more commercial concessions in his movies of the 2000s. Take “Dasavatharam” for instance. Was that really KSR material? I don’t think so. But I don’t think Kamal regretted his choice (at least publicly) just coz Dasa did well commercially… I think pre-“Hey Ram” he was bold enough to do a Mahanadhi or a Kuruthi Punal because he was alternating between the serious ones and comedies… now, he’s abandoned that tactic and keeps writing his own scripts and doesn’t want to go the full comic route either… results have been mixed, i guess. For instance, Manmadhan Ambu didn’t work for me coz it was a case of “aathula oru kaal; saethula oru kaal” and the comic/serious portions didn’t gel well at all… whereas “Anbe Sivam” mixed seriousness and humor superbly…
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Srini
May 5, 2015
Whenever a Kamal Hassan movie comes along there are a ton of reviews talking about what the subtly implied things are, many of which I really doubt he implied. I see a constant comparison in this review between Manoranjan and Kamal himself, I find this to be really outlandish. The movie shows that Manoranjan had fallen to the diktats of ‘commercial’ cinema and the fact that Kamal despises them pretty openly is what sets him apart, why would he write a part about himself as an actor who is just the opposite ? ‘Veera vilayattu’ is not a reference to ‘vettaiyadu vilayaadu’, the phrase ‘singaravelan’ in not a pointer to the fact that he danced with a much younger actress in a movie by that name, I can go on and on, the point being he has not bared himself here nor bored deep inside himself !! It is just another role, he is not playing himself, the analogies are largely our own creations not his.
And the movie within the movie is just a funny folklore, its like one of the ambuli mama stories done in a little over the top comical way. Taking it to trial for its periodic anachronisms is not a right thing to do in my opinion, asking why was there theiyam or why did the princess have a certain hairstyle for example. We could go on and show so many flaws that way, in a scene uthaman sits for food and asks for sambhar, sambhar some say is only a few hundred years old, a lot of Tamil history is not really well documented and it is difficult to say with absolute authority that this is how things looked in that period.
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Arvind
May 5, 2015
@BR: Well played BR. Well played. Accurate review. I am in agreement with you in wishing that the movie was less confusing and focused on Kamal, the dying actor, and his family.
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bart
May 5, 2015
Saw and felt the movie fell short. The star’s portion especially in the second half has so many good moments that the period drama doesn’t act as a good counter foil. The word play and thought stream was great but could’ve been transitioned to screen better. The following would be the A, B and C for the shortcomings:
a) The period drama did not have the gravity required to act as a counterpoint to the main story. Nasser’s yearning to have saagavaram and the mrityunjayan himself were treated comical which didn’t lend the weight to link both stories. This makes both stories stand apart and the period portion falls short in comparison.
b) To counter the first point, the comedy wasn’t strong enough to gloss over the flaws in the period portion (unlike say Jigarthanda where again the movie was inconsistent between 1st and 2nd half, but the laughs sailed the movie through)
c) The length, abrupt jumps between the two stories, narcisstic touches, lack of entertainment as a whole will make all 3 centers think twice (which should’ve been ideally on the layered writing).
Note 1: The villain though explained as a tamil word, never uses the vil (For censor/tax authorities to read – ALL ABOUT A DOG, A.G. Gardiner)
Note 2: Tackiness is fine but never expected to see clean square cut modern mosaic / marble tiles in a couple of scenes (including the important climax dance) in the period drama
Note 3: Mutharasan did not have a “agora maranam” as predicted by the astrologers – it was more a Naga maranam (nagudhal is also siriththal)
Note 4: The period drama if it had been written as a full fledged movie would’ve served a good come back vehicle for Vadivelu (as an extension of “Imsai arasan”)
Note 5: Reading the review after seeing the movie, it does feel that you’ve overcooked the easter eggs (“spot the reference”) 🙂
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Srinivas R
May 5, 2015
Off Topic :Rajini is doing what a lot of us have been asking of Kamal , Rajini’s next movie is with Ranjith ( of Madras and Attakathi). Its a bold move , IMO, and at least provides a possibility of seeing the Super Star in a different light.
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sai16vicky
May 5, 2015
@rangan – Did you notice something? The scene where Manohar hugs Manonmani and his lover comes in. Its straight out of Sathi Leelavathi’s climax. Manoranjan comes out laughing because its like a recap of his own life(showing he has lived with his movies). Is the comic king straight out of “Vikram”? Loved how these small moments reminded me of the Kamal movies I watch, respect and adore. The sad part is its just that – a collage of Kamal movies 🙂
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bart
May 5, 2015
@sai16vicky: If you insist on linking, you could also link it to “ram anna” scene in Panchathanthiram – Hotel scene with Devyani and Simran 🙂
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Rahini David
May 5, 2015
So,
YA is a collage of older GVM movies
OKK is a collage of older MR movies and
UV is a collage of older KH movies?
Enna nadakuthu inga? Wasn’t it during 2012 that the world ended without a wimper?
Ithu pudhu ulagam nu nenachean. Illaya?
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sanjana
May 5, 2015
Rahini David:
YA is a collage of older GVM movies
OKK is a collage of older MR movies and
UV is a collage of older KH movies?
Call it recycling or old wine in new bottle.
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Prasad
May 5, 2015
Hi BR and other’s,
There was once a season of split personality (Anniyan , Chandramukhi …) and now it is a season of Meta movie (Movie within a movie) Just was wondering this is very rare genre cracked only by very few Directors in the past. Jigarthanda was a good attempt.
Other than that I can think of is Rang De…the linking of REEL and REAL Characters was amazing and we cal RELATE to that 100%. Just look at the screenplay, editing, Photography and the Acting. Picture Perfect! Unfortunately that’s what UV lacks .
There was another movie which I saw recently Premise is about is In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story of five mythical heroes
I was awe struck by the Premise and the visuals and the way REEL and REAL Characters converge.
Can you folks suggest any other movies which comes to your mind in this genre?
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sanjana
May 5, 2015
Prasad, I dont know whether this movie belongs. I am talking about Manam by Nagarjuna. Telugu movie.
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MANK
May 5, 2015
Prasad, that film is Tarsem singh’s The fall – its one of the most visually stunning films that i have ever seen.
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MANK
May 5, 2015
Prasad, Some other films that come immediately to mind are
Jhoom barabar jhoom,
The french lieutenant’s women
The usual suspects
Under suspicion
Day for night – thats francois truffaut film
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venkat ramanan
May 5, 2015
@prasad
Njaan (2014) movie comes under this purview, it is a film about exploring a character, to present the character’s story as a drama, there are two narratives as in meta-films. its a good-watch and a diff role from Dulquer Salmaan.
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Subbu
May 5, 2015
Let’s congratulate Rajini for his guts in doing a ‘different’ film after 2 major blockbusters. He is usually used to experimenting like Padayappa after blockbuster like Arunachalam, Yejamaan after Pandiyan, Chandramukhi after Baba..
This Kamalagasan pens only poor screenplay like HeyRam, Virumandi, Appu Raja, MMKR, Mahanadhi, Anbe Sivam, Thevar Magan, Sathileelavathy..
He needs to attend tution from Rajiniganth, who gave critically acclaimed Baba, Valli that were also commercial success. Mass + Class, one moon, one sun, one superstar thalaivar thaan.
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Subbu
May 5, 2015
Server Sundaram?
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brangan
May 5, 2015
Raj: By the way, comparing Choku to Bheem boy – what was he thinking?
Nope, not comparing Choku to Bheem boy.
Suja: Had to read around 3 times to really understand what your feeling towards the movie was!
Really? You didn’t get that from “A superb core let down by lackluster filmmaking”?
knittins: A major chunk of the cost goes towards hero’s fees. But beyond that, I agree, apart from the odd CG stuff etc.) doesn’t look a film that took all that money to produce. At least with Shankar, you can see where the money went.
MANK: No, it did not look like a “real film” that Margadarisi would be making. Actually, the shoehorning of these Uttaman parts (entertaining as they are at an standalone level) into the main narrative was not done well at all.
Iswarya: Yes, I do read those comments. And I think the feedback wouldn’t have been this negative had I put up the shorter print version on the web.
I thought — this being a Kamal movie and all — people may like to read the longer version. Lesson learnt 🙂
(Copy-pasting the print version below.)
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brangan
May 5, 2015
PRINT VERSION:
Kamal Haasan’s films suffer sometimes because they end up looking like vanity projects, but Uttama Villain, directed by Ramesh Aravind, couldn’t be anything else – for this is the story of a vain star named Manoranjan (Kamal Haasan). This is cinema about cinema, and because Tamil cinema is really about the hero, the film begins with a shot of a projection booth (in a theatre screening Manoranjan’s latest release) and it ends with the image of the star frozen on screen.
Kamal has often called himself a limelight moth, but here his wattage is increased a million-fold. He’s the sun of his universe, everyone else a mere satellite in obeisant orbit. I’m not just talking about the fans waiting for a glimpse of their hero. I refer, also, to the Kamal Haasan repertory company (Oorvasi, Jayaram, Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Nasser, K Viswanath), who have to make room not just for Manoranjan and Uttaman (the character Manorajan plays in a movie inside this movie), but Kamal Haasan himself. It’s possibly the most head-spinning triple role in cinema history.
Has any Indian star bared himself – and bored into himself – on screen the way Kamal has in Uttama Villain? The closest cinematic cousin is probably Fellini’s near-autobiographical 8½, which was about a director grappling with a creative block. Here, we have a sixty-year-old actor contemplating his legacy, his mortality.
At least part of the fun of watching Uttama Villain comes from that legacy, as we play spot-the-reference. Early on, we catch the name of Manoranjan’s new film, Veera Vilayattu. Is that title a nod to the film Kamal made with Gautham Menon a few years ago? And Manoranjan’s guru – allegorically named Margadharisi – is played by K Balachander, and like the legendary filmmaker, he finds it difficult to make movies with this star, who was a mere “actor” when they made a series of hit films together. In a season of meta films, Uttama Villain is possibly the meta-est of them all.
The rabbit hole gets deeper when we see that the film Manoranjan begins work on, playing the character of Uttaman under Margadharisi’s direction, is also named Uttama Villain, and it too has music by Ghibran. And this is when the real beauty of Kamal Haasan’s conceit kicks in. Manoranjan is dying, and Uttaman cannot die. It’s one thing that actors never really age, let alone die. Every time we watch Kalathur Kannamma, Kamal is five years old. But Manoranjan will not be around forever, and playing Uttaman is the ultimate kind of wish-fulfillment. It’s Manoranjan’s ticket to immortality. (It’s no accident that Uttaman is an actor too.)
Uttama Villain – the overall film, that is, not the folklore-ish film that’s being shot within the film (and which is set in the eighth century) – now begins to play out as a series of contrapuntal scenes. For instance, Manoranjan collapses – and we cut to Uttaman singing about saagaavaram, the boon of immortality.
Apart from a typically solid lead(s) performance, Uttama Villain has a lot of what we’ve come to expect in a Kamal Haasan movie – from reclaimed archetypes (the vidushika) to pet phrases (satyameva jayate). There’s the expected mix of languages – Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, English. And there’s the play with language. A character is named Yamini simply so that a letter written to her can feature the words “yaam ini…” Even the production company formed by Manoranjan carries the whiff of wordplay. It has his name fused with his mentor’s: Manomaarga, the way of the heart. If that doesn’t define Kamal’s career, I don’t know what does.
But despite all this – all this appreciation for Kamal’s writing; all this acknowledgement of his (personal and professional) past; all these questions about his future – Uttama Villain is just a series of discrete scenes. It just doesn’t come together as a cohesive whole. And at least part of the problem is the people Kamal has chosen to help him bring his vision to screen. I didn’t buy Pooja Kumar for a second as an eighth-century princess, not in that pixie-bob. Andrea Jeremiah, too, is incapable of pulling the weight her role requires. As for good actors like MS Baskar and Nasser (in Rasta hair and a Thai crown!), we seem them in scenes that should have us laughing and crying, but we don’t do any of these things. There’s always a beat missing. There’s always some dead air.
I saw a version of Uttama Villain that ran close to three hours. I hear some of the Uttaman portions are being trimmed to bring the film down to two-and-a-half hours, and I can’t say I’m surprised. This track is staged like a school play – the pacing is just off – and it doesn’t mesh easily with Manoranjan’s story. (Ghibran’s stirring orchestral passages are lost in this friction between the two narratives.) The glass-half-full guy in me says I should be thankful that a film at least gives you so much to think about, but this film isn’t that kind of glass. It’s really a looking glass. How I wished the entire film had been a mirror on Manoranjan, about what it is to be a star of a certain age, at a certain stage, about what it means to be Kamal Haasan.
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S
May 5, 2015
I am so keen to look forward for a movie where TR and KH come together..Movie to be titled “Ego-trip” The journey that never ends…UV was nothing but KH’s full of hot air..
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brangan
May 5, 2015
abby:Oh, that’s a tough one. It’s like having a meal at a restaurant. You know something’s wrong and what’s missing, but you can’t fix it yourself 🙂 Anyway, I’ll try.
Consider the scene where Parvathi is reading the letter as Kamal is taking his makeup off. Now, the two things are linked. So, IMO, a good director would find a way to incorporate both into the mise-en-scène, which is just a fancy word for staging. So you might have a wide frame where we see both the reading of the letter PLUS the removing of the makeup. Because letter-reading, as such, is a very boring thing to show on screen and you have to do something to “cinema-ticise” it.
See, for instance, this great letter-reading scene in Casablanca. You could have just had Bogart reading the letter — like Parvathi. But here the focus is on the letter. And because Bogart is “crying,” the letter is “crying” too — thanks to the rain.
Now, you may find this sentimental and not to your taste. I’m just showing how such a director can transform a scene from mere screenplay-level (“It’s raining. Bogart reads letter”) to have more emotional resonance/meaning, plus a shot of “compositional value,” with rain and crowds etc.
Mani Ratnam’s films, for instance, always have this “compositional value.”
Srini: Whenever a Kamal Hassan movie comes along there are a ton of reviews talking about what the subtly implied things are, many of which I really doubt he implied
No. I am not saying that Kamal implied these things. I am only saying that I saw them and found them interesting. I do this because it’s my job to not just say whether you should go or not go to this film, but rather to present a possible/plausible reading of what’s on screen.
Had it been a one-off thing, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. But apart from all the things I’ve mentioned in the review and others have pointed out, we have, for instance, the character of Uttaman named after the thief Yuhi Sethu played in “Anbe Sivam.” There are many, many more.
So I do think this is a plausible reading — that this film is a nod to his career.
Had I said this is exactly what Kamal intended, then you’d be right in hauling me up.
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Prasad
May 5, 2015
@ MANK
Yes. I’ve seen the movie”The fall”. Amazing visuals . I mean it is overwhelming to even think somebody can come up with those visuals. Thanks for the recco for other movies.
Production design is such a critical activity to bring in the time and space which we can relate to. Kamal had done it impecable in “hey Raam” and “Virumaandi” though.( We can’t keep on claming those movies for ever now:)
One point I had about “usual suspects” Do you think it is a Meta movie or it will fall under POV like Akira Kurosawa “Rashomon” or “Virumaandi”. Here we’re talking about a actual movie making or a documentary (Like RDB or Jigarthanda) within a movie..your thoughts pl.
@Sanjana
@ Venkat
Have not seen “Manam” and “Njaan ” . Will try when I get a chance. Thanks for the recco.
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vamshi shankar
May 5, 2015
Brangan, I never see you ever mentioning about Kurthipunal, that GEM of a Movie from Kamal and P.C.Sreeram was a CLASSIC, didn’t you like the movie? or is that you have forgotten about that movie, ‘coz i genuinely feel when we discuss about Kamal and the vast expertised experiments he made work like Thevar Magan, Virumandi, etc., then I think it was Kuruthipunal that will top all his following movies, the direction, camerawork, photography, BGM and ofcourse acting of every actor in that Movie was nothing less than phenomenon, I still get goosbumps when i see the scene of Arjun Sarja , suddenly steps into screen and follows Kamal on the train…phew!!!
I think Kamal must collaborate more with technicians like P.C.Sreeram who are more capable of transitioning his screenplay on to the screen, Ramesh Aravind is a big failure of UV also the only reason why this movie will not reach out as much as it should…
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MANK
May 5, 2015
@Prasad, yes you could call usual suspects a POV movie in the vein of Roshomon, explaining anything more would spoil the fun for you and so does Under suspicion.
Day for night is very much the meta movie with truffaut playing a director almost like himself in the film ala Kamal Haasan in Uttama villain even though the visual styles are totally different. 2 similar films to recommend will be Vidhu vinod chopra’s Khamosh and K.G.George’s malayalam masterpiece Yavanika – Both murder mysteries , one about the making of a film and the other about staging of a play and how characters intersect in both cases.
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Prasad
May 5, 2015
@ BR
Now that many things has been said in this blog what do you think is the Roadmap for Kamal now that he is 60 considering the constraints he has ? What are the top 2 things he needs to do? What he should do from a collaboration perspective?
@ Vamsi Shankar
” I never see you ever mentioning about Kurthipunal, that GEM of a Movie from Kamal and P.C.Sreeram was a CLASSIC, didn’t you like the movie”
I do agree “Kuruthipunal” is a good movie but in terms of originality it is scene by scene remake of Govind Nihalini’s “Drohkaal” starring Om Puri and Naseer. That’s why Kamal’s “Virumaandi” and “Hey Ram” are considered as OUTSTANDING achievements compared to Kuruthipunal as they are ORIGINAL PIECE of work.
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MANK
May 5, 2015
@Vamshi, i know you posed the query to Brangan, but allow me to make a pertinent point about Kuruthipunal, Actually its a remake of what i consider a superior film- Govind Nihalani’s Drohkaal. Kuruthipunal is technically a more competent film and made on a much bigger scale., But i think Drohkaal is a more honest presentation of the same story. Even in the case of performances , I think Om Puri and Ashish vidyarthi are ahead of Kamal and Nasser. This got to be Vidyarthi’s greatest performance. The confrontation scenes between him and om puri in the film are the finest i have seen on Indian screen. Somehow that special something is missing in the scenes between Nasser and Kamal.
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S N Dayanidhi
May 5, 2015
@Prasad ,” I think Kamal is already on this Road-Papansam and Oru iruvu are a good beginning where you will see his refined acting. I am mighty pleased that Gibran is scoring OST for both and his chemistry with Kamal will be the thing to watch and he needs someone like Kamal to get the best out of him. Surprised there was no mention of Gibran’s good work in this long trail. I would say the Kamal’s forte would be alternating serious and comedy movies which have enthralled us in equal measures. He should also start working with Young upcoming Directors without forcing too much of his ideas on them.
The biggest problem Kamal faces is that he wants to be seen in many Avatars and Makeups in the same Movie (with his love for makeup and many faces that he wants to show) which is in essence diluting the whole movie.It would just suit him to show his immense capabilities without all this sumptuousness..
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vamshi shankar
May 5, 2015
@MANK & @Prasad, I knew it was scene by scene remake of Drohkaal, but to give its due credit, Kuruthipunal technically was top notch, and yes Vidyarthi was better than Naseer in comparison..And regarding Kamal v/s Ompuri – well I don’t agree…as Kamal got his own interpretation to the role [after all he has his fans to oblige]
But the point i was trying to make here is in order to successfully transition a brilliant screenplay like UV, Kamal needs to associate with better technicians like P.C.Sreeram / Mysskin rather than go with a half baked director like Ramesh Aravind, whose direction was a big letdown. Like BR correctly mentioned in the review “what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction?” and rightly, a good director would have added more dimensions to the screenplay and could’ve taken UV to a whole new level.
PS: Ramesh Aravind directed the kannada remake of “Sathi Leelavathi” [kamal also acted in it] and was a scene by scene copy but yes his direction was much better.
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Prasad
May 5, 2015
@MANK
” But i think Drohkaal is a more honest presentation of the same story. Even in the case of performances , I think Om Puri and Ashish vidyarthi are ahead of Kamal and Nasser. This got to be Vidyarthi’s greatest performance”
Can’t agree more :). Spot on! Vidhyarthi was amazing in that movie and will look like a Terrorist who is also intellectual who has a strong vision! Even Annu Kapoor would have done his role very effectively.
@ S N Dayanidhi
“I think Kamal is already on this Road-Papansam and Oru iruvu are a good beginning where you will see his refined acting”
Want to bring one point here. Papanasam should not become like “Unnaipol Oruvan” (Remake of A Wednesday). Mohan lal would have underplayed the role like anything and lived that role in Dhrishyum and I wish Kamal should not overact and bring in the melodrama effect.
Exactly same thing happened in “”Unnaipol Oruvan” …Naseer was way ahead in the Hindi version. He just lived that character without any Melodarama.
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Iswarya
May 5, 2015
Rahini: I had a nagging feeling somewhere that this kind of comparison would certainly come up. But, I think it’s unfair to look at UV as a rehashed piece, the way some people see (Y)Ennai Arindhaal. (I don’t think GVM did a lazy rehash either, but that’s another story.) Haven’t watched OKK, but then I think UV is more about referencing rather than just reusing. And what fun to spot those references! YA or OKK didn’t seem to have any of those conscious winks at the audience, inviting them to join the hunt.
3 days after watching the movie, I still wake up with a chuckle to discover all those Easter eggs. To add to the ongoing list here,
**** CRITICAL SPOILER ALERT ****
Add to this the typical Kamal subversion of killing off the god Narasimha and establishing the victory of the commoner as Mrutyunjayan in the play! 🙂
*** END OF SPOILER ***
It’s been a week of exciting discoveries! 😀
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knittins
May 5, 2015
Another easter egg – the catch-catch with the boy is perhaps the first time since Avargal that KH has touched a cricket ball on screen. “Naan innum chinna payyan”, much like he was in Avargal. Aside: He set up and choreographed that delightful cricket sequence in Avargal.
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brangan
May 5, 2015
Ennappa ellaarum ivvalavu “over-analyse” pannreenga. Padam-na paathoma, popcorn saaptoma-nu illama… You should learn to enjoy films, not analyse them.
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Just Another Film Buff
May 5, 2015
It is vaguely funny and telling that he is making an 8 1/2 at a point where he should be really making Intervista.
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knittins
May 5, 2015
Pazhamozhi sonna…. Wow, now Easter Eggs are showing up everywhere, including comments thread.
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Ram Murali
May 5, 2015
Inge Baradwaj-nu oru maanasthar irundhaare…
avar kedaika maataaru!
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brangan
May 5, 2015
Prasad: I thought “Manam” was hugely overrated.
vamshi shankar: About Kurudhippunal, it’s what the others have said. It’s a good film, of course. But I prefer the original. This one’s too glossy, and it suffers from the casting of Nasser, who’s too old to bring the kind of fire to his revolutionary character the way the young Ashish Vidyarthi did (what a performance, and subsequently, what a fall!).
What I do like in the film are the scenes between Kamal and Gauthami. I liked Arjun too. His best performance, along with Mudhalvan and Kadal.
MANK: Ah, Day For Night. What a great film. And what a great opening, establishing the shooting 🙂 I love how French films so casually slip in death or some other grave thing (like incest, in Murmur of my Heart) so casually into an otherwise light film.
Speaking of Truffaut, do you have any oddball (i.e. not the usual) favourites among his films? I’m crazy about Two English Girls and The Story of Adele H.
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naina
May 5, 2015
the bride wore black – which i think inspired the premise of kill bill (and speaking of kamal, neeya…)
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Ram Murali
May 5, 2015
I still get goosbumps when i see the scene of Arjun Sarja , suddenly steps into screen and follows Kamal on the train…phew!!!
–> Vamshi Shankar, thanks for bringing back memories of a really nice movie… I loved Arjun in this movie. I liked how the friendship between Kamal and Arjun was portrayed. Loved how they would dress similarly, say things like “En Siva romba getti…sorry, namma Siva” My most unforgettable moment in KP was the scene following Arjun’s killing. First of all, it was really chilling was how casually he got killed by Nasser. And then Geetha’s outburst following Arjun’s death – it felt so real. Her outburst and Kamal’s too-stunned-to-react expression were just unforgettable.
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Gradwolf
May 5, 2015
http://dagalti.blogspot.in/2011/08/why-kurudhippunal-kicks-drohkaals-ass.html #NarayanaNarayana
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Filistine
May 5, 2015
Regarding Truffart, “The man who loved women”, which probably inspired KB’s Manmatha Leelai
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venkatesh
May 5, 2015
Re-Kuruthipunal , subsequently what a fall , no not Ashish Vidhyarthi – but Arjun.
@BR: “I love how French films so casually slip in death or some other grave thing”
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Srini
May 6, 2015
@brangan – If it was just a reading, then that’s perfectly fine. But you have asked ‘has any Indian actor bared himself’ like this before and you have also said ‘here is a 60 year old contemplating his legacy’, both of which convey with some degree of certainty that you believe it is something the maker has implied, or at least that is how it sounded to me. It would be a terrific read if you manage to interview Kamal sometime, almost all of his interviews are filled with ‘eppidi sir ungalaala mattum mudiyuthu’ type questions, there is hardly anything critical. It will be interesting to see how he defends his work or maybe even accept some flaws.
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Vijay Kumar Natarajan
May 6, 2015
I never have written a movie review, probably coz’ I thought, no matter whatever one feels about a movie, there is a tendency to be prejudiced or to remain just a simple patron, fuelled by personal likes, irrespective of how good or bad the flick is. However, “Uttama Villain” induced me to write and here I am – a debutant in review writing.
First the disclaimer, am neither a prejudiced “fan” nor a patron – just a neutral admirer.
Uttama Villain proves quite strongly that reliance on talent is quintessential of film making – Kamal & Co have just done that. The way they have handled the “story within a story” concept is simply amazing and more fascinating is that the stories being antonymic to each other. The way Kamal permeates your mind through these two characters is simply flabbergasting, coupled multi-axially with many well depicted characters through MS Bhaskar, KB, K Vishwanath, Urvasi, Nasser, Parvathi Menon and Ashwin (Kamal’s son). At times you might wonder if this movie, is indeed, Kamal’s conduit to set right the apocryphal portrayal of his personal life or to showcase his ever-growing thirst to excel or just sheer masterpiece. Call whatever you may, this movie is just brilliant – basically a kickass !!
Many scenes stand-out, but my favourite ones in the same order, are: Kamal’s expression of regret as Jayaram unfolds the bitter past – wonderful camera angle and I bet none other than Kamal could make that impact on you; next, his encounter with his son – classic melancholy sure to impinge your heart, the moment of truth with KB (sadness) and KV (anger and authority)…simply wow, no adjective is good enough. To top it all the climax dance drama with Hiranya – Prahalada theme – absolute class. The humour quotient hits the roof with Uttaman character that makes the film dish out to you a “full-meal” feel. Gibran’s music is enthralling and encapsulates you throughout the movie, especially during Uttaman’s introduction and scenes depicting his death-defying acts of luck, but the zenith moment of Gibran’s music is best saved for the climax, the crescendo build up on “Mrutyunjaya om” which is not going to fade off our memories for long, I bet.
In general – there is a brand identity attached to “movie reviews” that is held by a few media houses that people look up to. The trend is changing fast with lots of “paid reviews” doing rounds and the audience no longer can be swayed towards or away based on these reviews. Here is my first honest attempt !!. My two cents….tata…
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MANK
May 6, 2015
Ashish Vidyarthi ,what a performance, and subsequently, what a fall
Brangan, yeah what really happened to Vidyarthi. i cringe every time i see him in those over the top performances in rank bad commercial films and thinking what this guy is really capable of.
Reg. Truffaut, i like his adaptation of fahrenheit 451 , the Bradbury book. even though i agree its not the greatest of his films , but i believe it is terribly underrated and its sort of a precursor to such oddball dystopian films to come like Brazil and Blade Runner. And yes ‘widow wore black’ as well. I was pretty shocked to see that film. . You sit down to watch a revenge plot and get so repulsed by what Jeanne Moreau goes about doing in the name of revenge. She was quite chilling. I am sure it was an inspiration for Sriram Raghavan’s films like Ek Hasina Thi and Badlapur.
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
May 6, 2015
A studied comparison of Kurudhippunal and Drohkaal here from a friend http://dagalti.blogspot.in/2011/08/why-kurudhippunal-kicks-drohkaals-ass.html
Also, since JAFB has not linked his own piece on Uthama Villain here, http://t.co/bbxXrvGJW9 🙂
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MANK
May 6, 2015
Reg. the opening scene of Day for night, i think Robert Altman did a nice version of that In The Player.
I think the french are more sexually liberated than the the british or americans, hence they dont make much of a fuss about sexually risque issues like incest or homosexuality in films.Just take that central menage trois relationship in jules and jim. You can find gay or lesbian couples in every second french film.
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Shankar V
May 6, 2015
The problem I see here is many Kamal fans are like Ilaiyaraja fans. They try to analyse the product to find the good things and highlight them. But they forget that before you dive deep to analyze, the product has to appeal as a whole.
Raja songs over the last decade have been pretty mediocre – especially compared to the high standards he had set for himself. But you read reviews of his songs and people would talk about a flute piece here, a string of violins there, counterpoint, harmony and stuff like that. But the song…..!! Most of them have fallen flat.
Kamal’s movies are pretty similar. There could be an odd scene or two where the actor in him makes us go wow! Some nice nuances, some inspired scenes that make us feel what a great technician he is. But despite these, most of his films since 2000 have been substandard fare.
Kamal fans may not agree but please do remember the cliche – over analysis leads to paralysis!!
Enjoy the movie for what it is. We can dive deeper after we appreciate the movie and understand the finer nuances and subtexts.
Just my 2c.
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Arjun
May 6, 2015
“Kamal fans are like Ilaiyaraja fans. They try to analyse the product to find the good things and highlight them. But they forget that before you dive deep to analyze, the product has to appeal as a whole.”
“Raja songs over the last decade have been pretty mediocre – especially compared to the high standards he had set for himself. But you read reviews of his songs and people would talk about a flute piece here, a string of violins there, counterpoint, harmony and stuff like that. But the song…..!! Most of them have fallen flat.”
Actually, I agree. Despite often trying to convince myself (and others) that Raja’s recent songs are as good as any of his past creations, the cold fact is I hardly find myself going back to them. Not even Neethane en ponvasantham. One can atleast be honest to oneself, i guess.
And Uttama villain, whatever subtexts and meta references and angles you may read into it, is ultimately, IMO a piece of rotten filmmaking replete with LCD elements and cliched humor and yet managing to be utterly unentertaining. Rarely has a Kamal movie bored me to death as much as this.
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Ramanan
May 6, 2015
The opening song, single kisske .. is just a plain waste. and – you could’ve proved the point of “run of the mill, crass crap movies” in many other interesting and funny ways. there goes the producer’s money. and an opportunity to make the move shorter. infact – I thought I despised it to an extent that I felt I was going to hate the movie. But then it got better soon.
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Lakshmi
May 6, 2015
Your review on Uttama villain is precisely what I felt while watching the movie, word to word. Cant say I liked the movie a lot, but he surely gave me a lot of food for thought. The acting could have been better from his co-stars and the story could have been simpler. But then, that is Kamal – in your own words, so dense and allusive and overstuffed and layered and indulgent. In a scene where he meets his daughter for the first time, it is shown very discretely that it does not matter whom Manonmani considers her dad, she still has his genes and we notice her having the same body language as him. Such small tidbits are thrown all over the movie and can easily be lost in the speed with which the movie goes back and forth between Manoranjan and Uttaman. Parvathi Menon is capable of showing much deeper emotions for such a dramatic scene is what I felt. And Kamal anyway eclipses her.
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Sriram
May 6, 2015
http://www.dinamani.com/cinema/2015/05/06/%E0%AE%89%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%AE-%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D–%E0%AE%89%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%B2%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%86/article2800519.ece#
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Raghavan
May 6, 2015
A deeper take away can be that, each of the women that he comes across is symbolically representing a fan, ex-fan, or non-fan of his. Yamini is his ex-lover, someone that could represent early stage fans of Kamal, someone that feel in love with the freshness he was bringing to the screen 20-30 years ago. But he is forced to trade that fan for K.Viswanath’s daugther (Urvasi – pakka commerical films) due to money and growing pressure from that quarter.
Likewise, in real life Kamal has had to do commercial films at a certain stage in his career to get to his super stardom today. He leaves Yamini around the same time he stopped making class movies with K Balachander/Margadarsi, in other terms when he sold himself out to Urvasi, and he made commercial movies with K.Viswanath. But secretly he is in love with Aparna/ continuing an affair with Indie/Class films.
In the end when he gets Manomani to cry for him and to understand the reasoning behind him having to sell himself out to commercial films/Urvasi he gains the claps of the current/young generation fans who realize he’s had to do what he had to do to get to this UlagaNayagan stage. Manomani/Manohar – current new generation of fans whose parents (Yamini – old “Class fans” / Urvasi – “mass fans” ) are portrayed to be crying in the last shot along with Aparna (new “indie/independent movie” fans of his).
Ironically, in the next shot we are shown in the theater fans and non-fans enjoying his movie. In a sense he’s saying the now/next generation of tamil audience and his fans are who will truly appreciate his work when we lose him as a star and to them he will be immortal on the screen.
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Santosh Balakrishnan
May 6, 2015
Finally saw the movie (twice in 2 days once the first time bliss sank in 🙂 ).. well could not disagree with your review more.. and the below link reflects my thots very closely.. one of the best movies of KH..
http://www.onlykollywood.com/duality-in-uttama-villain-the-immortal-meta-masterpiece/
P.S despite the multi layered buffet offered on platter i also loved the movie purely from an entertaining view point..
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Arun Rathakrishnan
May 6, 2015
Excellent review BR. I thought the entire arc of Manoranjan was about iterating through the characters in his life and making his peace with them, as he points out a family tree to Manonmani towards the end of the movie. Generally this would not make for appealing viewing, and hence probably there is a place for some evocative prose, surprising character twists towards the end (Urvashi surprising plays a part in wrecking Kamal-Yamin’s life and Kamal finally plays a character that is bereft of moral uprightness as surprisingly he cheats on his wife with her doctor) and an entire Vadivelu movie seemingly to provide just the laughs.
I thought the inner “Uttama Villain” as a fable provides context for Manoranjan’s actions. If Uttaman used immortality to trick Mutharasan, Manorajan uses his impending death to make amends (get back to good terms with his mentor, win over his daughter, etc). Uttaman Kadhai and within it the “Iraniyan Kadhai”, provided Kamal Hassan the perfect thematic setting and opportunity to stage a dues ex machina (it was done with a bit more fanfare in Dasavatharam, and here it is further played with an interesting twist).
I thought the scenes in these parts were sort of shoddily staged- telling instead of showing which hughely contrasted the economy with which the outer “Uttama Villain” was setup. I am not defending the shoddy staging, but there is also something about the primitiveness of the form (All scenes that portay movie making are shoddy, starting from the intentionally bad choreography in the opening song). My (possible ludicrous) theory is that Kamal wanted to construct a structure similar to “Inception”. There, the characers “decided to go” to a deeper level within a dream to trick a man from his subconcious, and here, the characters “decide to make” a movie/play to achieve immortality. If in “Inception”, passage of time varied between the levels, here the sophistication of the art form varies between the levels. And the dues ex machina provides an ending to all levels within “UV”, just as “Inception”‘s levels are provided an ending by Cobb’s tracing of Saito.
PS: Shameless plug on the link with the display name 🙂
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brangan
May 6, 2015
Sriram: Thanks for that link. This part, however, I found very problematic:
பாலசந்தர் சர்வதேச சினிமா உலகில் நல்ல சினிமா என்று அறியப்படும் திக்கின் அருகில் கூடப் போனதாகத் தெரியவில்லை. ஆனால் பாலு மகேந்திரா சென்றிருக்கிறார். அவருடைய அழியாத கோலங்கள், வீடு, சந்தியா ராகம், தலைமுறைகள் நான்கும் சர்வதேசத் தரத்தில் அமைந்தவை.
I think it’s not such a good thing if we decide that the style international art cinema is the only great style and that an Avargal or a Thappu Thaalangal or a Varumayin Niram Sivappu isn’t… “world cinema.”
If the melodrama is a problem, why is it okay to consider Douglas Sirk’s films classics (and worth studying seriously) and not Balachander’s?
In fact, I’d say he was one of the few who found a very Indian way of presenting artistic cinema, as opposed to Balu Mahendra who simply followed the accepted Western style.
Spoke about some of this in my review of Court here:
By any measure, Court is an impressive achievement. The performances are uniformly excellent (no one seems to be “performing”), the craft is exquisite (nothing seems to be “crafted”), and the false notes are few. I didn’t care for the shots of Vora in a beauty parlour. And I winced when a typically fiery performance by Narayan Kamble is followed by a dance by “under-15 girls.” This kind of look-this-is-India editorialising seems targeted at a foreign market, the same audiences for whom some Indian writers write those pieces with lines like “I went to Varanasi and met a man tending to funeral pyres on the banks of the Ganges.” This… Western eye, if you will, is also evident in the filmmaking, with its tableaux of static wide shots. In the absence of camera movement, we rely on other things to enliven the frames – people crossing roads and walking past doors, traffic on streets, the fluttering of paper flags above a stage, a boy practicing on Roman Rings. This is the way the Europeans (not to forget Ozu) make their art cinema, and I wonder if – just like our commercial cinema has its own voice, its own distinctive grammar – our art cinema, too, can’t find a style that’s uniquely ours.
Also: எப்படியிருந்தாலும், கமல்ஹாசனின் உத்தம வில்லன் உலகின் முதல் ஆட்டோஃபிக்ஷன் சினிமா என்பதில் எந்த ஐயப்பாடும் இல்லை.
Huh? So where does that leave the likes of 8-1/2? 🙂
Finally: படத்தில் ஆண்ட்ரியாவின் சோகமான கண்கள் எனக்கு ஷேக்ஸ்பியரின் பல துன்பவியல் நாடகங்களை நினைவூட்டியது.
Erm… okay!
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brangan
May 6, 2015
Speaking of films-within-films, wanted to add the name of a great book, and a beautifully judged screen adaptation: The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Very similar contrapuntal stuff there.
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Ram Murali
May 6, 2015
Woody Allen’s “Stardust memories” was also quite autobiographical if I am correct.
A lesser movie of his, “Deconstructing Harry” had some amusing moments… there were two sets of characters, one “real” and another being characters that he wrote (In the film, he plays a writer)… what was really funny and inventive I thought was the way the two worlds interacted with one another…
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Sriram
May 6, 2015
Hi BR, what Charu says is that 8-1/2 is autobiographical but Uttama Villain, Zero Degree, Puthiya Exile and Fils are auto-fictional.
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Manikandan V
May 7, 2015
ஆதிசங்கரர் கதையும் அத்வைதமும் உத்தமன் கதையாய் உத்தம வில்லன் என்றொரு அபாரமான திரைப்படமாய் வந்திருக்கிறது
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Mister Confusious
May 7, 2015
An art weaved with multiple layers of subtext – Introduction to Uthama Villain.
Art refines human beings. A culture that does not understand, appreciate, and support art faces the risk of turning barbaric.
The persecution of intellectuals and artists under religious regimes and that of authoritarian Nazi and Communist regimes and the subsequent downfall of those regimes was not a coincidence.
Someone said ’The best part of an art, is the part that cannot be explained’.
Instead of writing about stellar acting performances, exhilarating background music score and many other excellent technical aspects which is plain for anyone to see. Following is my attempt to explain the unexplained part of this movie.
This may all be just my figment of imagination but that is the definition of the best form of art, it allows the participant to play a role equal to that of a creator.
This movie has many layers of storytelling all exquisitely weaved into one interesting work of Art. To get an idea about what is really going on under the skin of this movie, we need to understand the outline of this story.
This may contain some spoilers but my hope is, if people understand these aspects they maybe able to appreciate this movie more.
Story outline –
A popular movie star comes to know that his time is running out and he wants to do one last film with his mentor.
The main theme of the movie is, ’even if someone dies in real life he can remain immortal through the body of his works’.
This movie slides smoothly between the things that is happening in the life of the actor and the story that is being directed by his mentor.
Few things that is being conveyed within this outline –
1 – Tribute: This movie is a tribute by actor Kamal Hassan (KH) to his mentor K.Balachander (KB).
In this movie KH says to his ageing mentor ’I want to make a movie with you before my time ends (with his mentor)’ and there is a scene in which his mentor makes KH to sit in his chair, subtext of which is, after KB’s time KH will carry on his work.
The same technique was used in KH’s earlier movie Thevar Magan where KH will sit on veteran actor Shivaji Ganesan’s chair to convey similar message.
The roles were reversed in this movie to show KB in good health because that is how KH wants his mentor to be remembered by posterity.
2- The movie within movie: It is not a coincidence that the movie being directed within this movie is represented in the form of folk drama.
Folk drama has always been used to convey valuable lessons to the king and the population alike, by hiding those messages beneath the veneer of banal comedy.
That way, no one will be openly offended and the powers that be will not have to lose their face in front of everyone, thus creating a more conducive environment to correct their mistake.
The contrary approach of a patronising sermon only succeeds in antagonising people, pushes them to become defensive and thus creates animosity instead of understanding.
So, what is being conveyed through this folk drama?
It starts with Arjun from Indian mythology getting pasupath astra from Shiva after doing intense penance. Subtext is, KH getting graduation from his mentor.
Then few kids let loose snake in the crowd which bites four people before biting KH, since the snake has already spent all its venom on four other people, the bite was harmless when it comes to KH.
Subtext is, snake is the symbolism for money spoiling the art. Many of his acting colleagues disappear due to over commercialisation of cinema but KH survives after seeing what that has done to his colleagues.
Later KH is being brought to cremation ground where he awakens among the dead body to the horror of people who thought he was dead. Only person who seem happy to see him alive again is a seemingly dim witted person. Subtext, the seemingly dim witted person symbolises his ardent fans who stick with him through thick and thin, even if they were ridiculed by others for it.
The scene in which he eats a banana and throw one towards that seemingly dim witted person shows the beautiful poignancy of that relationship in which both care for each other in their own way.
The scene in which KH runs away from dead bodies with disgust, shows his aversion towards art succumbing to pure commercialisation and thus stopping to do what it has to do, which is equivalent to death.
After this survival KH is known as immortal, this theme ties up with the main theme of the movie which is about immortality.
At the same time, a power hungry person kills the king and queen, and imprisons the beautiful princess. Subtext, the princess can be seen as the representation of Tamil itself, which has grown for many centuries under the love and patronage of great kings and poets, but she has been hijacked by narrow minded power hungry racial fanatics.
The king is shown as someone who has lost one of his ear, because fanatics cannot listen to anything other than the things they would like to hear.
KH was brought to the presence of this dictator in a cage, since KH has survived longer than others the dictator wants to appropriate KH’s glory for his own benefit.
On the way, kids question KH who is enchained, caged and paraded in the street, about whether he is really immortal? for which he replies ’no’ but some sell stones to the kids so that they could test whether he is immortal or not. This scene explains many constraints and hurdles an artist has to face, such as people saying I do not understand or I do not like it when art is not what they normally expect it to be and some even making themselves popular and rich by talking about art which they clearly do not understand.
The pet tiger of the princess has been imprisoned and fed with curd rice. Tiger symbolises Tamil people itself, who are purposely kept ignorant and dull by power hungry dictator.
KH acts like a court jester to make the dictator and his cronies laugh but his real intention is to save the princess and her tiger from the clutches of the dictator. Meaning, his real intention is to save Tamil and its people from the hands of self serving bullies.
There is a dialogue in which princess tells KH that ’he needs to be brave to save the country’ for which he replies ’Can a artist save a country? Then he says, I will try if your Tiger doesn’t kill me before that’. Meaning, he will try to educate people through his art if people support him.
3- Black and white versus colour: The characters in the folk drama are either good or bad but in the story of the actor things are not that simple. This symbolises the glorious complications in real life.
The actor’s father-in-law had connived to get the actor married to his daughter, actor’s wife had threatened to kill herself to force her father, to get her married to the actor.
Even though people understand these two characters, they find it hard to empathise with the character of the actor, who seem to be having an affair with a young lady.
It makes them uncomfortable to know that the actor does not feel remorse for his action as he goes on to profess his love for all the women at the same time.
Does the story justify infidelity?
This opens a pandora’s box in a country where most marriages are arranged and they survive only through mutual trust and the ability to find a common ground through thick and thin.
The scenario portrayed in the movie raises few questions, is infidelity a birthright for men or even women can engage in it? If so, what about broken hearts and houses? What about the injustice it does to the children due to the fallout of this selfish act? What about the psychological scar this toxic scenario can create in the minds of the children and what about the alienation they suffer in the hands of the step-parent or the relatives?
I do not believe this movie justifies infidelity.
Earlier in the movie KH introduces himself as a person who used to be arrogant, conveying he is not perfect.
The part in which KH has to face his daughter, whose presence he was not even aware of till she was a grown woman, shows no one can escape from facing the repercussions of their actions.
This movie thus portrays that all the main characters has their own type of flaws, which is not a justification for their own actions, instead as Leo Tolstoy said ’Error is the force that welds men together’. It is when people realise their own error they become more compassionate to other people instead of being vengeful.
4- Comedy: Lost in translation jokes garners nothing more than a smile at the best.
The too stupid to be true type of comedy which is strewn all over the folk drama makes people impatient and they risk being perceived as an insult to the intelligence of the audience. Which is what happened to KH’s earlier movie ‘Mumbai express’.
But as a part of the folk drama this can be justified in the sense that it is reflective of the over the type of acting and the buffoonery used in real life folk drama. But it would have been better if it was not repetitive and cut short to the bare minimum just to prove the point.
5- Social satire: The controversial Iraniyan Naadagam in which Narasiman dies instead of Iraniyan, this part is essential for the wellbeing of the society.
Someone said ’Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable’. Art and artist has the right to mock, question and protest against the established ideals, because this is the only antidote against fascism and fanaticism.
That is why during the times of the kings they had court jesters to mock the authoritarian diktats, which helped to keep the feet of kings firmly grounded in reality.
In our tradition, we have the legend of Nakeeran who said ’even if you are Shiva, if you have committed a mistake, it is still a mistake’.
That’s why the priests and monks who get caught in their sexual escapades are doing much favour to their respective religions because by their actions they prove nothing is and should be beyond reproach.
Their shams inadvertantly create a more healthy environment of debate and discovery, which allows their followers to grow internally with an open mind.
6- Multi lingual cast: It seems like a conscious decision to have a multi-lingual cast, to prove the necessity to live and love beyond boundaries of religion, language, race and nationality. This is needs to be underlined in the current Indian scenario where there is growth in religion, language and caste based fanaticism.
7- Screenplay: Even though the film seemingly moves between the story of the actor in his personal life and the folk drama, it is in fact just one story, that is the story of the actor, not only that, each scene is beautifully linked to the other scene.
For example, when the actor has to console others about the fact that his time is running out, the very next shot takes us to folk drama where the artist sings in front of the dictator about ’life without end is a misery and no one wants to listen to a story which has no end’.
8- His own review about reviews: In the folk drama after singing a philosophical song about death and immortality, KH will ask the king ’Sire, did you understand the impermanence of life?’ For which the king will reply ’No, I understood the importance of lust’ Then KH will sigh saying ‘I said so many other things but it all seems to have fallen in the deaf ear’.
It seems like KH clearly knows that most of the things he has done will go unnoticed and such is the burden of the artist.
The very fact that so many things and much more has been packed within just one movie without any confusion, shows KH and his team’s mastery of the craft.
Can this movie be improved upon?
Of course, as Leonardo Da Vinci said ’Art is never finished only abandoned’.
But this movie as it is, is an interesting work of art which will be treasured in years to come all over the world.
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MANK
May 7, 2015
If the melodrama is a problem, why is it okay to consider Douglas Sirk’s films classics (and worth studying seriously) and not Balachander’s?
Brangan, but are Douglas sirk films considered worth studying seriously?. I know his films were ignored during his lifetime, but has undergone critical revaluation and acquired a new cult following nowadays.But are they taught in film schools like Fellini or Godard?
Speaking of films-within-films, wanted to add the name of a great book, and a beautifully judged screen adaptation: The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Very similar contrapuntal stuff there.
You mean, you haven’t already see mentioning the film eh, huh 🙂
Oh btw , did you like Meryl streep’s performance in the film?
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Shankar V
May 7, 2015
Charu Nivedita uses the term auto-fiction because he claims that a couple of his works are auto-fictions. He seems to think that he is pioneering this genre in Tamil literature and would now like to add a heavyweight Kamal into that category. 🙂
Take whatever Charu Nivedita says with a pinch of salt. No….not a pinch but more than a handful actually. 😉
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Shankar V
May 7, 2015
This is what Charu Nivedita says in that review. I rest my case 😀
ஆட்டோஃபிக்ஷன் என்ற genre-இல் எழுதுபவர்கள் இன்று வெகு சொற்பம். உலக அளவிலேயே இரண்டு மூன்று பேர்தான். அதில் அடியேனும் ஒருவன்.
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Sriram
May 7, 2015
தமிழ் நண்டு
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Reuben
May 7, 2015
A very nice take, Mr.Confusious.
The amount of thought put into writing this movie is enormous. The lyrics of the song “Saagavaram” is a testimony to that. This song touches upon creation, the concept of selfish gene and hang on, it also takes care to represent the incorrect geocentric theory prevailing during 8th century astronomy.
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pravin
May 7, 2015
@ PS Krish: i wholly endorse with your views on the `fading’ star. IMHO, this film is autobiographical only in the sense that – after the forthcoming 4 releases – we will only get to see more of Kamal the director and very less of the actor. Great fortune indeed for the young person who can really get into the mind of Kamal the director!
@MANK: you were spot on with the home production and cost fronts.
@ Raj and BRangan: Raj, appreciate you for showing the distinction between a movie-goer and a movie-critic. I too feel that a movie-critic is like a TV cricket commentator. One has to just go through the flow and know when to shut up. Much like the late Richie Benuad.
BRangan, are we again missing the wood for the trees?
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oliver
May 7, 2015
is oram po an auto fiction movie ? 😉
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Prasad
May 7, 2015
“பின்குறிப்பு 2: ஆலன் ராப்-க்ரியே, ஃபெலினி, துப்ரோவ்ஸ்கி போன்ற பெயர்களைப் பார்த்து பயந்து விட வேண்டாம்.”
I’ve seen in so many articles /Interviews somehow we take all great names of Western Directors but selectively forget the Master Ray. I think it’s time we can say if “Ray ” is not quoted in the “Great Directors” Probably it may be due to the ignorance of the Writer himself or Pure Prejudice of Western Cinema.
I think we can very easily make a Study and write a book on Influence of Ray on Great Directors like Scorscesse and Spielberg and whole Hollywood itself.
When I was watching “Birdman” I can’t stop thinking the Narrative style of Ray in Kanchenjunga. interwoven storylines between multiple characters, jumping between the beginning and end (flashback and flashforward), this movie has every element that characteristizes it as a hyperlink film” …even Babel and Syriana falls in this Genre.
The Alien (film) was wrote by Ray and The plot revolves around a spaceship that lands in a pond in rural Bengal.Ray went to US for Production but nothing turned out. Ray believed that Steven Spielberg’s film ET”would not have been possible without my script of The Alien being available throughout America in mimeographed copies.
How many times you see “Abhijan ” The Expedition …it brings back the memory of of cynical cab driver Travis Bickle Nero in “Taxi Driver” which Scorscesse himself accepted that it was inspired by Ray’s movie
Will sign off with one of my favourite scene in “Days and Night in the Forest”…Can’t believe this was made in 1970.
Bottomline , yes there are great directors across the globe but we can’t forget our own Master in that List 🙂
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Sriram
May 7, 2015
Charu endorses Ritwik Ghatak school rather than Satyajit Ray’s. He prefers a Werner Herzog to an Akira Kurosawa. May I kindly recommend his books on cinema:
Cinema – Alainthu Thiribavanin Azhagiyal (சினிமா: அலைந்து திரிபவனின் அழகியல்)
Cinema Cinema (சினிமா சினிமா)
Naragaththilirundhu oru kural (நரகத்திலிருந்து ஒரு குரல்)
Kanavugalin Nadanam (கனவுகளின் நடனம்)
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vkrm
May 7, 2015
uttama villain is kamal hasans nayak
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Sriram
May 7, 2015
BR, sorry about posting these videos. I end my propaganda with these videos.
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Ram Murali
May 7, 2015
http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/uttama-villain-kamal-haasan/article7180889.ece?secpage=true&secname=entertainment
I was quite shocked to read about the episode involving the “tallest superstar”
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apala
May 7, 2015
@Ram Murali: You beat me to it! Yes it was shocking to read about the episode on “tallest superstar”.
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apala
May 8, 2015
“The main grouse some directors have is that when they approach him (Kamal) with a script he suggests they direct what he’s written. During a meeting, I happened to tell him that he intimidates youngsters. “Tell me who they are. They do come but have nothing striking to offer. It’s not just Kamal to be fed. We have to feel the spirit that’s kindled when we hear something. Success and failure don’t matter. Nobody knows anyway,” he said slightly agitated”.
Remeber Sivaji did not have anything worthy of mention out of his last 30-40 films – except for “Mudal Mariyadhai” and “Devar Magan”?
Kamal summed this up to AR Murugadoss: “சிங்கத்துக்கு தயிர் சோறு வெச்சே கொன்னோம்”.
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Mr. X
May 8, 2015
I am sorry, I doubt the review quality here. Normally, a big fan of your reviews but this time quite dejected to see a review of this sort. You can like or dislike a film, that is perfectly your opinion and I respect that, but when you write a review make sure that you directly get into business instead of quoting so many references. It’s so disturbing to see many ref. especially Arpana – Aparna thing. When the film has so much to speak about I could find very few aspects mentioned in your review(I even felt that “Spoilers ahead” was unnecessary there 😉 #JFF). Even a guy like me can speak for hours about the performances, nuances in the making & layers in the screenplay why can’t a influencer like you!! Is that because of #KamalHaasan ..? Please don’t bring in the personal polarity, not just Kamal even you have a huge set of people following your reviews. Just a small question out of curiosity, were you as prepared as you were for Hollywood biggies like Interstellar or Inception or Birdman..? I am not comparing them with UV but I’m trying to make a point that this film too has certain things like Saagavaram song (which explains Big bang theory, in andhadhi pattern), Uttaman Kadhai (tells the complete story of Uttaman event by event), Villupaatu etc. which requires some attention and prior knowledge! Please don’t spoil others’ experience with your misleading review.
You can hate him or Love him but don’t try to distract others which make them to ignore him. He deserves some respect.
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bart
May 8, 2015
@ Ram Murali: hmm. Looks like he has a skeleton museum in his cupboard.
That movie referred to is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khabardar_(unreleased_film)
Other skeletons can be found in comments section of this link: http://www.topix.com/forum/who/rajesh-khanna/T009CI1EFLJ48M3CS/p24#c529
a) These are still rumours and b) Who is a saint, afterall… most onscreen heroes would be “Uthama Villains” 🙂
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Ramanan
May 8, 2015
@MisterConfusions : Congrats on a breathtaking review. You must be a genius who watched a movie paying a masterful attention or someone close to Kamal himself.
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v
May 8, 2015
This has always been known back in the day that Amitabh sabotaged kamal in this project, one of the main reasons kamal walked out of bollywood. Kamal will never write his book. I know he gives other reasons, long time it takes to make a film in bollywood and the entry of underworld, but not bachchan
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Sathya
May 8, 2015
Yesterday I saw Uttama Villain and I would like to share some of my views about this movie, this is not review, because nobody can Review a Kamal Movie correctly.
UV is summary of all Kamal films, only if you are true Kamal fan can understand and feel the emotions and subtle performance by him
i can see few of them, the historical portion is an extension of Koothu from ‘Anbe Sivam’, A romantic first song a tribute to all his romances in earlier films and proves even at this age he can dance better than some heroes who just walk from one side to another and have fans, and his way of showing he is half God and half animal which was earliler showed in ‘Aalvanthan’ and also we can see bald head and tatoo in the scene before climax where he was taken to hospital.
The last scene in the film brings real tears to any Kamal fan, i dont want to explain it pls watch it to feel it.
And also for some of my Hindu friends who thought Kamal is degrading Narishmar or our mythology, he defintely does not do it, actually he is praising and in the first half he says Narayanan saved me from many deaths and there are many layers in the story, he actually wants to play the God role in the drama but Nasser swaps his role with him and he has to play Villian in the end.
It also shows there is Villian in every hero and a Hero in every Villian.
I have read some reviews saying there is no message in the movie, he is only drinking, flirting with more than one woman and destroying culture. Only Kamal has the guts to do such a role with grey shades and still give positive look. This is far better than other movies coming now showing heros has rowdies, gangsters or dons.
But the real message in the movie is “Love the life you live, Live the life u love” as Bob Marely said.
An insect cannot understand what is electric tubelight when it is switched on, but humans can, We canot explain it to them.
I pity the Kamal haters who say this is move flop, they are no better than the insects who does not understand anything.
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bart
May 8, 2015
Sincere note: I wish there was a “laugh” button for the comments (you can develop this further by having LOL, ROTFL, ROTFLMAO etc.)
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Ram Murali
May 8, 2015
“An insect cannot understand what is electric tubelight when it is switched on, but humans can, We canot explain it to them.”
Reminds me of Kamal in Singaravelan saying, “Kazhudhaiku theriyuma Karuvaatu Vaasana” and Counds immediately responding, “Enaku theriyunge!”
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vijay
May 8, 2015
Charu Nivedita is a nutjob. I would take his writings not with a pinch of salt but with a bag of popcorn for the unadulterated entertainment value they provide. His ramblings, especially on music, about which he doesn’t seem to know much but thinks that he is entitled anyways to write on just because he has a keyboard, are howlarious
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apala
May 9, 2015
It’s in Telugu:
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sathish
May 9, 2015
Any one who says Uthama Villain is not gud … then he isnt worth to watch movies at all or he isnt bright enough to understand the core of the movie. What kamal implies from the movie….
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abby
May 9, 2015
Rangan,Thanks for looking past my bad typing and replying
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oneWithTheH
May 10, 2015
“He unfolds the letter. The room is dark. He squints. He gets up and walks to the screen and begins to read by the light of the projected image. In other words, what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction?”
Rangan,
This is a very technical point looks like. I want to understand what/how direction could have “improved/added” to this scene. As is, it didn’t bother me the way it seems to have bothered you. Just curious.
Or are you merely stating this as an example to talk about the whole movie where you sense the directorial contributions missing?
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MumbaiRamki
May 10, 2015
‘“He unfolds the letter. The room is dark. He squints. He gets up and walks to the screen and begins to read by the light of the projected image. In other words, what we’re seeing is the screenplay. Where’s the direction?”’
I thought this was the best part in the direction – Did you note the ‘ End of Reel’ in the projector – meaning this is the time to unfold the truth – and how the shadow comes to the limelight ( of the projector ?)
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doctorhari
May 10, 2015
I used to be a die-hard Kamal fan once, but I am only getting more and more disappointed with his films. Post 1990’s most Kamal films seem to fall under a similar template: People seeing him as bad first, only to realise his goodness later on. Virumaandi, Unnai pol oruvan, Panja thanthiram and now this. Even his other films in the period at least partly had such a theme. All his dense, subtext-rich screenplays seem only serve this narcissistic end. Like other great creator’s works, he doesn’t really try to explore newer themes or offer a fresh perspective on an aspect of our human experience through his films.
The instinct for an artist to keep exploring newer themes has sadly got stuck at the physical level for Kamal – ten avatars in one film, Theru koothu, Ilangai Tamil, now Thaiyam and so on. His films of late have become like food served with lots of garnishing, but with no real nutritive value.
The reason, I guess, has to do with the blotches left in his conscience due to certain stuff in his personal life. Somehow I feel he is not able to get past those, and that is hurting him as a creator.
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knittins
May 10, 2015
Mytakku… https://knittins.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/small-list-of-thoughts-on-uttama-villain/
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brangan
May 10, 2015
Sriram: I still don’t get it. 8-1/2 isn’t autobiographical in the way, say, My Experiments With Truth is. There’s a core of personal debt, but the rest is a fiction. So why isn’t this auto-fiction?
Prasad: Agreed about Ray. I re-watched Mahanagr recently, and was blown away. If you look at it, the story if — today — a gigantic cliche. As in: Woman goes to work and domestic equation changes. But his filmmaking makes it so fresh, so lively.
Even the Ray films I have mixed feelings about — eg. Aranyer Din Raatri — are so far above most other films.
oneWithTheH: Have kinda explained my stance on this in a comment above. If possible, try to see Uttama Villain and Virumaandi back-to-back — see how fluid the latter is, how the amazing content (i.e. screenplay) is backed by equally amazing form (i.e. direction, editing, and especially cinematography and music). There isn’t a single stretch in UV that comes close to the staggering filmmaking in the video below — and this is just a song.
Also, as an example, I saw Piku recently. That’s another film where the filmmaking is very ordinary, journeyman-like. But that doesn’t matter there because the film is about the dialogues and the performances and the light mood. There’s a very easy flow to the screenplay, and all the director needs to do is make sure he’s getting the actors and crew to serve the screenplay. So, yes, sometimes the screenplay is enough.
But that’s not enough in a UV because EVERY scene has something going on and in addition, there’s a second narrative that needs to be skilfully woven in. That needs someone with real vision. For me, the two narratives didn’t come together at all. They came together in my head, yes, because the screenplay was hinting at the segues and the links, but they looked like two completely different movies on screen. See Iruvar to see how brilliantly a film-within-a-film can be “directed.” (Of course, Iruvar kept weaving in and out of many bits of films Anandan was doing and here we have only one main film-within-the-film, but the point stands.)
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Manikandan V
May 11, 2015
Kamal attempted to Kill Duality at all Levels – His Real vs Reel life , Masala Cinema Vs Artwork, Life Vs Death, Man vs God, – Non Duality is the core principle of Adishankarar s Advaitam – Adi Shankarar s Life history is the Uthaman Portion. People these days want Comedy movies in general where as Kamal wanted to make a Film on Adishankara – Uthaman part gratifies both needs.
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Santosh Balakrishnan
May 11, 2015
BR, some of my thoughts pertaining to areas I differed from your review.
“See Iruvar to see how brilliantly a film-within-a-film can be “directed.” “
— Sorry I don’t think we can compare these 2 movies as in Iruvar u don’t have a movie with in movie running in parallel.. plus there is no connection between the main movie with bits of other movies shot with in it.. except to show anandan is an actor (that too MR mostly used those shots to insert songs into the main movie)
“They came together in my head, yes, because the screenplay was hinting at the segues and the links, but they looked like two completely different movies on screen”
— i thought that’s how it was meant to be.. 2 different movies on screen (in terms of genre, texture, context (8th century vs. 21st), performance.. I mean one was part musical and satirical).. I guess he purposefully did this to show the duality..
“Uttama Villain is just a series of discrete scenes. It just doesn’t come together as a cohesive whole.”
“I didn’t buy her for a second as an eighth-century princess, not in that pixie-bob”
— I again felt it was 100% meta.. (e.g. sonakshi in Lingaa, the heroine in kaaviyathalaivan).. I thought he wanted to show in tamil movies, particularly period films you can get away with any sort of casting for leading lady.. her characterization also reflected her ineptness to carry this role.. her comment in the screening room after seeing Manoranjan asleep does somewhat indicates this..
“As for good actors like MS Baskar and Nasser, we see them in scenes that should have us laughing and crying, but we don’t do any of these things.”
“Even the much-hyped Theyyam sequence (why Theyyam in a Tamil kingdom?) plays like an afterthought – it isn’t organic, it’s just another cool thing we now know Kamal Haasan can do.”
— Certainly its another cool thing he can do, 🙂 but to say it looked out of place and not in context is bit surprising.. Intro song of Uttaman links him getting pasupatha asthram from Shiva (to kill all mortals) to Manoranjan getting his final movie directed by maargadarishi (to remain immortal).. Theyyam in tamil kingdom cos Uttama aka Senguttuvan is from cheranaadu.. what better play than a purposefully twisted hiranyanadagam to talk about a father getting redemption from his child..
“How I wished the entire film had been a mirror on Manoranjan, about what it is to be a star of a certain age, at a certain stage, about what it means to be Kamal Haasan”
— Just out of curiosity this question BR. Were you preempting a particular kinda movie before hand itself?
“Ennappa ellaarum ivvalavu “over-analyse” pannreenga. Padam-na paathoma, popcorn saaptoma-nu illama… You should learn to enjoy films, not analyse them.”
— Yes certainly for most of the movies we are getting.. but don’t u think some deserves analyzing (if not over analyzing) as part of the review..? cos this might bring out all the beautiful intricacies of that movie and in turn enrich the viewing experience more.. What is Hey Ram if not for these hidden gems which can be brought out only after over-analyzing . I felt UV also deserved it. Just my thought. But again I enjoyed UV purely on entertainment level for its wit and understated emotions.
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Sridhar
May 11, 2015
The review and comments above apart, I am a critical-fan of Kamal. I find your above review (as well as several other reviews) off mark from reality. Films you reviewed good, I went to see and found it not so….And in this, you cast a question on the other actors (other than Kamal’s) and I do not find anything lacking at all and the movie was in fact good overall. When an artist is trying to have an intelligent exchange of views on life with his audience and successfully delivers it, it is a success and Uttama Villain is a success. I am not saying it as a Kamal fan but as a general movie-loving audience. Agreed with some comments Kamal like artists should try to do their very best by sticking to simple things and delivering them brilliantly, which he has done it with several films….It is the artist’s / their production team budget etc. expectations to be balanced with true delivery of some artistic contribution and he has done that with this film nicely. So, people do not get carried away by any negativity (in some parts of the above review and in the comments) and go watch the movie. I did not know how 172 minutes (that is what the censor certificate showed) went away….and at least in about 6-7 scenes I laughed spontaneously (and loudly) and cried in one scene. So, I guess I got the value for money….
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brangan
May 11, 2015
Santosh Balakrishnan:
“Iruvar u don’t have a movie with in movie running in parallel”
I know this. You are talking about content. I am talking about FORM. The Iruvar example was to illustrate a point about how this sort of thing can shape up with a good director.
discussion between Andrea and Kamal in the car where they talk about their illicit love / affair.. scene shifts to Kadhalam kadavul munn
I agree with you. I agree with you so much that I have written about this exact thing in my review 🙂
Were you preempting a particular kinda movie before hand itself?
Nope. But after we watch a film, sometimes, we feel certain things. This was one of those things.
Ennappa ellaarum ivvalavu “over-analyse” pannreenga. Padam-na paathoma, popcorn saaptoma-nu illama… You should learn to enjoy films, not analyse them.
I was actually taking a dig at myself, which I guess long-term readers got. It’s what’s called an FJ. It was a fucking joke…
Sridhar: I find your above review (as well as several other reviews) off mark from reality.
Fair enough. Just as I could turn around and say that your comment is off the mark for me. It is, after all, a subjective experience.
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Sriram
May 11, 2015
Doubrovsky: “Autobiography? No, that is a privilege reserved for the important people of this world, at the end of their lives, in a refined style. Fiction, of events and facts strictly real; autofiction, if you will, to have entrusted the language of an adventure to the adventure of language, outside of the wisdom and the syntax of the novel, traditional or new. Interactions, threads of words, alliterations, assonances, dissonances, writing before or after literature, concrete, as we say, music.”
சாரு: “ஃபெலினியின் மேற்கூறிய படங்களையும் உத்தம வில்லனையும் பார்த்தால் சுயசரிதைத்தனமான சினிமாவுக்கும் ஆட்டோஃபிக்ஷன் சினிமாவுக்குமான வித்தியாசத்தைப் புரிந்து கொள்ளலாம். இதை விளக்கி எழுதுவது கடினம். கயிறின் மேல் நடப்பது போன்ற ஒரு மரண விளையாட்டு. இதை மிகுந்த சாகசத்தன்மையோடு விளையாடியிருக்கிறார் கமல். ………………. பார்த்தால் கமலின் வாழ்க்கை போல் தெரிகிறது. ஆனால் கமல் இல்லை. இந்த மாயாஜாலம்தான் ஆட்டோஃபிக்ஷன்.”
@BR: Balu Mahendra’s Veedu, Santhyaragam, Thalaimuraigal do not follow western style and are world classics.
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MANK
May 11, 2015
in Iruvar u don’t have a movie with in movie running in parallel.. plus there is no connection between the main movie with bits of other movies shot with in it.. except to show anandan is an actor (that too MR mostly used those shots to insert songs into the main movie)
Santhosh Balakrishnan, thats just not true from my POV. true there is no parallel film running, but whatever film\song snippets are shown have very much relevance to the main plot and the character of Anandan.
The song narugamaye shows his ecstasy at the first marital bliss which comes in tandem with his first lead performance.
The song udal manukku, uyir thamizhukku shows his rise as well as his first meeting with Gautami – she is shown to be brought in chains and he rescues her- something he does in real life as well , rescuing her from the clutches of her uncle.
Hello mr again is first time he lays eyes on kalpana and immediately establishes both the attraction and his discomfort at seeing her. Ayirathil oruvan shows his mass appeal and ends with his shooting , something that marks a turning point in both his personal and political life.
Viduthalai signifies his breaking away to form a new party and calling for a revolution.
Not just that , each song is used to show the passage of time and subsequent transformation in movie technology, Each song is shot in the style the way they shot movies in each decade 50’s,60’s,70’s , something like what Scorsese did with Goodfellas.
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MANK
May 11, 2015
I consider Iruvar to be Mani’s greatest film. Its a supreme achievement in cinema . Something thats comparable to best in world cinema. That and thalalpati. those 2 times , he came closest to perfection. Iruvar is undoubtedly his crowning achievement. It seems to have sucked up all his creative juices. It has been all downhill since then.
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Harish V
May 11, 2015
Even the Mani Ratnam and Gautam Menon movies I’m not all that fond of (Roja, Bombay, Thiruda Thiruda, Nadunisi Naaigal)
You don;t like Roja and Bombay, Baradhwaj ? Care to elaborat?
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Ram Murali
May 11, 2015
Harish V, “You don;t like Roja and Bombay, Baradhwaj ? Care to elaborat?”
–> Harish, ena saar neenge innum “Conversations with Mani Ratnam” padikaliyaa? Namma thalaivar nera Mani Ratnam kitteye poayi “Roja is not a favorite” (or something to that extent) sollitaaru… padeenge padeenge!
PS: I don’t get any commission for that plug for the book. BR points, maybe?
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Guru
May 11, 2015
why they yam in tamil kingdom is because the king is a cheran named senguttavan and he uses his culture. i wonder what the fuzz is.. the actors did what they could and like you mentioned most of them needs attentive viewing. with all the garbage movies going around, you should be grateful the movies are multi layered. I can understand that not all viewers get everything in one viewing but thats what makes classics as classics. if the same movie is made by Nolan, wouldn’t we be drooling that it is amazing. End of the day its your view and your review but I don’t agree. 🙂
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Santosh Balakrishnan
May 11, 2015
BR, Sorry that i didn’t FG your FJ..
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Iswarya V
May 12, 2015
Guru: Nolan isn’t safe from criticism (and to some extent, brickbats) in this place, either. Welcome here! 🙂
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brangan
May 12, 2015
MANK: Not to mention “Vennila…”, where the phrase “vandhadhe mudhal kaadhal” could refer to both her first love (she’s falling for Anandan) as well as the return of his first love (because she resembles his wife).
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Prasad
May 12, 2015
Hi BR,
“I re-watched Mahanagr recently, and was blown away. If you look at it, the story if — today — a gigantic cliche. As in: Woman goes to work and domestic equation changes. But his filmmaking makes it so fresh, so lively. Even the Ray films I have mixed feelings about — eg. Aranyer Din Raatri — are so far above most other films.’
Exactly. He is one Person who needs to be celebrated and quoted when sometimes we feel we don’t do . In fact people abroad celebrate him more then we do I think.
And one of the main reason is his films are devoid of “Melodrama” and he can bring in the subtlety in scenes even with heavy themes (E.g Charulatha) which not sure if any Indian Director can bring in.
And yes, he doesn’t insult viewer’s intelligence either. The Interview scene in “The Adversary” is a classic Example.
How many Directors now respect viewer’s intelligence now barring a few?
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Rajesh
May 12, 2015
Just saw the movie and coming back to this page to mention a couple of things. But then, I cannot believe this movie is making so much debate, just like I and Linga..
Just a few points.
Using Theyyam – This should be seen as idiocy/ stupidity of epic proportions. Till now I thought Kamal has used Theyyam may be only for some silly scene or song scenes to again show how he is ready to take challenge( !!!???) with those difficult make ups etc.. But I felt like laughing out loud while watching the movie. Theyyam is never ever an art for story telling or any kind of theatre. Even if he had used Yakshagana or Kathakali, it would have looked appropriate. But Theyyam, which is purely a ritualistic dance form, shown in a kind of theatre is idiotic.
Even if he had chosen another ritual performing art , Padayani it would have looked appropriate. He could have also boasted how difficult it was to carry the huge head gears of Padayani. A friend of mine from North Kerala,a teacher whom I called right when I was out of the cinema, mentioned to me how he lost all his respects for Kamal whom he considered as intelligent and what not. Padayani, though, is hailed as one of the oldest forms of story telling/theatres of the locals and would have fit into that meta movie, however stupid that story is.
But then, there is nothing appropriate in our main stream movie, right? But coming from a star who caims to think different, its stupid.
And Kamal, he looked really ugly in that first song scene. It is nice/better for an actor doing such stupid dance scenes to have good posture and curves, especially the lower body ones. He doesnt have a pot belly, but his abdomen has lost its posture and it looks horrible. He is no Mohanlal who is compared to a rice sack, but it was still ugly.
(I do agree that most of our stars dont have good lower body curves. Even in I, where a star was praised for his efforts in building body, you can see how Vikram takes special care to not show his lower back, and during one scene (a fight scene i think) when it does show, again it was ugly, flat with no curves)
You also mentioned how the heroine looked apt for the queen role. May be by her face. You may keep in mind that in the olden days women were curvy, especially Indian women were famous for their stunning curves (again with special emphasis to lower back and posture), and no women cared about being slim or holyhocks in those days. Face down, this actor was an absolute misfit for that kind of character!!!
Incidently, this is also an issue with many female actors with Game of Thrones series, and many Hollywood period movies! But then Kamal is a Hollywood fan, so he doesnt want to care about something that Hollywood dont, right?
There were scenes in this movie which had some drama in it, but thats it. Havent we seen so much of similar drama scenes, a very lot. The movie inside the movie looked equally worse, or is as badly pictured as how Linga was or how some very poor Telugu movies were. (Or that meta movie is aimed at the same audience who would watch Linga)
I wonder if you would have even said, it had super core – if not for Kamal Hassan.
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The ghost who walks
May 12, 2015
For all the sentiments that Kamal needs to work with better directors (Which I also agree with), the last two times that I remember him trying to do that ended in directors either walking away or being removed – Priyadarshan for Anbe Sivam and Selvaraghavan for Vishwaroopam. I wonder if that’s because he, being a bigger legend than them, is not able to take a secondary role as just an actor. I think the downward spiral of Kamal started with the filmmakers of yore like KB, BM, KV etc retiring. The only director that can do justice Kamal the writer/actor appears to be Kamal himself.
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MANK
May 12, 2015
Prasad, Ah charulata. what a movie man.I recently watched it again in the criterion bluray. It is visually exquisite and one of the greatest interior movies i have seen. The production design and camera moves- subrata mitra was an absolute genius. And Dont know if there was ever more an exquisite portrayal of repressed desire on screen than by the magnificent and ethereally beautiful Madhabi Mukherjee. I believe Ray had an extra marital affair with her during the making of the movie. Much of what was going on on the screen reflected his and her state at the time. No wonder Ray considers this his favorite movie.
I am glad that martin Scorsese is spearheading the crusade to restore all of Ray’s films and criterion is doing a terrific job of putting them out. The visual clarity of the latest hi def version is a knockout. Really it takes foreigners to clean up and restore the masterpieces of our great master filmmaker.
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Shankar V
May 12, 2015
finally I got to see the movie. And I must say, despite the negative impressions I carried into the hall, despite the fact that I feel Kamal has not done a good movie in the last 10+ years, I loved it. What a performance!! For a change, I did not see Kamal indulging in his usual idiosyncrasies. I did not see him push his personal agenda or philosophies. At least not in your face. The Hiranyan episode where Vishnu dies did not make me feel that he was trying to mock Hinduism. No – definitely not. Also, the Uttaman character seems to have fed off Prahladan who Hiranyan could not kill despite all his efforts. So, in a way, Kamal seems to say that God was with Uttaman.
The movie in movie was criticized heavily but it was kind of ok. The humour could have been better no doubt but it was definitely not distracting you. Also, the way he has played it out – Kamal starts off as a happy hero drowning in his fan adulation and being self centered and feeling that he is immortal to realizing the value of life and how he is after all a mortal. The movie within the movie actually starts with Uttaman being bitten by a snake and dying (being mortal) to becoming immortal. That aspect played out beautifully.
I liked many scenes in the film primarily a couple of them where he could have made it very melodramatic but chose to play it down. The scene where he meets his daughter the first time was classic underplay letting the youngster steal the scene. The scene where he plays with his son while telling him that he is going to die and the son telling him why he wants to learn screenplay writing…..another scene that could have been made into a PVasu style melodrama. Kamal ensured that he did not over do here as well.
I also liked the fact that he did not choose to end the climax by dying while acting the last scene of Uttama Villain. That would have been the classic plot line, the most tempting. But instead he chose to die inside an operation theater while his family, near and dear ones are laughing watching his final act. That was most poetic.
Uttama Villain – exceeded my expectations. Definitely not faultless, but given the limitations of Tamil cinema,I think Kamal has gone far beyond its limitations.
PS: While KB did his part well, and so did his regular cast of Urvasi, Jayaram, et al, Andrea was found wanting. She had 2-3 brilliantly written opportunities but she wastes them. The scene in the car was adding nothing to the film, was adding nothing to Manoranjan. She remained an appendage to Manoranjan throughout the film and failed as an actress.
PS2: Gibran was brilliant. The music and songs fitted the movie well. Background music was good too and nowhere did I feel he was overdoing it.
PS3: Looks like Kamal had a budget problem. I cannot say the movie stands out on production quality. Tacky sets, bad CG.
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knittins
May 12, 2015
One more easter egg I believe no one noticed… Isn’t Yamini a stand-in for Anbe Sivam’s Bala? They were in love, and when he was at his most vulnerable, a girl’s father with an agenda (Nasser there, KV here) and his Man Friday (Santhanabarathi there, and Chokku here) told some lies to make sure they don’t meet again… There the denouement is in the form of a letter from Mr. Sivam, where here it is letters from him to her and vice versa..
“Bodyla ambu, ambula body, ambu yedhulendhu varum? Villu? Villu yaaru viduvan? Raja? Paatu, villu paatu.. Duet.. COVER PANNITEN! MAXIMUM COVER PANNITEN!”
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Ram Murali
May 12, 2015
knittins – unge visaranai-la pala unmaigal varum pola iruku!
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Prasad
May 12, 2015
Mank,
“It is visually exquisite and one of the greatest interior movies i have seen”
Can’t agree more. And the movie was made in 1964. These movies should be made an mandatory in our film institutes to watch for upcoming Directors to teach them “How to portrat subtlety and grace in Screen and show character’s we can relate” .
Of course we can’t forget the famous Swing scene…..
Another important point this movie also is based on Novel Nastanirh (The Broken Nest) by Tagore . Even most of Ray’s movies are based out of novels. Just see how many top movies we appreciate are all from novels. I was looking in the list of adapted screenplay oscars was shocked..many of top movies are based on Books!
Just to name a few….
Whiplash, American Sniper, The Imitation Game, The Wolf of Wall Street, Schindler’s list, Argo, Lincoln, Life of Pi ,Silver Linings Playbook, Atonement.
Just look at the variety in the Genre!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Adapted_Screenplay
Just Curious, don’t we have that kind of Quality books in India that can’t be adapted into movies?
I got this list from wiki but don’t see anything significant offlate. Just saw 2 states, Detective Byomkesh Bakshi…etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_based_on_Indian_novels
Can anybody think of more?
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Gopal Padinjaruveetil
May 13, 2015
It is fascinating when you want to know what is going in somebody’s head when they do , say or write something.. But you simply cannot put your brain into someone else’s head, So the next best way is your guessing the truth through analyzing the metaphysical context and Epistemology (the theory or science that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge) of what is presented to you.. It is very easy to do this when you are reading a book, because you can almost get into the author’s mind, which is why books are so fascinating. This is very difficult to do in a movie (which is why a book made into a movie is never the same).
In the past I have done this type of analysis only on Christopher Nolan films..Film critic Tom Shone described Nolan’s films as “epistemological thrillers whose protagonists, gripped by the desire for definitive answers, must negotiate mazy environments in which the truth is always beyond their reach” and I think in Uttama Villain to Kamal’s credit as a filmmaker he has been successful to make us keep guessing “what was he thinking?” ultimately we may never know the truth that he had in his head, but we all can come to our version of the truth which in itself will be fascinating as the various reviews and comments here shows
In most movies are simple constructions, where we try to see things from singular point of view, a singular perspective on what we all agree to be an objective reality. But complex movies like this challenges us to explores existential, ethical and epistemological themes such as subjective experience, human morality (infidelity), construction of personal identity and nature of time (in the context of ageing and thinking about one’s own legacy) of the screen writer, presented through “auto fiction” and “meta fiction” techniques by interpreting and extrapolating the shadow (the movie) to its subjective reality a.k.a Vedanta roots of the questions on nature of reality (both advaithic and dwaithic). I feel the movie is a bold attempt at introspection by Kamal to answer the question of “Who am I”.
As in most movies in Uttama Villain we will never get to the objective reality , but we (each reviewer) may come to a very different subjective reality of the truth, and each of those views will be a fascinating view as seen through the cracks in the multilayer presentation that we are able to observe and interpret using our own experiences. So don’t worry if you are not able to see BR’s view, and in fact don’t look to align to BR’s view.. try to see your own view of what is presented, and use the various reviews as a guide to help you in your journey in unraveling this multi layer puzzle, and if lucky at the bottom most layer you might even see the ultimate vedanthic truth that the protagonist and you are the same Brahman (The Advaithic vs Dwaithic mention in the movie) !
Now the 2014 Oscar winning movie Birdman by Alejandro González Iñárritu is in the exact same genre as Uttama Villain, if you have not watched it, I recommend you watch it, and if you have watched it you might understand why BR says “Uttama Villain is a superb core let down by lackluster filmmaking”. But my heartfelt kudos to Kamal for even attempting to do this in Tamil..
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M_Raghavan
May 13, 2015
As we in the West, this movie is Kamal’s “come to Jesus” moment, an opportunity to reflect and repent for the life he has lived and the God he has rejected. I thoroughly enjoyed the film for its depth, and its references to Tamil Vaishnavism’s insistence of God’s Mercy alone being our salvation.
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Iswarya V
May 13, 2015
knittins: Saar.. Neenga engiyo poiteenga saar! 🙂
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Iswarya V
May 13, 2015
Watched this movie for the second time today, and the cuts to the Uthaman story leave quite a few unexplained loose ends.
(SPOILERS)
The scene where Uthaman meets the princess underground and reveals his growing attraction towards her has been removed competely, and quite a few interesting details (like the arrival of the neighbour king’s spy, the revelation that Kakapujandar is on the princess’s side) are lost right there. It also makes Uthaman’s dance with with her in “Kaadhalaam Kadavul Mun” quite inexplicable.
(END OF SPOILERS)
I couldn’t place exactly what else was cut, but the folklore-movie appears even more fragmentary than before. The cuts don’t seem to make the movie any better for those who hate it anyway, but turn things puzzling and illogical even for those disposed to like it.
BR: Now that the dust has settled a little here, I can raise this question. Would you place this movie also among the ‘existential comedies’ as you call Mumbai Xpress, Manmadhan Ambu, etc.?
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Kutty
May 13, 2015
Marginally unrelated but a question that has been bugging me for a while. Is there any site which offers good English translations of Tamil songs. Even as a native speaker, there are times and songs where I definitely feel the need for some help (plenty of such occasions in this movie). There are plenty of sites which perform this function for Hindi songs. Reading them elevates the listening experience. Readers, BR, any links?
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Kutty
May 13, 2015
Also, talking about songs, the picturization was terribly disappointing apart from Uttaman introduction. While listening to the album, there is so much gravity in the songs and yet almost all of them have been picturized akin to being a parody. Not sure if this served any ultimate motive or just a major mismatch between the two outputs.
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apala
May 13, 2015
BR, I think this might be a first time that we “saw” completely two different films! While you were complaining about joint pains because of the length of the film, I was enjoying every moment of it. As you always say, films (for that matter, all art) are very subjective (unless it is done by people like P Vasu – those are objectionably objective). Very personal. The rainbow I see, only I can see. So let me bask in that scene and be happy (sorry for your pain though!)!
I have “experienced” UV 2 times so far……….still have not looked for any hidden treasures – which might take few more viewings! It took me a while to come out of UV experience. It was like having an evening walk, on a breezy day, along the beach with Kamal and talking about life…………at the end of it I really wanted to hug Kamal. Well, while you make fun of the stupidity in that thought, I will cherish that for the rest of my life!
Anbudan, Apala
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MANK
May 14, 2015
Using Theyyam – This should be seen as idiocy/ stupidity of epic proportions.
Even if he had used Yakshagana or Kathakali, it would have looked appropriate.
Padayani, though, is hailed as one of the oldest forms of story telling/theatres of the locals and would have fit into that meta movie, however stupid that story is.
Rajeshbhai, cool it big bro.It is all relevant points that you make , but in the context of the film , all these questions could be answered
In the beginning itself KB’s Margardarshi explains to manoranjan that he is trying out an new art form for the film – a fusion of villuppattu and theyyam. Villuppattu for the the story telling and theyyam for the dance performance. So its obvious that Kamal knows that theyyam is not a story telling art form.
Well why theyyam and not Kathakali or Padayani?.
well only Kamal would no for sure, but whatever i understood from the film-
Kathakali is a more modern art form – originating in 16 or 17th century – and i guess the film within the film is set about 1000 years ago.
secondly Kathakali is more a sombre art form while theyyam is more ferocious and more suited for climax of the picture.especially in staging of the iraniyan nadagam- I am in no way discounting the great stories of war like duryodhanavadham,kiratham or keechakavadham that are extremely well staged through kathakali, but still i find the romantic tales like subhadraharanam or uttaraswayamvaram more delightful.Repeat totally my POV.
But boy wasnt i grateful that it wasnt Kathakali. The final theyyam performance gives the film the much needed vitality and pulled me back into the movie. It was so boring and bland upto that point.Kathakali could have only made things worse.
Apart from that – what Kamal was really going for here was fusion of various cultures elements. Theyyam is a an indigenous kerala (cheranadu) art form existing mainly in northern kerala . While Kathakali is more southern and Padayani is regarded as a remnant of the Dravidian forms of worship and so it has its tamil lineage.so i think he was going for purely keralite art form
Kathakali is more for the elitists and upper castes while theyyam is performed by lower castes and so is villuppattu(I think so?). and in the film within film uthaman is a brahmin. I think with a brahmin performing\using the lower caste art forms to kill the king -Kamal is trying to make a point there not only about the fusion of art forms and cultures, but also about the castes as well.
Or then again as Brangan says , it could just be another cool thing for him to do.
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MANK
May 14, 2015
Rajesh,Reg: And Kamal, he looked really ugly in that first song scene
Or the heroine looking too thin to be a princess
Well i think that was kamal making a point , you know something like sreenivasan did with’ Padmashri dr. bharath saroj kumar’. This ugly,physically burnt out old man dancing with a young starlet. Some of the elements in this film does has a resemblance with the sreenivasan film, especially the discovery of an illegitimate child and all that.But sreeni was trying to do just a straightforward satire on an aging superstar- which i wish UV was as well- but Kamal is more ambitious.And pls whats the reason for complaining about the heroine’s figure when everything around her , the sets, costumes,CGI are all so tacky.
Starting with the title , Kamal was going to emphasise unity existing in the duality -. His own version of adwaitha.The more positive meanings he give for the term villain itself is a testament for that.the title uttama villain Reminded me of Padmarajan’s Kallan Pavithran.That film to had an angle of myth eventhough the subject matter is totally different.. I am sure Kamal must have been inspired by that film.Of course there is no comparison between the 2 films.That film was padmarajan’s masterpiece with such great cast of actors like nedumudi venu and Bharath gopi.
So on the screenplay level, the film has all its bases covered. Its another matter that everything goes to pieces in the execution.The reason why you are so loudly complaining about all these aspects is itself mainly due to that. He and the director failed to translate even 25% of his original conception.
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Geetha
May 14, 2015
The scene where blood comes out of Manoranjan’s nose is straight out of Nammavar.
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brangan
May 14, 2015
apala: I don’t think we saw two completely different films. This is about a 1700 word review, of which the first 1200 are devoted to Kamal’s screenplay and the really fascinating things he’s done here. I mean, I have lines like:
“It’s possibly the most head-spinning triple role in cinema history.”
“Has any Indian star bared himself – and bored into himself — on screen the way Kamal has in Uttama Villain?”
“Here, we have a sixty-year-old actor contemplating his legacy, his mortality. ”
“The rabbit hole gets deeper when we see that the film Manoranjan begins work on… And this is when the real beauty of Kamal Haasan’s conceit kicks in.”
“Even the production company formed by Manoranjan carries the whiff of wordplay. It has his name fused with his mentor’s: Manomaarga, the way of the heart. If that doesn’t define Kamal’s career, I don’t know what does.”
So I think as far as Kamal’s contribution goes, we did end up watching and delighting at the same things.
Where we diverge is probably in the contention that the Kamal part (screenplay) is enough. I guess for you, this worked so well that nothing else mattered.
For me, as I say in the last 500 words or so, the execution left a bad taste in the mouth.
As I said elsewhere, there are some films that do not need directors and can make do with the “project managers” Kamal likes to hire. All those comedies of his don’t need directors as such.
But this film, with this screenplay, needed much better execution, and I was taken aback by the general okayishness of the craft. It hurts more because we don’t get scripts like this often, and they need to be showcased well.
Anyway, so this, I guess, is where we really part ways. And that’s totally fine.
Well, while you make fun of the stupidity in that thought, I will cherish that for the rest of my life!
Dude, I am really the last person who’s going to mock someone else’s experience of a movie. I am surprised you think this after being around for so long 🙂
As for the line: I hear it’s being trimmed to two-and-a-half hours, but that doesn’t change much except maybe save you a couple of leg cramps.
This isn’t to say that I had leg cramps. I’m just saying that the trimming doesn’t do much except maybe save a couple of leg cramps for the audience 🙂
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knittins
May 14, 2015
Meanwhile, a parody on people finding hidden meanings in UV: http://kbalakumar.com/how-to-use-uv-to-add-to-your-intellectual-cv/
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Shankar V
May 14, 2015
BR I think you hit the nail there.
“But this film, with this screenplay, needed much better execution, and I was taken aback by the general okayishness of the craft. It hurts more because we don’t get scripts like this often, and they need to be showcased well.”
This film needed a director better than Ramesh Arvind and probably a budget that was more than what Kamal had. The poor direction and the tacky sets/CG/production quality ensured that you didn’t enjoy the movie as well as you could have.
There in lies the paradox. In other films like Aalavandhan where Kamal could tuck his hands into deep pockets (poor Thaanu), you felt if only Kamal had a better script. Here he did have a good script, if only….
But I would still go wit apala – I am willing to ignore that because the story telling was still pretty good.
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Ram Murali
May 14, 2015
“The scene where blood comes out of Manoranjan’s nose is straight out of Nammavar.”
–> Poor Kamal. Poor guy can’t bleed without reminding people of another movie! 🙂
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Just Another Film Buff
May 14, 2015
@knittins: This is hilarious as hell! Thank you.
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brangan
May 14, 2015
knittins: That was just so funny and so well-written. Thanks 🙂 The other really funny thing I heard today was that the Uttaman portions were like Chhota Bheem. I thought it was very unfair but hell, very funny 🙂
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apala
May 15, 2015
BR,
You are probably right……my bad.
@BR: “Where we diverge is probably in the contention that the Kamal part (screenplay) is enough. I guess for you, this worked so well that nothing else mattered”.
I would say nothing bothered me as I was so invested in what’s happening (if it did, I would have had problem with it like the dreadful last 40 minutes of M Ambu).
Since I strongly believe that “freedom of expression” gives people the right to judge (just like it does for me), I said “while you make fun of that thought” line – fully knowing that you wouldn’t do that, but nodding for general audiences disapproval of my POV. That’s all.
On the leg cramps- I thought age was catching up on ya dude!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Me? I am only 27! (“எது? இந்த 26-க்கு அப்புறம் வருமே அந்த 27-ஆ?” 😜)
Thanks for taking time to respond for me, though!
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athreya
May 17, 2015
Bit late to the party but saw the film now only since it wasn’t available in North east, despite 1400 copies 😉
I saw the shorter version with the inner Uttama villain edited. So didn’t get to see the scenes between uttaman confessing his love to princess or the minister turning double agent. But from the context of the Kadhalal song it was apparent. I didn’t think it needed more explanation. I assumed that the idea was to only show fragments of the inner movie to contrast with the outer movie. And correct me if I am wrong, the whole staging of the inner movie was made in a way to emphasise that it is a movie. So we feel it is staged and tacky because that is how movies will look like if you watch actual shooting. It is only with post production and editing that a movie will look organic (excepting KSR movies)
Overall I loved the movie and Kamal/Manoranjan acceptance of death was a nice contrast to the grief of people around him. Plus the triple layering of outer movie, inner movie and the ulterior drama at the end was very clever.
Kamal always is way too cool and wants to show off. Have to accept it. But bringing back Subbu Arumugam for villupattu was the very epitome of nostalgic cool. I mean many of us grew up with DD where we were exposed to such art forms. So it was a goosebumps moment for me to see and hear him again. Also is it me or KB’s voice and acting reminded others of Nagesh? It was poignant to hear KB saying younger people shouldn’t die before older people.
Last, Ghibhran is a breath of fresh air. I was getting vexed with GV taking up acting but Santosh Narayanan and Ghibhran give me hope.
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athreya74
May 17, 2015
A few more points, ordered in the spirit of Poorna Chandra Rao 🙂
A, The entire Uttaman story is also a made up story, IIRC. Senguttuvan created that character and backstory to get access to Mutharasan and kill him. So if the actual (inner) Uttama Villain movie were to be edited and screened, the Uttaman portions should be a flashback with someone narrating the story to Mutharasan. Although for us the scenes have been depicted linearly in line with the shooting schedule.
B, the title could apply to almost all the major characters in the movie right? As in there are no black and white characters but only shades of grey. Manoranjan, Chokku, PCR, Vara, Arpana all of them may have committed mistakes but did so thinking they are doing good. On the other hand, Senguttuvan/Uttaman is actually a good guy who schemes for a good end. The only out and out evil characters are Mutharasan and his minister but even here Kamal makes us laugh at them rather then be repulsed by them. More like muttaal villain. Shades of MMKR.
C, Did Kamal write the dialogues for the inner film as well? Seems right out of the Crazy Mohan repertoire. Has Crazy done such a fine job in earlier Kamal movies that Kamal has fully imbibed the Crazy spirit?
D, Is Manoranjan’s story a framing device for the parable/folk tale about saagavaram? Or is it the other way round? The immortality tale is the frame to view Manoranjan’s life? What is the core and what is incidental?
E, BR good that you write reviews immediately after seeing the movie as it provides a great starting point for the discussion here. I read this blog for your reviews as well as the comments and when I see a movie your blog really helps to frame my thoughts.
F, Somebody commented on the economics of this movie. It applies to many Kamal/star movies in tamil. Clearly something is not adding up. Either there is some funny business going on (money laundering) or many of the producers/financiers and even stars like Kamal are quite inept with film financing. If it is the second, then they should learn from Aamir who has worked out the financing part while making sensible movies. His Lagaan should be a good case study for economics of classy ‘star’ movie.
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Iswarya
May 17, 2015
@athreya74:
Apparently the editor of the movie pointed out the same thing: that KB imitated all the usual Nagesh gestures on screen. It seems he was a young guy with no particular idea as to who KB was and what his filmmaking credentials were. Kamal has said this in an interview. And then, he apparently explained to the editor that KB was the original whom Nagesh had copied in his movies.
On a related note, I heard a kid in the theatre complain to her mom that the Uttaman introduction song was copied from an old Rajini hit, and the mother had a serious #facepalm moment. 😀
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athreya
May 17, 2015
Iswarya, I figured out as much. But just that when KB came on screen the modulation and mannerisms were so uncanny that I was taken aback.
The anecdote you shared reminds me of Sehwag feigning ignorance about the world record opening stand of Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad 😉
Later I thought about it and remembered that directors used to act entire scenes and actors by and large used to imitate it. KB and BR are both known for it. Nowadays I guess things are different. Except GVM who teaches his heroes how to romance in English 😉
Btw I finally remembered something that I found jarring in the movie. The lyrics for the songs in the Uttaman portion sounded modern to my ears. This has been bothering me ever since I heard the audio. Both words and idioms. Now villupattu and theyyam were art forms for the masses so the language would be more colloquial. But in the introduction song the word ‘arasiyalvadhi’ was anachronistic. No way is this word more than 200 years old.
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Ram Murali
May 18, 2015
“Also is it me or KB’s voice and acting reminded others of Nagesh?”
–> If I am correct, Nagesh Krishnamurthi dubbed for KB in this movie. He was the one that played Padmapriya’s Dad in “Satham Podaathey” and Srikanth’s grandpa in “Parthiban Kanavu.” He dubbed for actor Nagesh quite a bit in the 2000s.
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Shankar V
May 18, 2015
Athreya – I felt the same about KB. It was uncanny Nagesh – voice, modulation, intonations. But then I knew Nagesh was KB’s prathama sishyan. So was not surprised.
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Shankar V
May 18, 2015
@Ram Murali – thought Kamal usually preferred sync dubbing. Was KB’s voice dubbed?
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Kamal
May 20, 2015
Just because you know language and play with words you cant rank and write what you want.
Tell Mr. Ragan will you write good about this movie or refer UV after 4 Years?
BaD comment man. How much you earn?
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Kamal
May 20, 2015
Mr. Rangan, Think that you should have a blocker to filter some bad comments from our group for your bad and predictive analysis.
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Balaji
May 29, 2015
Bharadwaj Rangan is absolutely senseless and thinks too much of himself. He does not possess proper skills to review any film, much less a Kamal film. Except using bombastic language, there is nothing meritorious in his review. Someone needs to put BR in his place or show him the door. To be honest, there is no competent critic to review Kamal”s films. If anyone is critical of his films, it is because they do not have the capacity to understand and for that reason the film cannot be termed as lackluster or bad. Kamal’s films grow on you. Whoever criticizes UV, please see one more time, as you will surely change your opinion.
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ramvaradan
May 30, 2015
This movie is full of subtle irony and humor and then a lot of rip-roaring-laughs.
1) A brain tumor patient goes to his mentor and says lets make one more move “one for me this time, so we make a real mark” .. it show the facetious nature of the protagonist, and if you see the Margadarisi’s reaction .. he is ‘shaken’ but making a movie is the last thing in his mind. You know you have led a life full of rotten masala, and then you want to redeem for immortality?? Maybe the famous folks think being etched in memories is an eternal achievement.
2) The Poornachandra Rao .. who seems analytic (A, B, C routine) .. and reasonable at the outset, has a closet full of lies
3) Mrithyunjan cannot die, Manoranjan cannot live
4) The routine where the Manorjan’s wife, Urvashi, laments why she did what she did, and why she may have fallen out of love with her husband. Almost as if she knows whats happening around her, and that she condones it ..
5) (I am not sure if I read this right) The conversation in the car, where the Car driver says he will keep the secret, and Kamal’s gestures almost as if ‘Car driver’ has betrayed him already ???
Again, I think the movie is well made .. and a movie of this size done this fast cannot be without flaws and gaffes, but it takes a lot of cross-genre viewing to accept the movie the way it is, instead of ‘it could have been that, or this’ kind of commentary. There are a few buried layers that makes one think even days after viewing. That, in my definition, is good cinema. I don’t need a preacher, just engage me.
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Manikandan V
May 30, 2015
Mano s part – Ample opportunity to contemplate on choices / decisions taken by Mano –
One end people calling it Justification ( Pure Kamal Fans call it Open Confession) to other end we can take the liberty to interpret that Mano is lying straight faced within
the movie itself
Mano s Part – Few of the scenes are not Organic in sense – Director had a Outcome / Transformation in his mind towards which the characters enact out or present in scene -Scene is conveniently arranged which irks viewers / purists where as the scene is enacted out beautifully fantastically most of the times – My Favourite is Tree of Life scene
sequence. – For no reason Mano takes his son to his room while Manonmani reads his letter to Yamini, KB asks andrea to be in screening room when chokku,Mano discuss undelivered
letters, KB accompanies Mano when PC gets to know about Mano s illness – all such scenes are conveniently arranged – Leaf out of Theater for Cinema
Uthaman part – this is at a different level a) All themes of Comedy used are already well oiled as part of Tamil film comedies with few scenes have direct mapping to legendary
debase comedies – Snakebite, Deadbody comedy,Two Bananas(Karagattakaran), Hitting in head( Ullathai alli tha), Kuyil shit (Vel), ear biting, Stoning, Slapping,Trumpets blown while speaking (Pulikesi), kicked onto water (Chinna Gounder),rusted sword (Pulikesi), Ellorum vaarungal when nasser discloses secret(Friends), Rat Chase, body odours, spoof dances, dysentry we have seen it all before in tamil Film s debase comedy – In a subtle indication – barber indicates bell before Uthaman gets kicked into water. Icing on the cake Kamal brilliantly imitates Kaka Radha, Balaiyah & Sivaji as Uthaman story goes on
Kamal wanted to make a film on Adisankara which we were told in the movie that it is dropped to give way to a comedy movie – But it is not dropped altogether – Uthaman part is tracing Adisankara s Story right in between debase comedies listed above. This by itself is an great attempt. Lot of indications throughout the movie about Sankarar’s Advaitam, Jainism & Budhism – We have “small god” worship indication in Sudalaimadan. Adisankarar s Advaitam has direct answer to Mano s quest for immortality
One of the best cinema to have come out of Tamil with lot of Valid subtexts – Felt overwhelmed after Multiple viewings
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Ramakrishnan
June 2, 2015
I think UthamaVillain is the most artistic and classy movie ever made, ever made in Tamil Cinema. Kamal as an actor, story-screenplay-dialogue writer, singer, lyricist perfectly created two stories – Manoranjan and Uthaman that not only made us to entertain, but it was made in a context that where we makes us to search about what is life through two characters, one who explains (Uthaman) and the one who lives it (Manoranjan). But the problem lies within is those two stories really dont blend together as it should have been. Many people complain that the Uthaman story is not funny and entertaining. Yes that is accepted. Uthaman story is neither intruiging, nor interesting. But it is the most informative and interesting. Manoranjan who realizes that death is very close to him decides to a one last film that too, he wishes to do it with his mentor Margadharshi (KB sir). This concept itself tell us the value of KH and KB. Even 36 years back KB made a similar attempt, where the lead character in his movie – Ninaithale Inikkum, is awaiting her death in her upcoming days, she wishes to leave his beloved forever, so that they don’t feel for or miss her any longer. But here Manoranjan decides not to leave his beloved (his fans, I mention), he wants to give them a one last movie with his master and he wishes it to be a masterpiece. He wished it to be a comedy creation and he wants his fans to smile endlessly and laugh heartily after coming out of the theatre. That itself very much tell us how the character of Manoranjan is. He, at that instance wished to smile happily, but could not do so. He decided the film to be a comedy venture. He could have wished it to be something similar like an “Ullathai Allitha” or “Avvai Shanmughi” or “Boss Engira Baskaran” and the comedy could be anything like “Kalaikkaradhu” or “Comedy cos of an aftermath of a Sodhappal” something similar to “Panchathanthiram”. But he instead chose #Uthamavillain, an 8th century story that focusses on immortality completely driven by the comical natures of the characters. Here the physchology of Mano and Uthaman characters are well explained. Mano who accepts that his death is nearing him, beautifully tries to convince his son, where he says “Everybody will face death one day in their life, The biggest medicine is to accept it”. Uthaman who conveys the concept of immortal as a bane to Naasser by singing, “Mara Oliyam Nyayirum Kuda Mattror Yugathil Pogum Karindhey” and “Vendiyathellam Vaitha Oruvan, Saavaiyum vendi Setha Kadhaikal Aayiram Undu”, but the same character sings as “Iravum Pagalum Agamum Puramum, Pirivatridum Šaaga Varamudaiyaan, Purindhidhu Purindhidhu Purindhidu Nee, Mudivurai Yendrøndru Illa Kaaviyam Naan”, becos as Iraniyan, he explains he can cheat death and he wont die at any cost. Such is the legendary level of KH, who defines the movie making to a completely different level. I wish, these kinds of movies should be encouraged, if not, at least they should not be discouraged and degraded.
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Prasanna Kumar
June 8, 2015
some movies I like, some I dont, This Movie I hated for being so slow, So immature, so much talent wasted (Singeetham, Jayaram, Parvathy, Urvashi, Naseer) and Ramesh Aravind was directing a skit or what. To be blunt this was Kamalhassan’s BABA.
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Karthik
June 10, 2015
Well..greetings from the Jurassic era where I just happened to catch this movie, while the rest of the world has evolved to debating crow eggs on cruise ships.
I think I am in agreement with the broad consensus here that the core conceit of this movie had a lot of meat to work with but the end result was just a fossil– lots to learn and appreciate but certainly not a living and breathing dinosaur.
Where I disagree is that the failures are not concentrated in the transition from script to screen but also from mind to ink. What surprised me is this: the complex high concepts were so well thought out and the threads woven so neatly between the two narratives– I think Ashutosh’s comment pretty much captured all of the parallels…one thing I would add is the title of the movie itself being flipped on its head between the two narratives: Manoranjan starts of as a villain and eventually sheds his masks (in the end literally removing his makeup and wig) to die as an Uttaman, and in the other narrative, he starts of as an Uttaman and ends up donning a villain’s costume to live on as an immortal,
but the far simpler low concept threads, particularly in Manoranjan’s storyline were so lazily written and almost devoid of any novelty. Every character is given one scene each to reconcile, and the reconciliation happens through simple exchange of information. Everybody conveys their points of view through dialogue, and the dialogue is so verbose and insipid– all simplistic variants of “I did this, I feel this, this happened”. This type of screenwriting on a finer scale to me seems too…factual. The handful of times I came close to feeling anything were some silent moments focusing on Manoranjan’s reactions. And aside from Andrea, none of the others Jayaram, Oorvasi, Bhaskar, Parvathy Menon are bad actors. I really felt the script gave them very little to do. It also doesnt help that the humor in both storylines felt very dated.
To think, this is one of the few times where Kamal, as is his wont, could really dismiss the fourth wall without yanking us out….if only he would have drawn us in first…
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sivans21
June 12, 2015
Does it make you think Kamal has realized his mortality and wants to do as many films as possible before… Is that the explanation of him working on a bounty full of films … vishwaroopam 2, uttama villain, papanaasam, thoonga vanam, amar hai… Just makes you think..and worry…
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Rajendraprasada Reddy
June 19, 2015
Uttam Villian is unappealing. Kamal is wasting his talent. If he suffers financially, India loses a great actor. It is better he leaves direction and script writing and concentrate on acting under sensible directors. He better go to Hollywood other than raising tempers by foolisly commenting on religion an comtemporary issues. I don’t think he is enough sensible to portray comemporary problems.
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Amaruvi's Aphorisms
June 28, 2015
Uthama villain plays more like Kamal’s biopic with some induced melancholy. Till the end, one doesn’t really understand what he wants to say. Late Balachander praising Kamal in each and every scene makes, though done in order not to trouble the actor to perform once more, becomes so repetitive to the extent of being predictable.
What a waste of talent, money, effort and everybody’s time ?
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HARSHINI
July 13, 2015
I find Kamal Hassan to be a megalomaniac with a compulsive need to show off his greatness, how great an actor or director he is, how intellectual he is, how adept he is in learning a new dance form or a new dialect etc. You could observe this quality in his interviews or shows he appears in, with his entourage heaping praises on him, he behaves like a 5 year old that has the attention of all the adults around. He recites complex poetry, ask him a question about Balachander and he tells how KB told him he could be the next Sivaji Ganesan, it is this self admiration and obsession that his films fall victim to, his atheism, his empathy for cancer survivors and victims, his contempt for social stereotypes could all be seen in his movies, you hear him literally speaking through these stories.
It happens to Uttama Villain too, he wants to show how good he could be in theyyam and voila! lets have theyyam in a tamil kingdom, I also din’t understand how a staunch tamil brahmin chose to become a kathak dancer in Vishwaroopam, is there a legitimate reason why he would patronise kathak and not bharathnatyam considering his south indian roots or is it infused to showcase how good Kamal Hassan could be in kathak.. It is the same case as with Meryl Streep, going to those great lenghts to show how good she is in transforming herself for the role, sadly all that one sees is a great actress “acting” and not the character she tried to portray. I guess it happens to creative people at times, they get too obsessed with being perfect that they start worshipping their onscreen persona themselves. What a psychological torture it would be!.
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kaaviyathalagani
July 15, 2015
I hate to get back to this otherwise very long thread, but a lot of us here, happened to watch Kadhala Kadhala recently. There are a few lines, right at the end (where its utter chaos) with Kamal and CrazyMohan, with a gun.
“Enna Uttaman nu sollidingalen please”
“Villain ah poi en ya kaapathara?”
“Illana naan villain ayiduven”
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VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk)
August 28, 2015
Happened to watch Virumandi recently. Thought I ought to write on it. Did so
Do read. Cheers.
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Raja
August 28, 2015
great post on virumandi
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Karthikeyan
November 20, 2015
First of all I want to begin with the starting song, one person had asked that what is the need for that song. For me it was like a parody on the famous masala movies. The song starts like this, “Single kiss ke love ah?”. What it meant is that the movies now a days portray the hero and the heroine falls in love for any stupid reasons. Now remember the first line of the song! “single kiss ke love ah?” ain’t it like questioning the masala movie makers?
The next thing is what is the connection between the uttaman story and Manoranjan. In the movie Manoranjan was a star and the stardom makes Manoranjan to think that he is immortal. But when he gets to know that he got brain tumor he realizes that he is also a mortal being. Therefore he wants to portray that in the Uttaman story. The word Mirtunjayan will be heard all over the Uttaman story. At last the story ends like nobody can escape death. Meanwhile, Manoranjan dies of the brain tumor but his film releases and he attains immortality through art.
And I want to agree with a person who commented before me that Kamal should select a good director for his movies. I think he will 🙂
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Ragenikanth
November 20, 2015
A film should speak for itself and it is the responsibility of the director to present the movie in a interesting way even without a proper story , here the issue is the direction which was big let down for which kamal cannot escape the blame
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gvsafamily
March 12, 2016
I managed to watch UV. only recently, on a long flight to Europe. And immediately followed it up with a classic (Hitchcock’s Rear Window, no less!) The contrast couldn’t have been more obvious. UV – a lofty concept marred by inexplicably poor execution. And Rear Window – a simple premise elevated to lofty heights by flawless execution.
(I came back to your review BR to find out what you had felt on watching UV and turns out you and most of your readers too had felt the same)
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v.vijaysree
November 11, 2016
I liked the movie. You seem to set impossibly high standards for the best of Kamal movies while any other Tamil movie is given an easy pass. I don’t understand why.
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Chrysolyte
December 11, 2016
Despite being a Kamal admirer, not necessarily limited to ‘the artist KH’, I watched UV just yesterday. To listen intently, understand, to learn, to appreciate is my preferred reason for interacting with others work – ideas, books, music and movies.
After watching the movie now available on YouTube and having had a taste of brand BR on a few earlier occasions, I read your review to know how it resonated with expert minds. Thank you for a great piece.
One point I thought would a fourth layer to this ‘the most head-spinning triple role in cinema history’ – Manoharan. Manoranjan’s son could as well be a reflection of Kamal’s worldwide, attitude and aspirations. The character is an allusary insight into Kamal’s person I multiple ways – in its ahead-of-its-age relationships, in its self-centredness (Urvashi says it) and in its overt critical opinion about stardom/fame but a passionate longing to showcase cinema’s virtue to the world ‘I want to do screenplay…want to show who my dad is’.
I guess this movie will be a fitting visual explanation of the maxim ‘art is a reflection of life’.
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Ramsu
March 6, 2017
Here’s another reference to his own filmography that I noticed. The idea of the hero dying while a song about immortality plays in the background – is that a nod to the ending of Salangai Oli, where the shloka that goes ‘jayanti te sukruti’ plays in the background? What with K Viswanath playing his father in law, it might have seemed especially apropos.
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Jay
June 3, 2019
http://uttamavillaindissection.blogspot.com/?m=1
Posting the link above as you (and I) had missed a while layer of Nasser being the villain version of manoranjan. I was also super surprised about your quibbling about a Kerala art form in a Tamil movie. Chera Nadu!!! Isn’t it startling that Kamal is racing ahead of even his most ardent (and astute) fans who are tuned to him.
I agree with you that direction could have been slightly better. But o boy, what a brilliant screenplay. I happened to watch birdman after this movie and was very underwhelmed by birdman as the layers of uttama villain made birdman look like a single dimensional puppet show.
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