Kamal Hassan’s latest release is
about the story of Suyambulingam (Kamal Hassan), an uneducated man running a
business of a cable TV operator in the small town of Papanasam.
Unlike most Hollywood thrillers which
often represent the protagonist trying to conceal a crime as being a retired
CIA agent or a former Hitman from the feared Mafioso, Suyumbulingam is a simple,
uneducated man who grew up in poverty as an orphaned child, but who eventually
found success in life due to his hard work.
His worldview, or the perspective
from which he views life, comes entirely from his sole source of knowledge, the
movies. Having designating most of the daily work to his assistant, he now sits
casually in his office and does the accounting of the money collected daily from
individual houses which receive his cable services for television viewing. Idling
away in his office Suyambu spends his time watching movies on TV throughout the
day. He considers them a great source of knowledge, and ultimately it is the
wisdom he gains from having watched a multitude of crime and thriller movies
that help him to clear and conceal all evidences of a murder and to also train
his family in the art of covering up a crime.
The oft spoken fact of how bombs
can be made at home through the use of simple Google searches also extends to
how crimes can be shrouded through basic knowledge obtained from viewing movies. Modern
cinema has made the probing of a crime far more complex for crime investigators
by making a large part of the initial investigative process commonly known.
The strength of what I say can be
better understood if one tries to think from the shoes of a Suyambulingam
trying to hide a crime in order to save his family. The ethical dilemma that inevitably
arises in the course of scheming such an act is another point worth reflecting
upon.
All in all, Papanasam is in my
opinion the most thought provoking Kamal Hassan movie I have seen since Anbe
Sivam (2003). But unlike Anbe Sivam which was Written and Directed by Hassan
himself, credit for Papanasam goes to Writer Director Jeethu Joseph who decided
to remake this movie after its earlier success in Malayalam in 2013 when it was
released as Drishyam starring the veteran actor Mohanlal. Through Papanasam, Jeetu has crafted a simple yet strong and powerful story which at the end raises many questions in the viewers mind.
