THE CRAZY-KAMAL ARC
F rom “Margabandhu, modhal sandhu”
to
“ENT-u”
specialist
to
the
unforgettable “Ram Anna”- all these
dialogues are etched in the memories of
viewers even years after the movie
release because of one iconic duo. The
master
actor/screenwriter/director
Kamal Hassan and ‘Crazy’ Mohan, the
ace humorist and dramatist. The writing
is elevated by the on-screen portrayal
by Kamal Hassan. For a generation that
grew up watching their films, the trend
in Kollywood with regards to the comic
aspect has nosedived sharply. Lame
slapstick humour just for the sake of few
laughs, double meaning innuendos, and
a few misogynistic remarks later, you
actually sit and wonder where was the
beauty of intelligent jokes and hilarious
scenarios which have lost its stream.
BREAKING DOWN THE MAGIC:
1.
Characterization
From the scaredy-cat and sloppy
Vedantham Iyer, Kameshwaran, the guy
102
with the heavy Palakkad accent to the
Madras Tamil speaking goon turned
medical student Vasool Raja, all these
characters have an indelible mark on the
whole orchestration of the comic setup
with their gags. They aren’t perfect let
alone regular, each and every character
has an idiosyncrasy of their own which
if played out by picture-perfect personas
would fail to elicit the same response.
For an instance, Ram C.M in
Panchathanthiram breaks out into a
song in the midst of a hijack in his plane
with a “landing gear aa naan, kazhatti
vituten na, theeeeviravadhiii” line,
which I guess you would’ve read in the
same
sing
a
song
tone.
No other character would do it
considering the high pressure scenario
they were under at.
2. Situational humour
The whole story narration sequence in
Panchatantram where Ram narrates the
story to Mythili with use of quips and
reactions from his friends is an absolute