"Vishwaroopam"- A study of the Master Piece

I watched Vishwaroopam today in Vancouver. It's a shame I couldn't watch a Tamil movie in Tamil, I come back and the next day I get to watch it here. The first time I heard about the ban and the opposition the film faced, I got reminded of another great film maker, Jafar Panahi an iranian film maker who made movies like Off side and the White balloon. He was under house arrest with a twenty year ban on making films and giving media interviews because he was creating “propaganda against the regime". That did not stop him and he made "This is not Film" at his house using cellphone camera and camcorder. He finished the movie in his house with whatever he had. The movie was smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival on a USB drive hidden in pastries. This later was played in Cannes and many other film festivals. Such was his the love for the art. Many directors including mighty SCORSESE came to the rescue signing a petition.
Kamal Haasan is no different from Jafar Panahi for the love of his art. 50 Years in Film he has been in most of the departments and has an ocean of knowledge. But then again it's a shame that no one came to the rescue. That tells you the sad state of Indian film industry. Film is business but first it's an art. Unfortunately it saddens me to make the comment "Indian film industry has sold its soul for money".



Now that Kamal Haasan is doing his Hollywood directorial venture there is a ray of hope, a hope that Indian Cinema is not going to ashes. It's not Indian cinema if it’s made in Bollywood or Kollywood. It's the feeling of being Indian and the sentiments, the Style and the vision that we bring with us and above all the love for art in this great nation, which has given us geniuses like Saint Thyagaraja, Kalidasa, Satyajith Ray and many more. This is not the first time something like this happens. Deepa Mehta who made the movie "water", which was banned in India and again it’s a shame it won an Oscar for best foreign language film from Canada. The NFDC and other film organizations speak about developing Indian cinema and the first thing they do is crush true genius from existence. We are a country where we nominate a movie into the Oscars because "The heroine wore the costliest saree in the world". I hope I am not there when Indian films go to ashes, I hope it does not happen in my time. But then, when it happens all that would be left is people like Mrs.Mehta who settled down elsewhere.

Vishwaroopam is not an Anti Muslim or a Propaganda movie, it's a Social commentary like Hay ram or Virumandi. The impact of terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world. He never says or Propogates any anti muslim stuff.
psst: Watch the movie you'll understand it for yourself.



First of this is neither a review nor a criticism, this is a mere interpretation of art. Even though I have tried to keep spoilers to the minimum, if you have not watched the movie yet, Close the tab and come back after watching.




My film guru John Pozer has always told me "A movie starts in the first frame and ends in the last" I saw it for the first time in Tamil cinema. The way the title comes up on the screen starts the story. I then see a shot of a rack with Pigeons flying all over the frame, I sit and watch that block frame for the next two minutes and my mind wonders with a question "the significance of the shot?". Then I see a man come into the frame. At the end of the sequence the camera follows a pigeon which flies out of the compound. You might find it insignificant at that time.
Kamal Haasan uses the Pigeon as a Motif that keeps coming in the movie every now and then. Pigeon plays and important role in the movie plot which am not getting into. Even in Afghan there are just but pigeons. As a director he has chosen the best motif that the movie about violence and terrorism could ever have.

The other motif that is in the movie is the puddle of water. There is a scene where there are constant droplets of water and they create a puddle. They create a similar image and it stands in the mind as a metaphor for blood. In the warehouse, it also acts as a fore shadow for all the bloodshed that's going to start and that will never end.
The first time we see Vishwanath, is through a window. We look into his house through the window (I would have been happier if it was a frame within a frame) where the man is dancing, we "look into it". He comes out from the darkness to light. A wonderful way to introduce the character. This brings me to the image system "The Glass". Reflections of characters and looking into them through glasses. We only see the reflections of a few characters like Vishwanath, Ashmitha. These are the people we need look into and not just look at. That is a tool that a director uses to bring in metaphor (Sounds new in Tamil cinema right? I know!).

The movie doesn’t follow your everyday style of non-linear narrative. Every flashback is well thought, I also loved the way he has connected the flashbacks with the bullet time technique, yeah! it’s the fancy VFX shot we all saw in Anniyan. But this was used with a purpose in this movie, it almost acted as a Tableau Vivant. Every one of that sequence was a painting, they were a paintings that moved. And speaking of Tableau Vivant, when the Nato blasts the Village there is the shot where everyone are dead and are lying in the last posture that they were. Absolute brilliance is not the word that could describe that shot. It was emotionally stunning, it was Tableau Vivant which had a purpose and it impacted us. It really bombarded what he wanted to tell us (I wish the shot was longer though). And I did notice the Mickey Mouse that was lying at the blast in the Afghan village. The shot inside the School bus where the kid in the foreground was wearing a bear costume and all the kids look at a blast behind. I feel Kamal is trying to express the impact of violence in children. Mise-en-scène was perfect, Everything in the frame had a purpose, a theme to it. The whole Afghan sequence except the action part had the camera flowing like poetry. So smooth, as if life were pleasant, then comes the action that takes you out and shakes the life out of you (again brilliant use of camera as a narrative tool).

There are sequences in the movie which were extremely powerful. The Kids playing, I have played as if I were riding a motorbike when I was kid. Those kids in Afghan play as if they are shooting. Rahul Bose plays with his kid as if he were shooting him, with his hand.
The kid does not want to play at the swing, but wants to become a doctor and the Jihadi who wants to play at the swing. We come back to the shot of the boy playing in the swing when he dies as a suicide bomber, was brilliance in narrative story telling. The Sheikh publicly executed. His mother cries amidst the gun shots and the constant chanting the god is great with the song "Anuvidhaitha Boomiyile" was visual poetry.
Kamal makes us feel as if we had a glimpse of the God. That’s what the Character feels and that what we feel when we get a glimpse of the shaikh “OSAMA”. The whole sequence was well built.




He started the digital age in India with Mumbai express, He brought in live sound in Virumandi. Bless this man he has brought the live sound again! The sound of Ghungru in the begining of the Song "unnai kaanaddha" was like honey in my ears. I hope Live sound is adapted more, which means Female actors can't just be sexy (#Just saying).

I know I am from a family that loves Kamal Haasan, I myself have been a fan since my childhood. But the thing that blows my mind is the calibre of this man! An actor who sings and knows classical dance (that’s no biggie actors need to know all that stuff), Produces good movies (now we are getting somewhere) and the best Indian director of our times(now that's what am talkin about). What great movies!, Hay ram (my personal favourite before watching Vishwaroopam, First Parafiction movie in India), Virumandi (A perfect homage to Kurosawa and it did not merely copy that style of storytelling but had a soul of its own). It deeply saddens me that he is still not able to release Vishwaroopam in madras, which has been his muse for years. It’s a shame on the government, on the democracy and the people. I want to watch him direct a movie. That he just directs (I am sure it would turn into a masterpiece because he is just doing that and that alone not having to worry about anything else).

I am not sure if I will get to watch the movie here again, am sure waiting for the blu ray to release which might be sometime after next six months I am going to the buy the first copy then and may be one day I would it signed by the man himself. Like any other film school kid I hope I work with him someday or at least watch him do his magic.

A film is true 24 times a second, So stop bullshitting and let the movie release.


A humble fan of this extraordinary Artist #isupportkamalhaasan