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Q&A | KAMAL HAASAN

Kamal Haasan talks about Hindi films,language, politics and ‘Unnaipol Oruvan’

B Y K R I S H R A G H A V

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In 50 years in the filmindustry, Kamal Haasan hasacted in around 150 films,

put on the director’s hat andexcelled as a producer, playbacksinger, choreographer andlyricist. He’s won four NationalAwards, and held a GuinnessWorld Record for his 10 roles inDasavatharam.

In his latest film, UnnaipolOruvan (Eenadu in Telugu), aremake of the 2008 Hindi filmA Wednesday, the spectre ofterrorism looms over Chennaiinstead of the original’sMumbai as an unpreparedpolice department deals withred tape, political lethargy and

You’ve worked in manyregional films, and in anumber of multilingual films.How important do you thinklanguage is in building anidentity for Indian cinema?Language is very important, andthis is another area ofcomplacence that comes oftenfrom the north of the country… Ilove the language, but themyopia of Hindi and the Hindifilm industry is unacceptable tome. This is a larger nation. It isknit together. You cannot bring amonoculture into it and imposeit. I think all actors shouldunderstand the strength ofworking in different languages.Of course, there’s the attractionof more money, but this, to me,is a very fulfilling way ofexpanding your audience.How did working in multiplelanguages help you grow asa performer?It makes an artist understand

how big and howaccommodating the country is,given a chance. India is acountry where you have to takea linguistic passport every timeyou cross 300km on the map.Art should transcend theseborders. My so-called “Bharatdarshan (discovery of India)”came through my work. It’s atravel worth its while.Do you see mainstreamcinema transcending theseborders?Yes. This was an attempt, evenway back, by people like V.Shantaram. You can see in hiswork attempts to put charactersfrom all over the country.

It seems to be happeningagain now. It’s not the popsinger, the ma, the beti, the lamesister and vengeance any more.All that has changed. I was acaustic critic of these themesbeing regurgitated again andagain. You can’t strategically

place an Amar, Akbar andAnthony any more. You musthave reasons to put them there.They must have greaterdimensions to their characters.And that is happening.Could you give us a fewexamples?I’m seeing it in the work ofpeople like Vishal Bhardwaj,who tries it very subtly andeffectively, and AshutoshGowariker. It’s not propagandist.It’s a passionate plea to beinclusive and isn’t rhetoricalone. The whole “Gaana nahihai, fight nahi hai (There are nosongs, no fights)” is going away,and audiences are taking this intheir stride. I’m enjoyingwatching Hindi films now.Over the years, you’veplayed characters fromacross the politicalspectrum, from a Communistto an anarchist. Which oneis the real Kamal Haasan?Sometimes these are mere roles.Do you think all the actors ontelevision believe in theproducts that they’re selling? Ifthey do, then I believe in all myroles too. What I believe isprobably close to Anbe Sivam,and probably close toVirumaandi. In Dasavatharam, Iplayed the role of apriest…which I don’t believe in,personally. I’m not agnostic oran atheist, I’m a rationalist.Are there particular politicalthemes that you try to explore?I’m not a political commentator,but I’m very sure that we havenot reached the “ism” that is thepanacea for all evils. We may bethe world’s largest democracy,but the democracy of ancientGreece, the republic of Rome,then later the founding ofAmerica—these are all differentbeasts. We are in the process ofevolving systems: So, I ask whystick to it and make a dogma ora diktat out of it. When peopledismiss an ideology, when theysay, for example, “There goescommunism”, I ask “Why?” KarlMarx has done his bit. It’s part ofa continuous evolution. We areyet to arrive at the promisedland, and I’m glad. The ascent ofman has happened because ofthis continuous evolution, andnot because of diktats that webelieve are the final word. Thatis why you see me playingvarious parts: to find the logic ineach argument. I’m only aspectator, not a legislator.

Unnaipol Oruvan is currentlyrunning in theatres.

An uncommon manBird’s­eye view:Haasan reprisesNaseeruddin Shah’srole from the Hindioriginal.

MOVIE REVIEW | INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Insipid crueltyTarantino’s latest iscleverly crafted butlacking in taste

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From the moment the charm-ing, laughing Nazi in Inglouri-

ous Basterds, Quentin Tarantino’slatest cinematic happening,sweeps on to the screen, he ownsthis film even more than itsmaker. Played by a little-knownAustrian actor, Christoph Waltz,Col Hans Landa is a vision of big-screen National Socialist villainy.

Inglourious Basterds, the direc-tor’s sixth feature, in manyrespects looks and sounds like atypical Tarantino production withits showboating performances,encyclopaedic movie referencesand self-conscious dialogue. TheAmerican avenger, Lt Aldo Raine

his framing and staging, hisswooping crane shots, postmod-ern flourishes (Samuel L. Jacksonin voice-over explaining the com-bustibility of nitrate prints) andgorgeously saturated colours, onevelvety red in particular.

The invocation of Jews as rats isghastly—both times I’ve seen themovie I could almost hear theaudience holding its collectivebreath. What matters, to Taran-tino, is the film-making.

But too often in InglouriousBasterds the film-making fallsshort. Tarantino is a great writerand director of individual scenes,though he can have trouble put-ting those together, a difficulty thathas sometimes been obscured bythe clever temporal kinks in hisearlier work. He has also turnedinto a bad editor of his own mate-rial (his nominal editor, as usual,is Sally Menke) and seems unwill-ing or incapable of telling his Amaterial from his B. The conversa-tions in Inglourious Basterds areoften repetitive and overlong andthey rarely sing, in part becausethe period setting doesn’t allowhim to raid his vast pop-cultural

storehouse. A joke about WienerSchnitzel just doesn’t pop like theburger riff in Pulp Fiction.

The film’s most egregious fail-ure—its giddy embrace and narra-tive elevation of the seductive Nazivillain—can largely be explainedas a problem of form. Landa sim-ply has no equal in the film, nocounterpart who can match himin verbal dexterity and charisma.

This isn’t to say that the film’srepresentation of National Social-ism, its repellent invocation of theHolocaust crematoriums and cal-

culated use of the Jews-as-rat met-aphor are not vulgar. Tarantinolikes to push hard against acceptednorms, as his insistent use of anoxious epithet for blacks hasshown in the past. But complain-ing about tastelessness in a Quen-tin Tarantino movie is as pointlessas carping about its hyperbolicviolence: These are as much a con-stituent part of his work as thereams of dialogue. This is, after all,a man who has an Oscar for amovie with a monologue about awatch stashed in a rectum.

Cartoon Nazis are not new tothe movies, and neither are fasci-nating fascists, as evidenced byRalph Fiennes’ Oscar-nominatedturn in Schindler’s List. Unlikethose in Schindler’s List, Taran-tino’s Nazis exist in an insistentlyfictional cinematic space whereheroes and villains converge amida welter of movie allusions. He’snot making a documentary or try-ing to be Steven Spielberg—Tarantino is really only seriousabout his own films, not history.

In that sense InglouriousBasterds, which takes its title ifnot its misspelling from an Italianflick in The Dirty Dozen vein, issimply another testament to hismovie love. The problem is thatby making the star attraction ofhis latest film a most delightfulNazi, one whose smooth talk is aslovingly presented as his murder-ous violence, Tarantino has pol-luted that love.

©2009/The New York TimesInglourious Basterds released intheatres on Friday.

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(Brad Pitt), leads a pack of Jewisha v e n g e r s , t h e “ i n g l o u r i o u sbasterds” of the misspelled title,who occupy one part of thesprawling narrative. Also elbow-ing for attention is a youngFrench Jew, Shosanna Dreyfus(Mélanie Laurent), who’s runninga cinema in Paris under a pseud-onym, and a German army hero,Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl),who dangerously woos her,unaware of her true identity.Mostly, though, there is Landa,whose unctuous charm, beauti-fully modulated by Waltz, givesthis unwieldy, dragging movie amuch-needed periodic jolt.

Tarantino likes to take his sweettime—he can be a master of theslow wind-up—but rarely has oneof his movies felt as interminableas this one and its 2 hours 32 min-utes. As usual he gives you a lot tochew on, though there’s plenty togag on as well. Much depends onwhether you can just groove on

Glory lost: Eli Roth (left) and Pitt in a still from Inglourious Basterds.

FRANCOIS DUHAMEL

than the original—the commonman should have equilibrium,not just anger at a community.Both sides always haveconflicting stories. A clash isnever possible withoutinvolvement from both sides.

To me, it was also aboutadapting it for a differentaudience. We have regionallydifferent politics. The “nationalagenda”, even during a generalelection, is never singular. Theonly unifying things are religionand ahimsa (non-violence),which Gandhiji preached. Theother thing now, unfortunately,is himsa (violence) or terrorism.My film takes a dig at this, atthe complacence of “Oh, it’shappening in Mumbai. Sowhat?” My film gets very angryat that kind of attitude. This is amorning alarm and we have tomake it ring while it’s stillmorning. All of this isredundant at twilight.

the alien nature of a threat that“only ever happens in the northof the country”. Haasan spoketo Lounge over the phone onthe eve of the film’s release.Edited excerpts:

Why did you choose to remake‘A Wednesday’, and what haschanged in translation?This is something I felt was asalute to your peer. When Isaw the original film, so manyideas came to my head, and Ifelt good things should bepassed on.

The content itself is not new;we have added certain thingsthat were not there in theoriginal without disturbing thepace of the film. I wanted tomake this with greater equipoise