Papanasam - Drishyam v2.0

There is always a pressure on the director when it comes to remakes. Many remakes have failed to recreate the magic of the original. It is either because of lack of authenticity in dialogues as they are mostly mere translations, the poor portrayals of lead roles, tweaking of script and screenplay and above all there is always human tendency to draw comparisons. When the talks for the tamizh remake of malayalam blockbuster drishyam began, jeethu joseph had only two choices to recreate george kutty played by mohanlal in the original - kamal haasan and vikram. But, the obvious choice was kamal because of the connect he had with the character - self learned genius.

There is a fair chance that an actor's performance in a remake to be seen as an imitation. But, with kamal haasan onboard, everything in papanasam is new and afresh except the script. He prefers his acting to be seen. Unlike george kutty, suyambulingam is more expressive and animated. But, this contrasting portrayal does not dilute the script.

Though kamal haasan's mastery is felt throughout the movie, the film entirely belongs to the filmmaker. Jeethu joseph has managed to recreate the magic in tamizh. His screenplay goes hand in hand with the editor's cuts. Editing becomes an integral factor as the film has to travel back and forth at short intervals and it is lightning speed here. The first half is little dragging as the plot takes time to build up. Ghibran's "yeye en kotikaaraa" is already a chartbuster. In the movie, it blends with the visuals to showcase the lush green beauty of papanasam. His bg score is another factor which elevates the scenes - the techno and jazz played where the police jeep enters suyambu's house for the first time, the tempo when asha sharath visualizes kamal's plot and unravels the knots in the movie. The scenes from other movies are the same as in the original, but you hear whistles only when mohanlal appears on screen with ilayaraja's sempoove poove from siraichaalai.

Gauthami's comeback movie has made her role memorable. She overreacts at certain places which makes her role ranked lower than that of meena's in the original. Nivedha Thomas, esther, delhi ganesh, ms bhaskar, charlie, asha, ilavarasu play their role to perfection. Among the supporting roles, kalabhavan mani stands out as the best performer. He's at his menacing best. The dialogues of jeyamohan evoke humour easily, the accent and dialect gel with the dialogues and each character makes an impact with the dialogue delivery. Cinematography makes the screenplay even more gripping. Each time the camera zooms in, there is tension on screen. The suspense and tension built over the 2nd half is the biggest success of the director. Each time a knot is untied and suspense is revealed, there is applause in the theatre.

Kamal is not an atheist in the movie but his atheist side pops out at two places - the sarcasm during the conversation with theatre operator about swami varadhananda. Kamal says "avar muttrum thurandhavar", theatre operator replies " atha poiyaa kudumbathoda paatheeru?", kamal comes back with "neenga antha karupu chatta kaararaa?", the second instance where kamal recites swamiji's speech to his friends and he wears a black shirt while doing so. These are TM kamal haasan.

Kamal haasan's suyambulingam bears a stark difference from that of mohanlal's george kutty. Mohanlal had a calm and subtle yet commanding look. Kamal, on the other hand is more expressive. This is evident from the most gripping scene - a calf unearthed from suyambu's house. Kamal haasan bears a cinematic heroism in his face, more of a rajinikanth mode. That is the point i realized that, kamal has enacted well but mohanlal made me believe. It did not end there. The climax scene where suyambu confesses to asha and anand mahadevan is brilliantly delivered by kamal haasan. The tears from his eyes are real and stirs your soul. His fists tremble as he narrates a confession story. Meanwhile, he justifies the title of the movie also. Kamal performs as suyambulingam, mohanlal lives as george kutty.

However, this is definitely a comeback for kamal, as this is what he is best at - the common man portrayal... Also, neither he has a made-up face here unlike uttama villain and dasavatharam nor he has larger than life image like viswaroopam.

Bottomline - you will like it if you have watched drishyam, you will love it if you haven't.

Bottomline of bottomline - Mohanlal might have been better but the genius never fails to make an impact. One more masterclass performance from Kamalhaasan.