Indian (Hindi title Hindustani)
Director: Shankar
Music: A.R. Rahman; Lyrics: Vairamutha
Year: 1996
Running Time: 3 hours 4 minutes
Apparently when this Tamil film was released
it was promoted as “The Biggest Indian Film Ever Made” – some might disagree!
It is certainly one of the strangest Indian films I have seen with a mad mix
of songs, action, comedy, patriotism, revenge, romance, social criticism and
much more. There is enough here to make your head spin, more of an exorcist
“I can’t believe this weird film” type of spin than one of wonder though.
Parts of the film are terrific, other parts are quite awful.
Though the director is Shankar, one can assume that Kamal Hassan had an enormous
amount of input as it has many of the characteristics of a Kamal Hassan film.
Not only does he completely dominate the film with a double role, but the
style, the song numbers and the action sequences are all Kamal. At times
Hassan strikes me as an undiscovered (by the West) cinematic genius (something
he freely admits to!) – his films can be wild and innovative, surreal and
frightening and ones such as Hey Ram and Abhay are unlike anything I have
seen. At the same time though – even within these great films – there are
sections that are journeyman plodding and absurdly exaggerated. “Indian”
contains both the sublime and the ridiculous.
In a bureaucratic Dickensian world, it takes months and multiple bribes to
get anything done by the Indian government – from permits to a drivers license
to a car break inspection approval - and unless many hands are greased with
Rupees it won’t get done. To get around this stone wall of inertia, a group
of middlemen have seen an opportunity to make a fast buck and get things
done quickly. Go to them and they will take your papers to the right person
that needs to approve something and it is done – of course with a shake of
the hand in which money is exchanged. Chandru (Kamal) has set up such a business
in order to earn enough money so that he can purchase a job in this labyrinth
paper-shuffling world – so that people will have to bribe him instead – the
dream of every government official. He is an amiable enough fellow, but he
just wants to be an open palmed cog in the vast unmovable machine.
One day an old man enters into one of these government offices and without
a word first paralyses a high up official with a form of Indian martial arts
called Varma Kalai and then takes out his old knife and kills the man in
cold blood. The police realize that this is the third such killing and begin
an investigation. As the killings become more public and the motives behind
them are revealed, the people begin cheering the killer on and he becomes
a folk hero – he is a true Indian fighting for justice. The film hits flashback
mode on two occasions to explain why this old man is killing – one into his
days as an Indian Independence fighter and the other as a father and husband.
This all eventually connects up to the Chandru character in a most personal
way. Along for the film ride are two of Bollywood’s best actresses – Urmila
Matondkar and Manisha Koirala. They don’t get a lot of screen time – but
do show up for the dance numbers and create some romantic interest as Kamal
goes back and forth between the flirtatious Urmila and his true love Manisha.
At one point he gets into a zany fight to help Manisha that goes from on
top of an oxen cart to the top of a race car. As the film heads towards it’s
crazy ending, one begins to realize that the film has been turned upside
down on you and the anticipated conclusion is nowhere to be seen.
There are only four musical numbers – but with A.R. Rahman writing the music
you know they will be good. The picturization is very lush and has very little
to nothing to do with the plot as they zoom off in beautiful flights of fantasy.
In the first number, “Akadaannu Naanga”, Urmila and a bevy of lovely models
make it a visual pleasure to imbibe – but my favorite number is the very
bouncy “Telephone Manipol” that begins among some kangaroos in Australia
and goes “Is she the girl who laughs like a telephone ring”. I don’t know
what it means, but I like it!
This film felt like it should have been so much better than it was – at over
three hours a good bit of editing could have taken place to make the pace
much quicker and as interesting as the flashbacks were they made a slight
muddle of the narrative.
My rating for this film: 6.0