Book Review: Kamal Haasan — A Cinematic Journey by K Hariharan
If you know me personally, you’d be aware of the kind of fan I am of Kamal Haasan. I love the films he wrote, his views on cinema and storytelling, and his immense knowledge of Indian literature, cinema, and world cinema. I revisit a few scenes of his films often and am always amazed at his creativity.
I always wondered why we don’t have a book on Kamal Haasan’s filmography. Especially his collaborations with filmmakers like K Balachander, Bharathiraja, K Viswanath, SP Muthuraman, Singeetham, and writer Crazy Mohan. I even sent a potential chapter list of what would make a good Kamal Haasan filmography book to a few close friends!
Then I saw a post by Baradwaj Rangan on Instagram in June, with a picture of the book’s cover page — Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey that said the book is due on July 10th. As I eagerly awaited a book on his films, I couldn’t resist and pre-ordered this book on Amazon in June (I’ve never pre-ordered a book before). I kept guessing what topics the author would have covered and what I could learn from the book, provided I had a lot of expectations on the writing and filmmaking process of a few of his films, like Micheal Madana Kama Rajan, Avvai Shanmugi, Uttama Villain, Hey Ram among others.
This book, written by K Hariharan, a filmmaker, has an afterword by legendary filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao.
I got the book on 11th July and started reading it excitedly. The book is divided into multiple chapters — standalone chapters for a few movies, and there are chapters with a few films combined based on the theme they share, according to the author. The book begins with the circumstances during Kamal Haasan’s birth, his father’s passion for venturing into arts, and their family dynamics. Kamal Haasan’s father wanted to pursue something beyond the regular job but was rebuked by his elders. The storytelling in this chapter is good, and I expected this to continue.
In the following chapters, the author discusses Kamal’s collaborations with K Balachander and explores the sociopolitical context of those films, emphasizing the Free India, the Dravidian movement, and the politics of Tamil Nadu. This is seemingly visible in the subsequent chapters, too, where the author touches upon the influence of the prevailing circumstances in the stories of the films being made at that time, like the frustration of unemployed youth, exploring sexuality, emergency period, communism in India, and the liberalization of the economy.
I found a chapter on Kamal’s comedy films and his penchant for playing double (multiple) roles interesting as it outlined his inspirations from Chaplin, Keaton, Sivaji Ganesan, and Nagesh. Even these chapters were a little difficult for me to read, given the choice of words.
Coming to perspectives, the author takes clear sides in the book without being objective. He shows his love and respect for Kamal, which goes overboard. He also has a bias for the political parties in Tamil Nadu. For example, there’s a portrayal of AIADMK in a negative light in a few instances, including the events that unfolded during Viswaroopam’s release.
I expected most of the chapters to detail the filmmaking process, the ways Kamal prepared for the role, and his mindset at that time, and I was disappointed that they didn’t touch upon these things at all.
I agree that Kamal uses his films to share his views on the things happening in the world, like Hey Ram and Virumandi, among others. I expect political commentary on them, but viewing all his films from the eyes of a political analyst just didn’t work for me. For example, in the chapter about Swathi Muthyam, I didn’t see a point in mentioning the shift of power from Congress to TDP in united Andhra Pradesh.
With all due respect to the author, I felt he wrote this book as an academic study of politics in Kamal’s films instead of writing it for the masses or film buffs who are interested in learning the creative aspects of his movies, eagerly looking to search and uncover the layers of writing or the lessons they can incorporate while venturing into films. Politics, too, is presented as facts and interpretations that made me feel like reading an article.
I feel this book is written for a niche audience, and for someone like me who’s a self-proclaimed Kamal fan, this book felt bland and, at times, annoying with the vocabulary, too. In the beginning, I checked the meaning of a few words in the dictionary to understand the whole context of the content, but after a while, I couldn’t put in the effort, as it hampered the reading experience. The excitement was gone when I was between the books, and I left a few chapters untouched for various reasons. One among them was that I hadn’t watched a few of his films, like Sathya, to continue reading about that chapter. A book about film personalities requires you to watch their films beforehand to understand the content, as the book usually analyzes the movie in-depth and contains spoilers.
Perhaps my bias towards the books based on conversations (Conversations with Mani Ratnam, Unscripted by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Abhijat Joshi) made me not enjoy reading this book.
Overall, I found this book not so interesting. I would recommend it to people who are interested in understanding the political context and the influence of contemporary socio-political scenarios in Kamal’s films, but I wouldn’t recommend it to people like me who want to learn the creative process behind those films.
Well, before I end, I’d like to share a few things I thought would be present in this book — Kamal’s inclination towards comedy and genres of comedy, belief in God and humanity, depiction of communal violence and duality, portrayal of anti-hero characters, and finally, experimenting with screenplay structure to provide a unique experience, like Uttama Villain and Dasavatharam.
Until next time, hopefully with a book or cinema that makes me content…
