Dasavatharam- Chaos and more

Having watched the movie, here I am jumping onto the bandwagon of those movie reviewers. I thought long hard and asked myself the question- should I review a movie that has been done and dusted as far as critics are concerned?
Whenever anything of a colossal nature enters the mindspace of crores of people, it creates a self induced hype and craze, that is no doubt fed by a predetermined marketing blitz as well. In this case the anticipation was set from the name itself- no doubt a reference to the 10 roles that the actor was going to essay, but what about these roles? What was the nature of the roles, why was he portraying 10 and not 9 or 11? Was it for the purpose of creating the world record or would there be enough substance to overpower a fact that was very much in your face?
Well, to start with let me say that I was extremely impressed with the brilliance of the story and how all the parts were neatly woven in together into a complex matrix where not a single thread was out of place or took a path which was in contention with its original starting point. It’s not often that you see a story that begins behind the mysterious fog of religion, only to have this fog lifted by the enlightenment of scientific vision, or so the storyteller would have us believe.
I suppose this contrast is especially visible because the story moves straight from the religious confines of the 12th century into the confines of a plush 21st century science lab populated by hardworking scientists guided by purely rationalistic notions of well… science.
The battle between religion and science is an age old one, and many a time it seems as if there is no middle path between the two. There are many widely respected thinkers whose viewpoints fall firmly within one side of the fence or the other and it is true that this debate is a lot more vociferous in the west, especially in the US than it is in India. It is not uncommon to find scientists with firm religious beliefs in India, while many a time in the west marriage to science has led to a divorce from religion.
There are many reasons for this, some of which have their origins in the doors that lead to the various lobbying groups in the US and the kind of political and more importantly financial muscle this means. The actor alludes to it himself in the scene where the President is increasing the funding for the particular stream of research that the actors company is involved in.
For a story which starts there, it moves dramatically into the land of multi cultural, multi lingual and most importantly multi religious india, where the chaos theory it seems find a perfect foil in 'chaotic' India.
The pace of the story moves rapidly and unless one is clued in on every little nuance that unfolds, one is in danger of being left clueless and scrathching ones head in a poor imitation of hanu, the monkey who’s fate in the movie is an ominous representation of what the future holds as a consequence of human carelessness, ignorance or greed.
Coming to the subject matter of fate, this is a topic which the actor has laid out on the table and served with ample helpings of skepticism. To be fair to the actor though, he has woven all the major arguments in the atheist versus theist debate very subtly into the script, while still leaving enough suspense and drama hanging in the air for the audience to grasp onto.
So, to me the story seemed to be a super structure containing various layers, each of which encased in itself a major debate, be it philosophical ( do humans control their destiny or is there an over powering force that orchestrates all these events in a sort of organized ‘chaos'?), scientific( the debate between science and religion itself- if humans control their destiny then why blame fate and on the flip side, if there is a supernatural power, then does it have the right to wipe out teeming thousands in the form of the tsunami in order to prevent the consequences of a possible biological virus attack and, in such a scenario, why are the paths of humanity led onto this dangerous road to scientific destruction , when science need not be made to breach these dangerous frontiers in the first place.) or religious.
Most of these very complex arguments are placed very subtly in front of the viewer and while it does seem as if the final verdict is the viewers, the façade of objectivity is broken by the actor himself, in his not so subtle rhetoric.
It is a well publicized fact that this particular actor is an atheist and kudos to him for trying to create this complex potentially destructive mixture, but to me it seemed as if at many instances his atheist view points were sacrificed for more aggressive rhetoric directed against a particular religion, right from the practices, to the language and even to a judgement about the attititude towards humanity members of a particular religion had, when compared to others. It is here that I felt let down by the movie.
I felt there was little need to delve into the intricate practices of this religion only to show them up in poor light every single time. A highly subjective viewpoint can mar creative genius or in this case elevate the genius to such an extent that subtle barbs can be woven so well into the script that they actually seem innocuous after all!
I don’t wish to delve into the exact circumstances for these barbs in the movie itself, for there are many and it would be a waste of time when one knows that the creator probably knew very well what he intended to deliver in the very first place. In any case, in this era where one should be ideally aiming for religious enlightenment and tolerance, there is little purpose in delving into aspects which one finds hard to digest simply because they are an intentional representation of only the negative aspects. I found it quite humorous after a point and admired the creators wit.
So to me, this movie falls short of being a work of a genius simply because the creator gave up his objectivity which was showcased so beautifully in all other aspects of the movie, for a more intentionally subjective interpretation which reared its head again and again.
Yet, at the end of the day, this is one movie I found to be far superior to so many of its contemporaries, that have led to crater like holes when one attempts to open up the story in them. The movie is classy and the efforts put in by the actor are obviously of an unimaginable magnitude. Watch it ,for there is substance behind the hype.