Our preoccupation with drama – occasionally, over-drama – is what brings me here after a long hiatus. I watched Papanasam yesterday, memories of watching the original Malayalam hit not as fresh as I'd wished them to be. But despite this lapse, I could put my finger to things in Papanasam that were not subtle, that were often overdone and introduced in the name of metaphor or possibly art.
I hope no one reads this. My last review of a Kamal movie was not positive either.
I love this man, this artist, this actor-par-excellence, this charismatic, passionate, highly-talented and knowledgeable man of Indian cinema. I love this man's capability of creating superior, layered movies where there's always much more than meets the eye. But the last time he was part of a remake, Unnaipol Oruvan, I couldn't but notice the segmented, forced heaviness of the scenes, the dialogs and the general tone of the movie.
Do we, Tamilans, lack subtlety? Do we really have no room for sublimeness? What is it about our people – urban, suburban, rural alike – that makes our cinema often over-dramatized?
That last scene where Kamal bids goodbye to the newly-appointed Sub-Inspector, where he notices the foot tap and the screen cuts to Suyambulingam tapping the ground. In Drishyam, Georgekutty just walks out. No drama, no metaphorical allegories, no superimpose, basically no “further ado.”
Who decided to make those “focus on the eyes” scene longer than they were in the original? And why? Is it just me or did Gautami's make-up look out of the ordinary for a simple home-maker in a village? And why did the movie feel longer? Oh wait, because it was at least 20 minutes longer!
To be honest, I'm only being diplomatic if I said there's only a fine line of difference between Drishyam and Papanasam. In truth, I feel there are glaring examples that speak volumes about the subtle and sublime method of Malayalam cinema (as far as the great movies are concerned) and also speak equally about Tamil cinema's preoccupation with drama and over-acting.
An entire movie revolved around Mohanlal and Asha Sarath but in the closing scenes, when Georgekutty meets the bereaved couple one last time, Siddique (the boy's father) with his trembling lips stole the show for me. It was like watching Tom Hanks from Captain Phillips. In that short appearance, Siddique bids adieu, prays for forgiveness but beyond all that – the original motive – requests for a closure from Mohanlal. What all other characters achieved in a large chunk of screen space, he did in that one final scene.
In the same scene in Papanasam, there was no way Anant Mahadevan – a very fine actor of his own accord, undoubtedly – was going to overshadow Kamal. While watching the scene, it did indeed feel slightly overdone, reminding me of Sivaji's performances but Suyambulingam is sketched more emotive than Georgekutty was and that justifies Kamal's performance.
But I digress. Coming back to the itch. Why can't we have subtlety? Kamal is known for both his imperceptible subtlety (the Vishwaroopam transformation scene where he notices the sword and appears – extremely briefly – to make a calculation about it) and occasional over-emphasis of things. Is it because Kamal has tried being subtle and found – much to his dismay – that our audiences never catch up to these subtleties and want only dramatized fiction/reality? Or is it because we are culturally programmed to have a lot of noise over the signal?
Dramatization and exaggeration is a consistent theme in many performance arts but what is notable is that in civilizations that have leaped ahead faster than others, the level of exaggeration has declined so as to match art with existential reality. The sooner we get to this point, the more rational the audience appears (at least, in so far as judging art). Subtlety, then, is not just a technique of art but a necessity if you want to make art a timeless depiction of reality.
And this is where we, not just as a state that produces a ton of films, but as a collective society seem to fail.