Vikram won the National Award for Pithamagan. It was
a killer performance with Vikram playing a ‘vettiyan’
who is most eloquent when he opts to howl funeral
laments instead of his usual guttural grunts. Using
his eyes and body language to communicate with the
audience, he taught them what friendship can do for
someone who is hanging on by a thread to his sanity
acclimatized as he is to soul-sapping solitude. And
when that is taken away from him by brute force he
responds in kind and goes back to being the lone animal
in the jungle of his mind.
Diehard
fans say that he should have won for Sethu as well
and most discerning filmgoers would agree, but that’s
life for you, sometimes you get robbed in broad daylight
(no offense to Mohan Lal who won that year). But after
his triumph for Pithamagan, there has been no looking
back for the actor who had been denied his share of
recognition for a long time.
Winning the National Award is a great honor but it
is not without its share of pitfalls. Tabu, who won
her first National Award for Maachis, famously said
that it had worked against her as people expected
to see her only in heavy duty, emotionally exhausting
fare that called for a lot of wailing in distress.
Nobody was offering her any fun roles and she missed
being the ‘ruk ruk ruk’ girl. Fellow National
Award winners must agree with her secretly as the
pressure to deliver becomes more onerous than ever.
Vikram must have felt the pressure because he became
even more cautious about the kind of roles he took
up. He had the dual task of rocking it as the larger-than-life
commercial hero as well as selling the serious actor
gig. It was a daunting task indeed. Except for Anniyan,
his other projects like Arul, Majaa, Bheema, Kanthasamy
and Raavan/Raavanan met with mixed response as Vikram
walked the tight rope of meeting the filmgoer’s
deep seated need for masala movie magic plus his personal
need to live up to Pithamagan and to hopefully win
another National Award.
The future however seems brighter for him as he seems
to have mastered the art of tightrope walking. Deiva
Thirumagal will see him in a challenging role that
is clearly aimed at the film critics in an attempt
to win them over. He intends to follow it up with
Vendhan and Karikalan which are aimed at the frontbencher
in all of us. More power to him. This writer definitely
sees another National award for this super actor in
the offing.
Dhanush as everyone knows by now won the National
award for Aadukalam. His other award-worthy performance
was in Kadhal Kondaen. Dhanush is one of the select
few actors in the industry who has already attempted
the tightrope between class and mass. In movies like
Polladhavan and Pudhupettai he demonstrated his willingness
to take the road less traveled. As the son-in-law
of Rajinikanth, he is also considered the heir to
the superstar’s throne by film makers who cast
him in commercial potboilers that are remakes of Rajini’s
hit films, and these have scored in the box-office
if not with critics. But with the National Award,
there is some added weight which could work in his
favor or against him. Currently, he has Hari’s
Venghai (Leopard) and it will be an entertainer that
has a little of everything thrown in to what will
hopefully be a delicious hopscotch. Curious coincidence
but Vikram’s first film after the award was
also with Hari!
Selva’s Irandam Ulagam will probably follow
Venghai. The brothers have done most of their best
work together, so it is to be hoped that this project
will also be a winner. It remains to be seen how Dhanush
will handle the perks and pitfalls associated with
the National Award but his career has seldom looked
more promising, and it is to be hoped that it stays
that way.
All said and done, Vikram and Dhanush have, with their
milestone achievement, made Tamil film lovers proud
and they deserve the heartiest congratulations ever.
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