What must have been the mental make-up of Kamal Haasan when he took on 10 roles in 'Dasavatharam' - apart from feeling a great deal of love for himself, of course?
For, the actor who has earlier demonstrated a wonderfully supple range of acting, from a 'Nayakan' to a 'Pushpak' and many others seems to have abandoned the basic 'rule of acting: You have to become the role.
He now seems to be saying that acting means donning disguises, sans any connotations of the transformative experience that performance is all about.
In a story that takes off in 12th century south India and lands in the 21st century armed with a destructive biological weapon, Kamal gets his 'Dus ka Dum' - scientist, Caucasian villain, Japanese martial arts trainer, George Bush, a grandma and a cop, among them.
Several reviews have spotted the Kamal contradiction. In theory, he wants 10 roles but uses them as special effects vehicles to extol his inalienable, larger-than-life presence. That's how Bush, a Japanese martial artiste and Indian grandma bear an incredible resemblance to one another - that is, Kamal Haasan.
From a non-actor, the mechanics of make-up masquerading as performance would be laughable. Coming from an actor accomplished in slipping into roles, it seems criminal. Earlier, Haasan's body displayed tentativeness -- it was open to experience; no longer.
Anyone who has watched an artiste prepare for her/his role - before the camera or on stage - is bound to remember that experience.
The tuning of body and mind, the concentration of energies, the leap into space discarding the rigidity of a familiar, fixed identity, and the creation of a fluid universe which draws the viewer into its magnetic field - this is the beginning of every journey by a good performer. And, for the viewer, the beginning of the experience of 'rasa', allowing her a moment of flight as well.
Every step is a way of tuning in, as one saw earlier this year when Kathakali artistes from Kalamandalam, Kerala, prepared for an all-night performance in an event marking one year of the passing on of dancer-choreographer Chandralekha.
At breakfast, helping himself to idlis, the wiry bodied Kathakali maestro Kalamandalam Nandakumar, clad in trousers and shirt, seemed like anyone else.
Two hours later, wearing a veshti, his torso bare, and demonstrating the 'nava rasas' by performing vignettes from the classical repertoire of Kathakali dance-dramas, Nandakumar was a changed man.
In an instant, the slight figure was transformed into monumental forms - sheer energy dancing on breath control. Tuned in, mind and body became a fluid manifestation of a different rasa, a different character, as if it was the natural order of things.
It was impossible to see the body separately as a toned specimen that gyms enshrine. The body was the mind and vice versa; a single channel of energy creating intense form after form. Later, we witnessed the make-up process of the artistes, which put in place the final layer of transformation.
