Hey Ram
By all accounts, KamalHassan's movie Hey Ram, dwelling on the assassination of Gandhi, is a classic. The attention to detail, the minute directorial touches, yes, Kamal excels in all. Especially when Vasundhra Das speaks the precise Tamil Brahmin words "Pdathu nuta"(she said no). Just look at his choice of characters even for the minuscule roles, Hema Malini, Girish Karnad, YG Mahendran, I can go on and on !! Alwarpet Aandavar is at his finest ;-) Of course, who can forget "King" Illayaraja's, haunting background score ? Incidentally this was the first Indian movie to have the Los Klavos group performing the background score.
Just that there is one flaw in the whole movie. The average viewer is unable to make a conclusive case as to why the protagonist becomes a Gandhi lover from being a Gandhi Hater. I must try to get this movie with English subtitles so that I can distribute it to a wider audience.
I think the same situation was with Manirathnam, who made another classic called Iruvar, which dwelt on the Dravidian politics.
As the saying goes, a genius is never recognized in its time !
K.Shyam
PS: In case you are interested, here is a trivia. Srinivasa Iyengar was a freedom fighter. He was jailed and fell ill while he was in jail. He was nursed back to health by his fellow inmate, Ayub Hassan, who later went on to become a cabinet minister in the first government. Srinivasa Iyengar had three sons and to honor the person who nursed him, he added the Hassan to their names. His sons were CharuHassan, ChandraHassan and KamalHassan.
Tags:
Hey Ram, 
KamalHassan
Posted by Unknown at 9:43 PM
2 Comments
Good trivia man!
BTW, I totally agree with you on Hey Ram. I would vote that as one of the very well made movies. I do not sync with the movie ending; I think enough justice has not been done on that part. I am sure the Gandhian fellows would not have let any other end to happen.But it would be nice if kamal has a directors cut (like apocalypse now redux version) of this movie. I also think Virumaandi was great too. The only flaw I see is Kamal gets carried over in the romantic scenes and spoils the momentum.
Hey Akshan;
Here is an experiment for you to try out.
See a movie called "Life of David Gale". Then see Rashomon. Then see virumandi to know how kamal has mixed these two movies, and blended in nicely into the rural milieu
K.Shyam
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