Virumaandi and David Gale

[Pics Courtesy Netflix]

Kamalhassan has been known to look frequently to Hollywood films for his Tamil ventures(his supporters call this 'being inspired' while his detractors call it 'copying or plagiarising'!). Senthil's post has quite an exhaustive list of Kamal's movies that have been based on English films. It includes movies I knew about(Tenali / What About Bob?, Avvai Shanmugi / Mrs.Doubtfire) as well as remakes I did not know about(RaajaPaarvai / Butterflies are Free, Hey Ram / Barabbas). I recently found another instance of Kamal's inspirations that I had not heard about before.

I loved Virumaandi mainly for its screenplay that showed things from two perspectives, revealing how even a small tweak in the narration of a story could radically alter a person's impression of an event. For Virumaandi, Kamal has been accused of copying Rashomon , something I don't agree with. While the characters in Kurosawa's classic too had different versions of the same incident, it was unclear if the versions were simply from their different points-of-view or the result of lying. It was one result but four quite different stories leading upto it. But Virumaandi was different in that both versions had the same story with minor variations(that were clear lies). The interesting part was seeing how a small nudge could alter the world's perspective of any happening.

This refusal to accept that Virumaandi was inspired by Rashomon made me believe that it was an original. So, imagine my surprise when I saw The Life of David Gale, starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. In the film, Kate appears as a reporter who gets to interview Spacey, who is in jail and facing the death penalty for the murder of a colleague. The movie is against the death penalty and tries to make its case by showing us that a completely innocent man could die for a crime he has not committed. Virumaandi too is clearly against capital punishment and gives us Rohini interviewing Kamal, who is in jail and facing the death penalty. Sure Kamal uses this as a jumping-off point for a completely different story but the coincidences are hard to miss. I am pretty certain that the idea for Virumaandi came from David Gale.

All our top actors too have acted in remakes(Rajni in Chandramukhi, Muthu, Veera, etc., Vijay in Gilli, Friends, etc.). But Kamal is usually singled out for criticism in this arena. I think there are two reasons for this. One, people are irked by Kamal's refusal to credit or even acknowledge the source of his inspiration. When Kamal says "I have never seen What About Bob?" before Tenali's release or claims that he had the idea for Avvai Shanmugi even before Mrs.Doubtfire was made and did not copy from it, that gets to people. Two, the fact that he does not pinpoint the source when it is a Hollywood film that has not been widely seen, gives the impression that he is trying to pull a fast one (with Tamil viewers becoming more familiar with world cinema, its not going to be that easy for Kamal to quietly sneak in inspirations in his movies. This might well be the reason for Kamal legally purchasing the rights to a foreign romantic film recently!).

I, for one, have no problem with Kamal being inspired by Hollywood. It may be a commercial move. It may be his fondness of the original. Or it may arise from a genuine desire to expose the Tamil viewer to the stories and techniques of other cinema in a language they understand. Whatever the reason, I'm happy as long as it results in better or atleast enjoyable cinema(and in many cases, it has). After all, Kamal is not alone in looking elsewhere for inspiration. Some very enjoyable movies(a recent example would be Tarantino's Kill Bill) have been inspired by cinema from another part of the world. I just wish Kamal would be more forthright about it.