There is a genre of movie not for enjoyment but purely for grey cells and there is a genre of movie that argues between natural phenomenon and science fiction and a genre of movie that argues between theism and atheism, and Dasavathram transgresses and falls under all 3 categories. Is that a plus or a minus? Read more..
Most of us in the world are caught in the world of forms. We define God as omnipresent and omnipotent but we have been conditioned to see him/her (I don’t want to be gender biased) in a small space, or in a small rock. The human mind struggles to see him inside everybody, see him as the universe and at the same time see him at the place of worship. Can we call this the limitation of the conditioned human brain? Can we call this the conflict between the intellects and pseudo intellects? There is always this debate on God or goodness, but which wins in the movie?
Is there existence without co-existence on this earth? Science and religion (are they left and right hemispheres of the brain?) were conjoined twins once upon a time, but today they have been separated yet they share a semblance and a common boundary. Treading on the common boundary must be done with finesse, otherwise we get branded “cat on the wall”. But one needs to transgress and trespass the mental boundary to understand the macrocosm. And director has chosen a brilliant embryo for the movie: the debate between science and religion to find answer for the recent Tsunami. Both of them seem to have a convincing answer. Did the embryo develop into beautiful fetus or was it aborted prematurely?
The movie opens with an aerial shot of Chennai shoreline and then quickly delves into timeline and moves back to 12 century AD, brilliantly portraying the clash of faiths – one between saivites and vaishnavites. This intra-faith clash was worse than the inter-religious clash in Gaza strip today. The world is no different today and it makes you wonder if god was ever a part of goodness?
Rangaramanuja Nambi is chained to the idol of Govindarajan and is thrown in the deep ocean. And the next important question that hits you in the movie is did man save God or God save man and who made who and who is more powerful? Kallai kandal song was very fitting for the scene. There is this proverb in Tamil, “The king punishes immediately, while divine justice gives a long rope”. May be 2004 Tsunami was the effect of 12th Century incident? Which came first, chicken or egg is always the most difficult question to answer, but that doesn’t mean there is no answer.
The reel makes a quick jump to the research laboratory in US where the struggle between science and moral science moves the microbial vial to India. Do we call this karma or logical imperfection? On the other track there is the utsavamurthy traveling ticketless from Chidambaram to the shores of Chennai to unravel other avatars – clash of titans. Some of the avtars are convincing, while some are confusing and could have been avoided.
“What goes around comes around” is it really true? Krishnaveni paati finds closure (after 50 years) wailing on the corpse of Poovaraghan (dalit avatar) on the shore. It makes me think what if Poovaraghan was an incarnation of Paati’s son Aaravamudhan? Govindan and Andal uniting on the backdrop of the stone edifice of Govindarajan, makes me think may be they were Ramanujam and his wife from the previous incarnation. This is where science takes the back seat and religious belief such as reincarnation and karma takes the front seat.
For every knot that is made there is another knot that is untied. May be they are trying to balance between believers and skeptics in the movie? With change in gear and speed and the movie sags and stalls in a few places. Kallai Kandal and Mukunda was the only reprieve when story failed, popcorn was dry and coke turned flat.
Avtar singh getting cured by impinging bullet, Poovaraghan handing over the chain bearing the cross and later being killed by the Tsunami and Kalifullah Khan and clique trapped in the Mosque and saved from Tsunami – is it strange coincidence, divine play or is it blatant ploy of miracles in the age of science and technology?
Running two villains - the microbial vial and Fletcher was different and new to tamil film industry. Some of Fletcher’s stunts and chase around the city buildings made him feel like a localite more than foreigner. Balram Naidu, though humorous shines of ignorance. Shingen, Bush and Kalifulla Khan were not really helpful to the script and were not much different in their make-ups. Mallika Sherawat, and Asin come across as dumb bimbos, while KR Vijaya, Jayapradha and Nagesh were mere bubbles in the ocean.
There is ample discussion on action vs. reaction, god vs. goodness, cause vs. effect, science vs. religion and finally reincarnation vs. natural phenomenon, but brilliant dialogues loose sheen with lengthy, repetitive face and insipid script. This is a must watch movie for pseudo-intellectuals, this is a must watch movie for all those who believe in Newton’s third law of motion and time axis, but this movie may offend sentiments of the right wing and those who believe in god more than goodness.
The 10 avatars in Hinduism happened over a period of four yugas (each yuga is couple of thousands of years) and it all happens in a few nano yugas in the movie. This is like Life in a capsule kind, so please understand the limitation of the script and logical flaws in keeping the reel, real.
To be the best lawyer in the city one must be a criminal. Extending the same logic, you have to be a theist to turn into an atheist. Undoubtedly there is no one more competent than Kamalhassan to incarnate in 10 avatars in a span of just 3 hrs. But we could have done away with a few avatars and packed the movie with more fizz and excitement.
The first 15 mins was really gripping and riveting in terms of performance, dialogues and songs. I was thinking the movie would be a trendsetter asking the most right questions about religion and science. But as the reels run it turned out to be a big disappointment. All said and done nobody can uproot and re-program religious beliefs and sentiments in Indian brains with a mere 3 hour movie. With so many questions raised in the beginning of the movie, we expected an answer on science or religion, good or goodness, action or reaction. But there was no verdict given at the end of the movie – he closed the movie with the line “It would be nice if God is there”. I am not a skeptic and I walked out the movie hall scratching my head, what was he trying to say? Director and actor are both from orthodox hindu families, they can pretend to be an aethist, but in reality they are confused and caught in denial with their religious sentiments. In scientific parlance the movies was “inconclusive” and in religious parlance “offensive”. Will skeptics feel validated or do they feel same way like I did? Isn’t it safe to be ignorant and remain a muddle head than pretend to be intelligent and intellect (chaos theory, butterfly theory)?
Most of us in the world are caught in the world of forms. We define God as omnipresent and omnipotent but we have been conditioned to see him/her (I don’t want to be gender biased) in a small space, or in a small rock. The human mind struggles to see him inside everybody, see him as the universe and at the same time see him at the place of worship. Can we call this the limitation of the conditioned human brain? Can we call this the conflict between the intellects and pseudo intellects? There is always this debate on God or goodness, but which wins in the movie?
Is there existence without co-existence on this earth? Science and religion (are they left and right hemispheres of the brain?) were conjoined twins once upon a time, but today they have been separated yet they share a semblance and a common boundary. Treading on the common boundary must be done with finesse, otherwise we get branded “cat on the wall”. But one needs to transgress and trespass the mental boundary to understand the macrocosm. And director has chosen a brilliant embryo for the movie: the debate between science and religion to find answer for the recent Tsunami. Both of them seem to have a convincing answer. Did the embryo develop into beautiful fetus or was it aborted prematurely?
The movie opens with an aerial shot of Chennai shoreline and then quickly delves into timeline and moves back to 12 century AD, brilliantly portraying the clash of faiths – one between saivites and vaishnavites. This intra-faith clash was worse than the inter-religious clash in Gaza strip today. The world is no different today and it makes you wonder if god was ever a part of goodness?
Rangaramanuja Nambi is chained to the idol of Govindarajan and is thrown in the deep ocean. And the next important question that hits you in the movie is did man save God or God save man and who made who and who is more powerful? Kallai kandal song was very fitting for the scene. There is this proverb in Tamil, “The king punishes immediately, while divine justice gives a long rope”. May be 2004 Tsunami was the effect of 12th Century incident? Which came first, chicken or egg is always the most difficult question to answer, but that doesn’t mean there is no answer.
The reel makes a quick jump to the research laboratory in US where the struggle between science and moral science moves the microbial vial to India. Do we call this karma or logical imperfection? On the other track there is the utsavamurthy traveling ticketless from Chidambaram to the shores of Chennai to unravel other avatars – clash of titans. Some of the avtars are convincing, while some are confusing and could have been avoided.
“What goes around comes around” is it really true? Krishnaveni paati finds closure (after 50 years) wailing on the corpse of Poovaraghan (dalit avatar) on the shore. It makes me think what if Poovaraghan was an incarnation of Paati’s son Aaravamudhan? Govindan and Andal uniting on the backdrop of the stone edifice of Govindarajan, makes me think may be they were Ramanujam and his wife from the previous incarnation. This is where science takes the back seat and religious belief such as reincarnation and karma takes the front seat.
For every knot that is made there is another knot that is untied. May be they are trying to balance between believers and skeptics in the movie? With change in gear and speed and the movie sags and stalls in a few places. Kallai Kandal and Mukunda was the only reprieve when story failed, popcorn was dry and coke turned flat.
Avtar singh getting cured by impinging bullet, Poovaraghan handing over the chain bearing the cross and later being killed by the Tsunami and Kalifullah Khan and clique trapped in the Mosque and saved from Tsunami – is it strange coincidence, divine play or is it blatant ploy of miracles in the age of science and technology?
Running two villains - the microbial vial and Fletcher was different and new to tamil film industry. Some of Fletcher’s stunts and chase around the city buildings made him feel like a localite more than foreigner. Balram Naidu, though humorous shines of ignorance. Shingen, Bush and Kalifulla Khan were not really helpful to the script and were not much different in their make-ups. Mallika Sherawat, and Asin come across as dumb bimbos, while KR Vijaya, Jayapradha and Nagesh were mere bubbles in the ocean.
There is ample discussion on action vs. reaction, god vs. goodness, cause vs. effect, science vs. religion and finally reincarnation vs. natural phenomenon, but brilliant dialogues loose sheen with lengthy, repetitive face and insipid script. This is a must watch movie for pseudo-intellectuals, this is a must watch movie for all those who believe in Newton’s third law of motion and time axis, but this movie may offend sentiments of the right wing and those who believe in god more than goodness.
The 10 avatars in Hinduism happened over a period of four yugas (each yuga is couple of thousands of years) and it all happens in a few nano yugas in the movie. This is like Life in a capsule kind, so please understand the limitation of the script and logical flaws in keeping the reel, real.
To be the best lawyer in the city one must be a criminal. Extending the same logic, you have to be a theist to turn into an atheist. Undoubtedly there is no one more competent than Kamalhassan to incarnate in 10 avatars in a span of just 3 hrs. But we could have done away with a few avatars and packed the movie with more fizz and excitement.
The first 15 mins was really gripping and riveting in terms of performance, dialogues and songs. I was thinking the movie would be a trendsetter asking the most right questions about religion and science. But as the reels run it turned out to be a big disappointment. All said and done nobody can uproot and re-program religious beliefs and sentiments in Indian brains with a mere 3 hour movie. With so many questions raised in the beginning of the movie, we expected an answer on science or religion, good or goodness, action or reaction. But there was no verdict given at the end of the movie – he closed the movie with the line “It would be nice if God is there”. I am not a skeptic and I walked out the movie hall scratching my head, what was he trying to say? Director and actor are both from orthodox hindu families, they can pretend to be an aethist, but in reality they are confused and caught in denial with their religious sentiments. In scientific parlance the movies was “inconclusive” and in religious parlance “offensive”. Will skeptics feel validated or do they feel same way like I did? Isn’t it safe to be ignorant and remain a muddle head than pretend to be intelligent and intellect (chaos theory, butterfly theory)?
Thats so frank and brutal!
ReplyDeleteI thought that there was something wrong with me when Icould not appreciate the movie, makes me feel better now.
ReplyDeleteI found the Telugu speaking character good, rest of them were painful.
As far as technicality goes, the first 15 minutes were good, beyond that it was substandard.
Deva could have given better music than Himesh, wonder why he was roped in.
The wait was absolutely worthless. Kamalahasan has lost it!
Javed