VISITOR COLUMN

A lot has been discussed by many on the hindrances to the release of the magnum opus "Viswaroopam".  Everything started off with a Direct to Home proposal from Kamal Haasan with the consent of some of the theaters and opposition from many others. That is understandable considering that every theater owner has a right to safeguard his business which is why minimum guarantee was not requested from the theater owners by Kamal.

Just like any other movie , this movie also went through a formal certification from the censor board that had people from every realms of the society. After the movie screening, the censor board officials accepted to provide a "U" rating with some minimal cuts. Contrarily Kamal Haasan opted  to take a "U/A" rating without the cuts considering the subject of the movie and also had an alert at the start of the movie for the women and children on the same. This alert also was mentioned to the public during the movie propaganda by the movie cast.  Before the release of the movie, as per the requisition of some of the Muslim leaders, Kamal Haasan screened them the movie just to confirm that the movie does not target against a particular section of the society.  With the release date announced, all arrangements for the movie release done and everything set for a release, there comes an opposition from the Muslim leaders that the movie will need to be banned from release. These are the leaders who have no connection to the movie industry in any ways and most of them who are part of the protest have not even seen the movie.

Every movie is supposed to be a sign of creativity of all the technical persons behind the movie and they have their creativity limited already by the censor board to a great extent. Now here comes some Muslim leaders  who want to bury all this creativity by banning the release. India is a country with cultural differences and every Indian is going to have his own likes or dislikes. But a film maker cannot consider every one's likes/dislikes before making a movie. If the objection had to be from the entire Muslim society it is understandable but the major part of the Muslims have not had any problems with the movie. There have been so many movies that has dealt with terrorism but why is the ban only on Viswaroopam . Because the name behind the movie is Kamal Haasan? Why is it that every small thing done by this artist is blown out of proportion over the years? Is everything being done for some cheap publicity? These kinds of protests have just kept increasing over the last few years especially in Tamil Nadu. There has been protests on all the big movies starting from Virumandi over the past years but why does this happen only in Tamil Nadu? Has there been any kind of such protests in any other state. Does this mean a politician can dictate his terms on a movie made in Tamil Nadu?

Spare some thought for this thespian actor/director/producer Kamal Haasan. After all, the name he has earned over the years, can't he just make some hardcore commercial movie to address people from every part of society and increase his remuneration. Why would he have to still experiment with the different genre of films? Why should he undergo such amount of physical/mental stress for making a movie. Why would all of his Tamil speaking Indian fans have to go out of Tamil Nadu to watch his Tamil movie. Does the other state that they go to not have Muslims?  The theater owners from the neighboring state have the courage to stop the screening of all their movies if the screening of Viswaroopam is stopped. Why is it that this courage is not coming from the theater owners in Tamil Nadu? This definitely cannot be because of his fans in Tamil Nadu. It is just because of the business minds of the theater owners in Tamil Nadu. They are ready to praise gaga over an actor when their movie runs to packed houses but when there is a problem to the same actor they are just concerned about their cash registers. Such is the selfishness of the Tamil Nadu theaters. Shame on them. They will have to take a leaf out of the theater owners in Kerala who know how to respect an artist like Kamal Haasan(who is not a Keralite). After all he is our best method actor India can ever produce. There is nothing that we could do to have the movie released. The only people who could have supported the movie was the Nadigar Sangam, who have not even showed their existence..But it is our duty to make sure that this movie really triumphs after its release. That is the minimum tribute we could pay to this world class actor.

From an ardent Cinema(Kamal Haasan) fan...