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Hey Ram (tam)
 A sight of yesterday from
the hill of today. It is 1999, Saheth Ram is 89 and lying in his deathbed, his thoughts
going back to 1946. It is then that the audience is taken on a trip back in time, to the
tumultous times and events that swept India in its fight for independence.
Starring: Kamalhassan, Shah Rukh Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Rani Mukherjee, Vasundhara Das,
Atul Kulkarni, Vaali, Girish Karnad, Hemamalini |
Movie review by: Dominic Daniel
Click here for pictures
It
is easy to say that a movie like Hey Ram has never been seen in tamil cinema. It is an
ambitious period film with a grand canvas and revolves around a revered national figure,
Mahatma Gandhi. It is definitely too long and could have used some tightening of the
screenplay, especially in the first half, but its unique theme and good execution by
Kamalhassan make it an immensely satisfying movie-going experience. Along with Sethu, it
provides a one-two punch of quality fare in recent tamil cinema.
Kamalhassan has always shown a
penchant for pushing the envelope and that is amply evident here. Apart from the
controversial theme, he pulls no punches be it in the violence, the steamy scenes or the
script. For instance, the scene where his wife is raped is raw and brutal and the
behaviour of the guy who holds Kamal down is definitely something new in tamil movies.
Both opinions in a communal divide, that of the fanatics and the others, is well brought
out by some sharp dialogs between Kamal and Shah Rukh in Delhi. The scenes between Kamal
and his heroines are also quite passionate though never vulgar or explicit.
 The movie is the
flashback of a bedridden, 89-year old man Saket Ram. Saket Ram(Kamalhassan), a South
Indian Brahmin, and Amjad Ali Khan(Shah Rukh Khan), a muslim, were archeologists and
friends. Saket was married to Aparna(Rani Mukherjee) and lived in Calcutta. In the riots
leading upto Partition, Aparna was brutally raped and killed and he turned on the muslims.
This brought him into contact with Shriram Abyankar(Atul Kulkarni), a Hindu fanatic, who
firmly believed that Mahatma Gandhi was pandering to the Muslims. Saket then moved back to
Tamil Nadu where he married Mythili(Vasundhara). A trip down memory lane brought him back
into contact with Abyankar. Saket and Abyankar were recruited to kill Gandhi. But
Abhyankar's death left Saket on his own and after renouncing his family, he travelled to
Delhi to assassinate Gandhi.
Kamalhassan, the director, stands tall in Hey Ram. The riot
scenes are realistic and a couple of images like the blind girl in the hut or the sight of
a pile of bodies being taken away in a truck, are tough to forget. The pains taken to go
the extra step to maintain realism are evident (for instance, Kamal reading an old edition
of 'Ananda Vikatan'). He has tried the concept of visual imagery (the scene of the lizard
drinking blood) and it is effective. The scenes in Kasi are grand and handled efficiently.
The climax is strong and Gandhi's dialogs here are simple but forceful and sensible. The
graphics though, leave a lot to be desired. The kaleidoscope of images with a swastika, a
lotus, etc. and Kamal and Vasundhara's fall through the sky wrapped in satin sheets seem
tacky. The graphics also seem out-of-place in the scene where he decides to take up the
gun but the scene which shows him standing with a gun against a tornado is visually
impressive.
There are lots of non-tamil dialogs in the movie. The initial
portions in Calcutta are almost entirely in Hindi (which led some audience members to
complain that they had walked into the Hindi version by mistake!) and key pieces of dialog
uttered by Gandhi towards the end are in English. Though this retains authenticity(lacking
in movies like Uyire when a terrorist in a jungle in a North-eastern state speaks in
tamil!), it alienates the audience. Wonder why Kamal did not resort to even tamil
subtitles, a common tactic when dialogs are forced to be in other languages.
Kamal appears in almost all frames of the movie in a
tour-de-force performance. But he does appear to be running out of variations in his bag
of acting skills. His moaning after his wife's death is similar to his famous scene from
Naayagan. Naseeruddin Shah is fantastic as Gandhi with his facial and hand gestures.
Shah Rukh shines in the stand-off between him and Kamal in Delhi.
Among the heroines, Vasundhara catches the eye as the docile but perky second wife. Though
her interaction with Kamal exhibits shades of the Kamal-Revathi portions in Thevar Magan,
she holds her own against Kamal in her first movie. One does feel Kamal has wasted the
talent of actors like Girish Karnad, Sowcar Janaki, Nasser and especially Om Puri with
their minute roles. Ilaiyaraja's strong background music plays an important part in many
of the scenes. Hey Ram, the song is powerful in the background while Nee Paartha... is
melodious and well-picturised. |
  
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