Thanks to some over-the-top prosthetics, living legend Kamal Hassan plays ten different characters in Dasavathaaram. Thanks to the trailer, the film title, the publicity stills, and the rest of the marketing blitz, you knew that already.
The Hollywood Reporter ends its review of Dasavathaaram succinctly: "The movie serves little else than pandering to the not entirely novel idea of seeing an actor perform many parts." The critic (Gautaman Bhaskaran) means the statement entirely as a criticism of the film, but it could also describe the hoopla around the film more broadly. The film's advertising made no mistake of what the key interest of Dasavathaaram would be. The trailer for the film contains no narrative exposition, just a montage of special effects and clips of actor Kamal Hassan in his many roles. The only words we see sum it up: "One Legend, Ten Different characters." Hassan is of course known for his ability to take on multiple roles, but the numerical figure (TEN!) screams the kind of wondrous excess that movies are made for. (Ten! That's four more than Hassan played in Michael Madana Kamarajan!)
And the opening and closing credits of Dasavathaaram bookend the epic film with further reminders of the film's primary purpose: the opening is basically a tribute to the legend of Hassan the actor, while the closing credits scroll up next to candid clips of Hassan in the make-up chair magically transforming into each character. In other words, the producers are just pandering to our desire to see Hassan perform many parts, something that's surely not entirely novel.
We could leave it at that: Dasavathaaram is a cheap gimmick to get audiences into theaters to see a film that otherwise has no cinematic or narrative purpose. And in many ways, such a critique is justified. But beyond the immediate financial explanation for doing this, could there be others? Perhaps Dasavathaaram and its 10-trick schtick are more than high-concept gimmickry, but rather represent a film industry looking to re-brand itself on the world stage.
Of course, it's never exactly possible to let one film stand for an entire film industry, in this case Tamil-language cinema. But if any film could, this is the one. Described as the biggest Tamil film of the year, and starring the most acclaimed and beloved Tamil actor of all, Dasavathaaram loudly, proudly asserts its identity and its cinematic heritage.
But if identity is never fixed, but is rather something constantly being redefined, how is Dasavathaaram rethinking Tamil cinema and Tamil identity in shifting contexts of internationalism and regionalism? How does the gimmick of Kamal Hassan in multiple roles (which nobody will deny is the true point of the film) help refashion Tamil cinema on the world stage? Simple. You can count the ways...
1. Of Hassan's many roles, the most prominent is the one of Govind, a Tamil scientist. As the film's main character, Govind makes no mistake that above all, this is a Tamil story. But it's significant that this character works in the United States on a secret biological experiment. Immediately, we sense that to be Tamil is not to be isolated to Southern India.
2-5. In addition to the Tamil main character, Hassan also plays Balram Naidu (a Telugu policeman), Avtaar Singh (a Punjabi singer), and Kalifullah Mukhtaar (a Muslim giant). Though the representations do rely somewhat on ethnic stereotypes, they're treated relatively sensitively, especially in contrast with other South Asian films, be they Tamil or Hindi. Ethnic and linguistic differences set the stage for playful misunderstandings, rather than mockery. It's important too to note that Hassan also plays Rangaraja Nambi, a 12th century Hindu, a larger identity that we're reminded precedes the many ethnic divisions of the present. As a whole, these four characters represent Hassan's ability and willingness to respectfully embody the diversity that is India. In other words, the film seems to diverging from other Tamil productions by reaching across the divides and proving that deep down, we're all the same -- we're all Kamal Hassan!
6-7. Hassan also plays Krishnaveni, a senile old woman in search of a lost son, and Vincent Poovaraagan, a member of the Dalit (or "untouchable") caste. With these roles, Hassan humanistically unifies not just ethnicity, but also gender and caste.
8-10. Finally, Hassan also plays Shingen Narahashi (a Japanese martial artist), Christian Fletcher (a white CIA agent), and most famously, President George W. Bush. These roles demonstrate Kamal Hassan's ability to transcend race in multiple directions. Here, his ability to convincingly portray East Asian and Caucasian characters proves Hassan's acting ability to be sufficiently world class. Together, they seem to ask: what role can't Hassan take on? And from a broader perspective, they seem to claim: with its greatest star proving to be a modern-day Lon Chaney, Tamil cinema looks to have arrived on the world stage.
This latter point seems to me to be the most important. The multi-racial performances stake an international claim for Hassan and Tamil cinema in terms of acting ability. The performances show that not only does Tamil cinema belong to all of India, it belongs to all of world film culture. The film's special effects serve a similar function. Cheesy as they may sometimes seem, they are a bold demonstration of high-tech prowess for Tamil cinema. The producers even hired Oscar-nominated special effects supervisor Brian Jennings (who worked on The Exorcist) to handle the many computer effects. In an interview with Rediff, Jennings proclaims that Dasavathaaram is "very good and comparable to any Hollywood film." When asked if Dasavathaaram will be noticed internationally, he responds: "Absolutely."
Jennings might have simply been trying to promote the film by claiming Dasavathaaram's international appeal. However, his promotion is consistent with the boundary-free enthusiasm the film is trying give off with Hassan's ten multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-caste roles. I saw the film in Los Angeles County, where it was sold at several theaters as a special engagement with a high ticket price ($15) -- about double what I pay at the Naz8 Cinema, which plays mostly Hindi blockbusters, and a few dollars more than I pay for a Hollywood evening show. Dasavathaaram's big appearance in the United States asks that the Tamil film be taken to be as high-quality as any other film the world produces.
But what does it mean that the international box office was good, but not great? At the weekday afternoon screening I attended, I was one of only three patrons (and the other two were my friends). Meanwhile, Hassan's performances weren't bad, although I can't be sure because all the prosthetic gunk on his face concealed the expressivity he made famous in such films as Nayakan. The special effects were fairly laughable; sure they were "Hollywood-style," but only if we're referring to the Hollywood of Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea.
So if Dasavathaaram "serves little else than pandering to the not entirely novel idea of seeing an actor perform many parts," its failure isn't that it's nothing more than an old gimmick. That would have been satisfying enough, and as I've shown in the above examples, could have also contributed to a radical rethinking of what "Tamil" means as an identity and a film industry. Its failure is in the fact that Hassan, despite being a living legend of the Tamil industry, couldn't make the ten roles shine as spectacularly as the hype promised, the world-class effects couldn't convince us that Tamil cinema had indeed arrived, and everyone seemed to know that it wouldn't be worth 15 bucks.