I have had this discussion/argument with
And the discussion gets shriller whenever a Rajnikanth films readies to release, as is the case now with Endhiran/Robot.
We had a similar one when Sivaji released a couple of years too.
And my retort would be, well, how many people in Gummidipoondi know who Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bachchan or Aaamir Khan is?
And so we will go on.
So what makes a superstar? The size of his film? The size of his film’s earnings? The size of his own earnings? The mass adulation he commands?
On all these parameters – except perhaps the films’ collections – Rajnikant towers over any other actor in
The adulation he commands in Tamil Nadu and among Tamils is the stuff of legends. Our Bollywood stars will never get there in seven births.
But the reason I rate Rajnikanth as the superstar among our superstars is for a different reason.
There is, of course, his humility of which much is known.
There is also the generosity of his heart, about which not much is known, which is how it must be. Not where gifts and endowments are known to the media before the recipients know about them.
But even these unique qualities don’t make Rajnikant what he is.
To me he is a superstar because he does not think of himself as one.
See the accompanying photograph taken by Rajesh Karkera at the weekend’s music launch of Robot/Endhiran in Mumbai. One is 68 years old. The other is 61 years old. Both superstars nonpareil.
But who do you think looks the way he does when he wakes up in the morning?
What strikes me as odd about our Bollywood superstars is that they look just the same in person as they do on screen – which is not how they look in real life. There’s a lot of help going in to make them look the way they do.
It is, after all, a vanity fair out there, and in an industry where your looks are your sole insurance policy, you can understand why they are reluctant to let their fans know what they really look like. In quite a few cases, they are even afraid that people will see them as they are.
In other words, they are prisoners of their stardom.
Rajnikanth, on the other hand, doesn’t care a fig about his superstar status, nor is he ashamed about his looks. He knows his superstardom is transient. It is not like Tamil movie fans are more evolved than their Hindi counterpars; it is just that they are fans of the person behind the superstar, not the person you see on screen.
For wearing his celebrity so lightly, for treating it so dismissively, my vote will always go to Rajnikanth. With apologies to
Archive for the ‘Films’ category
Superstar is as superstar does
August 16th, 2010Vikram’s Raavanan is better, as is Prithviraj’s Dev
June 18th, 2010Ever since Roja, Mani Ratnam has wanted to go pan-Indian. And I am not talking only in terms of the plot, but the audience too. Few, if any, directors have consistently bridged the north-south divide in sensibilities. The seasoned Mani Sir knows that ultimately it’s the story and the telling. Roja took in its sweep both the tumultuous north and the placid south, but it can’t happen every time with every film. But you can’t blame Mani Sir for trying.
He has been trying since then. With Bombay. DilSe/Uyire. Guru. After some time he must have realised that dubbing a Tamil film into Hindi doesn’t make you a Hindi director. With Aytha Ezhuthu/Yuva he tried a new tack — making the same film in two languages, with a different cast.
You can take a Tamil director out of Tamil Nadu, but you can’t take Tamil Nadu out of him. To me Mani Sir’s films have always been about the native idiom which, in a vast, diverse culture as ours doesn’t translate easily — the reason why he must have decided to make two films at one go.
Still, I’ve always found his films appealed more in Tamil than in Hindi — surprisingly, even the all-new Yuva was not as good as its Tamil counterpart, a viewpoint shared by many of my bilingual friends.
Naturally, then, the wait was to see Raavanan and Raavan to decide if I was being biased in favour of his Tamil work. Having just emerged from a marathon session of film-watching, let me say this: I would never watch the same film in different languages one after the other for anyone except Mani Sir.
Like the Mahabharat, the Ramayan is an amazing epic, containing within it every emotion possible apart from telling you that goodness and evil are not black and white concepts. Ram is the hero, divinity personified, but he still killed Vali unfairly. Raavan is the villain, yes, but he was not one till he lost his heart to a married woman and kidnapped her. Was Ram right in asking the virtuous Sita to undergo an agni-pariksha? You can debate the two epics endlessly, which accounts for their timelessness.
This, however, is not Mani Sir’s first nod at our ancient epics. My alltime favourite film of his, Thalapathy, was a takeoff on Karna’s story set in modern times. Just as Raavanan/Raavan is.
The premise is tantalising. The wife is kidnapped by a powerful leader to settle scores and kept in captivity. What if the two end up liking each other? Only Mani Sir could have the vision to see the epic in such terms. Can the modern Sita played by Aishwarya Rai go back to her husband? Does he suspect her? Do they separate? A brilliant premise, except the last few minutes.
So, there is little to differentiate between the two films in terms of treatment. In the Tamil, Vikram, superstar down south, plays Veera (the role essayed by Abhishek in Hindi), Prithviraj plays Dev the cop (Vikram plays it in Hindi), and Aishwarya plays Ragini in both. Aside from the rest of the cast, there is really nothing to differentiate the two films barring a few frames.
Vikram told our Patcy Nair that Aishwarya was the real hero of the film — after seeing both versions I can understand why. This to me must be the most physically challenging role she has played in her career, and every time she stumbles through the river, jungle, or jumps off the waterfall, one needs to remember she had to shoot the scene twice, once in Tamil and once in Hindi. Incredible!
There was never any question of the so-called Bollywood top brigade of heroines coming anywhere close to her, and with Raavanan/Raavan she has simply put herself in a different league. The Kareenas and Katrinas and Priyankas can contend among themselves, but Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is beyond them. A combination of ethereal beauty and mind-blowing talent like her will not be seen again in my time, I am sure.
Which brings us to the male performers. I did say there was little in terms of treatment between the two films, but there is a mountain of a difference in the performances.
Veera/Beera needed to be menacing, edgy and playful at the same time, and yet come across as credible when he loses his heart in the blink of an eye. To me, Raavanan soars because of Vikram. Abhishek’s Beera, on the other hand, makes the right expressions and sounds, but doesn’t go beyond them. I am not saying Bachchan Jr is not good, just that Vikram in the same role is better.
Vikram, too, gets only a conditional vote. I am not a cineaste, so I am not aware of other actors having played the main role in one version and the counterpart in another, the way he has played Raavanan in Tamil and Dev in Hindi. Unintentional, yes, but Mani Sir’s decision to have him do this (Abhishek the Raavan, approached to play Dev in Tamil, refused) reinforces that good and bad are only relative, what is good in one setting need not be good in another.
It must challenge any actor to don the greasepaint and play one role, remove it, don another makeup and play another role in the same frame. Vikram does Dev well in Hindi, but I must admit that Prithviraj, perhaps because he was unburdened by the challenge of playing two roles, does a better Dev in Tamil.
And may I add that A R Rahman’s music appealed to me better in Tamil before the film’s release, and this has only been reinforced after seeing its picturisation. Kattu Sirukki sounds better to my ear than Ranjha Ranjha; ditto, Keda Keda Kari Aduppula over Kata Kata; and Kodu Potta over Thok de Killi. It’s Vairamuthu’s lyrics in Tamil and Gulzar’s in Hindi – so you know it’s not about the lyrics.
With Raavanan/Raavan, Mani Sir returns to familiar territory, abduction of a spouse, which earned him a nationwide following with Roja. But Roja was not just an abduction tale — through the human interplay it also took in the political hot potato of the time, the Kashmir insurgency.
In his latest, he seems more interested in the human interplay and treats the issue of tribals’ fight for rights as a mere backdrop, referenced by a comment here, a barb there. Catching it by the scruff of its neck is what one would’ve expected of Mani Sir.
Tamil: 3 stars. Hindi: 2 stars
Jackie, O!
June 14th, 2010
I must confess to being an ardent Jackie Chan fan, long before
I must confess, too, that I had no idea it was Jackie when I saw the promos of Karate Kid a few weeks ago. Who was the old man who is now playing mentor in the latest avatar of the franchise, I wondered, and it was my daughter who told me it was Jackie. I disbelieved her, till the next time I saw the promo.
Naturally, I was determined to see the film the day it released. When the titles rolled, it filled me with a sense of unease. Kiddo Jaden Smith, never mind his genes, gets billing ahead of Jackie? But I am here to see the martial arts man!
And Jackie makes an appearance – an uncharacteristic one at that, a la Aamir Khan in TZP – a good half hour into the film, by which time your nerves are frayed waiting for the film to move ahead. It’s about this black American mother and son moving to
Thankfully, once Jackie Chan comes on the plot moves ahead, and there are some wonderful moments. One especial one follows after Jackie Chan’s emotional unravelling, and the ensuing scene is wordless – and brilliant. Sheer poetry on celluloid.
If you go expecting the funny man Jackie, you will be disappointed. If you go expecting the kung fu king beating up a nasty bunch, you will be disappointed. But if you go looking forward to the progress of a popular comic fighter into a mellow role, you will come back glowing at the heart-warming, affirming tale. As I did.
