Papanasam - Leadership Study!

Have you had that feeling?

Yes, I am talking about that moment, when you realize that someone else has had that brilliant idea which you knew was within your grasp, but could not get it out in the right time.

I have had that many a time. Talk about missed opportunities, hmmmm!

Whenever they come across a runaway winner, those 'creators' in all the *woods of the Indian film industry usually drown themselves in sorrow, Johnny Walker, Heineken or whatever that is readily available!

Drishyam (visual) from Mollywood was one such case. Director/Writer Jeethu Joseph hit such a jackpot, that they were queuing outside his Ernakulam bungalow for remaking it.

Kamal with his gravitas managed to get Jeethu to wield the megaphone and the resultant Papanasam is a very good and enjoyable replica of the original.

To make a movie narrating a life that draws heavily on cinematic elements is quite difficult to achieve - almost as difficult as the ECB trying to get Greece to pay of its debts (or is it the IMF?)

The long and short is that the Tamil version does not disappoint.

Comparisons are inevitable. But to compare Mohanlal with Kamal Haasan is to compare Copa America with UEFA Champions League. Former is 'Beautiful Logic' and the latter is 'Logical Beauty'. So just be and enjoy both.

Kamal himself managed to do a fabulous job; I was wondering whether he watched Drishyam at all. Because, though the shots were identical in most of the places, the little nuances that he brought to the character were nice.

Yes, he does play to the rationalists & front-benchers - 'I am a Swayambulingam - came up on my own without any external help' :-)

Ghibran's music starts off from where he left in Uttama Villain - so much so, the first half hour here has the same re-recording as 'Saagavaram' song from UV! But he really excelled in BGM over a couple of scenes - those electric guitars when the police first comes to Kamal's place & the melancholic/suspenseful violins when the police is about to use third-degree on the little one... phew!

To say that everybody acted very well is stating the obvious. However Asha Sarath, Kalabhavan Mani, MS Bhaskar, the two daughters, even the Pasanga villain-boy... stole the show. Gowthami was a let-down as she did not have the same village-wife pull - as much as Meena had in the Mallu version.

The dialogues were adequate - Jeyamohan must have had a very easy task to pen the Nellai slang - but it was a bit jarring as one had to pay a high degree of attention not to miss any intricacies. May be, have to watch it once more to catch them!

The movie is also a study in contrast of two leadership styles.

Two leaders both of whom are forced to take action when their child(ren) are in danger.

Kamal, the protagonist (illiterate, self-made country bumpkin) is forced to play the leader outside his comfort zone.

• He chooses the path of taking the entire family/team together. 
• He confides in them; cajoles them; pushes them; reassures them.
• He chides them (and yet shows the tender side immediately when the younger one gets scared! - That is the sequence that I can repeat ad nauseam).
• He even works on a strict need-to-know basis; leads from the front; has the foresight to draw up a plan B and even a plan C. 
• He draws help from outside; 
• Above all, he communicates and over-communicates and over-over-communicates!

On the other hand, antagonist Asha (the Inspector-General-mum-searching-her-son) is also a leader worth noting.

• She chooses her own path purely based on the police gut/sixth-sense.
• She bulldozes her team - husband, subordinates, third-parties, witnesses etc., through her authority driven by her helplessness and anxiety to find her son.
• She knows when she has lost it and yet strives for a closure (in the last scene, she steals it away from Kamal without speaking a word! Of course, our man is histrionics personified ;-!)
• She underestimates and course-corrects half-way down.
• And boy! Isn't she intelligent!?

Even if you have watched it in Malayalam, you will enjoy the Tamil version for the nativity; for the familiar faces; for a different genre (when have you heard a family-entertainer-cum-thriller as part of an advertisement for a movie that does not have any item-songs or badly choreographed action sequences or punch dialogues... you get the drift, don't you!?)

So, watch Papanasam. 
Yes, it will be on Cable TV eventually. But you don't want to wait for that.

For this is the perfect antidote for 'Senjiruven' Maari that is about to be unleashed on us to assault our senses (and sensibilities) in a couple of weeks' time!