Jun 20, 2008 02:30 PM
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(Updated Jun 23, 2008 06:27 PM)
Before watching Dasavatharam, one has to understand what is meant by chaos theory and randomness.
Butterfly effect and CHAOS THEORY
Now in simple terms, chaos in mathematical sense means a small change in the initial condition which will cause a major difference in the outcome after a particular period of time.
It´s the theory that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events.
Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado. The kinetic energy in a tornado is enormously larger than the energy in the turbulence of a butterfly. The kinetic energy of a tornado is ultimately provided by the sun and the butterfly can only influence certain details of weather events in a chaotic manner.
Now, how Kamal has used this in his movie explains why he shows a small story in the 12th century. Kamal as Rangarajan Nambi is drowned into the sea along with the Lord Vishnu idol, this explains the small change to the natural system as in chaos theory. After a long period of time, this initial change causes a big tsunami at the end of the movie. This may sound very crazy but scientifically this is totally acceptable.
Lets look at the second part called randomness. Randomness is part of chaos theory. Now this is where Kamal falters big time. His screenplay, in order to explain the whole random interaction of his 10 characters lacks imagination. Kamal's idea is innovative and his aim is to bring all the random characters he portrayed into a linear script is a very challenging task and that's exactly where Kamal and his crew forgot about the script and concentrated totally on technical stuff and his makeup. Let's say this is a simple movie with just one Kamal. Even then it is a challenging task to script and with 10 Kamal characters involved, technical difficulties, make up, the crew restricted themselves to a mediocre script which in the end does not explain clearly the main intent of the movie which is about chaos and randomness. Now when the movie starts, Kamal explains this briefly but for a regular movie buff, that is not enough. He should have explained his intent more clearly.
Coming to the technical part of the movie, it is above average. You can see there is a lot of patch up work done in some places and graphics are adequate considering Indian standards. The final tsunami scene is not without flaws, but good enough for an Indian movie. If certain people think that the graphics were not very good, no doubt, we must admit, Dasavatharam required a very high end and special CGI. Do we have any idea how much CGI or special effects cost in a Hollywood movies ?.Here are the facts sourced from Hollywood itself.
The Rise of the Machines, for example, the budget for computer work, including visual effects, creature effects, and special effects, was $USD 28.2 million (120, 887, 722.10 rupees) It does costs a lot to obtain a real life CGI.
Technically this movie is a milestone as the whole movie needs computer graphics with various character interacting
*DR.KAMAL´S MAKE UP
*It takes an average of 4 to 6 hours to don a make up for each role and another 4 hours to remove - totalling at least 8 hours just for make up. Acting and shooting commences only after that. We are talking about ten roles here.
Facial make up for Dr.Kamal was done by Michael George Westmore (Hollywood make up artist) who won an Academy Award for Makeup in MASK and nominated three other times, for 2010 (1984). If he cannot do the best make up, I believe no one else in this world can. Another way of saying this is that the technology is not there yet to do such make up.
Honestly, what I feel about this movie is, it's a highly technical movie and there's a lot of researches and reading to be done before you can actually appreciate or understand fully on what is going on.
Dasavathaaram is a must watch for those who can sit through and enjoy and think about an intelligent movie, not for the usual tamil film masala lovers. Watch n enjoy
