To sum up in one word: poignant. It is a happy-sad movie a la Chaplin, which also has you laughing your head off.
- A complete novelty, never repeated
For some reason a prominent Southern director of mainstream cinema in the 80s decided to make a silent comedy. Silent as in no dialogue, either foreground, or background. Just musical score and background sounds. So though made by a regional director, it was immediately watchable by all audiences everywhere. A magician’s craft on display that you see complex ideas effortlessly coming across.
Frustration
Kamal Hassan plays a fresh graduate entering the world of the jobless, hunting for a decent living. The desperation of the employment situation comes across so vividly in all his frustrating encounters with employers with their senseless interview questions, meant to weed out the employable from the not-so. His plight, qualified yet useless, living on the thin edge, making do with less than minimum, desperate for any employment is a fist in the face.
It made me immensely angry even while laughing at the same time at Kamal Hassan’s never-say-die survival antics... washing just the armpits of his shirt to save soap, adding coins into his coffee cup to make half a cup seem like more...
All this has something to do with his decision later to cut moral corners.
The first part of the movie brings alive his life in a tenement building. A real location, it seems, has been used. Life at this overcrowded down-heel area, all hectic commerce, the bustle, the noise, the oddball characters and their one-upmanship has a warmth and distinct texture. We later see Kamal in more upscale locations, but again, the same touch is present.
The quick character sketches are brilliant, and need no explanations - the landlord leering at a maid, the neighbour gloating over Kamal’s deteriorating circumstances.
In comes Sameer Khakhar playing a habitual drunk, a businessman staying at Hotel Pushpak, a five-star joint. If you truly rank drunkard performances, no one on the Indian screen has ever come this close to reality. The bloodshot eyes, the jowliness, the scruffy looks, the sheer uncaring oblivious stupefied state, the loss of physical control to the point of likeness to a sack of tubers. Drunks don’t sing, do drunk bhangra or woo ladies - they look just like Sameer. Fascinating performance.
This is the fork in the road for Kamal. He finds this guy drunk out of his mind in a gutter, just lying there, tempting him to take his keys to the hotel and assume his lifestyle. Kamal hauls him over to his own house (more hilarious gags in this sequence), ties him up, and goes off to Hotel Pushpak to finally taste luxury. Kamal’s exploration of the hotel room and its delights, is another fabulous piece of acting.
enema-ted sequences
You may groan, though at the other major funny sequence - Kamal’s dilemma of how to conduct the daily toilet of the drunk and disposal of the effects. Sick gags take over your gut, with Kamal carefully giftwrapping the ’present’, and ’forgetting’ it on the road near another passerby who thinks he’s got hold of something valuable. We loved this as kids.
Giftwrapping may lose its appeal for a while.
Things are not always what they seem on the surface. There are lots of things in the movie that are there as reminders of this. Idling between interviews, Kamal sees a beggar, and thinks to himself, at least there’s someone worse off than me. He flaunts the last half-rupee coin he has, before him. The beggar then mocks the starving graduate, producing money from every fold and tuck of his threadbare clothing. This is a masterful scene, and no more comment required on the state of the educated unemployed.
Crushed, Kamal returns to his daily grind. So many scenes later, he returns to taunt the beggar with the drunkard’s cash. The beggar lies dead, and his wealth scatters to the winds, literally and metaphorically.
Magic
Why is Amala’s father a magician in this movie ? I’m not sure. But it was a crackup performance, complete with unexpected gags throughout. The scriptwriters have worked overtime on this one. Kamal meets Amala , daughter of a touring magician, and falls in love.
That scene where she is buying yellow earrings and looks to Kamal for approval is as fresh with promise as any beginning of romance. We all coveted those earrings for years. She was imported from Canada for this movie, goes my info, and looks like a metaphor for youth, sweet and graceful.
Kamal goes a little nuts trying to impress her with his new-found money, ending up at a household goods emporium, all out of gift ideas. Have a fridge, a blender, my valentine ?
Tinnu Anand
The toothy actor became a folk hero with his zany role here. As a spoof of whodunnits, he’s got the perfect weapon-a knife made from ice. You make a knife in a popsicle mould in the freezer, stick it in the victim who dies, and the knife melts, leaving no trace other than a tiny hole. (It appealed to us as kids. We went a little mad after this movie, making ice weapons in the fridge and throwing them at unsuspecting passersby from the balcony).
He plays an assassin-for-hire who’s assigned to finish off the drunkard, but gets on Kamal’s trail instead, when he spots him staying in the drunk’s room. Tinnu’s record is less than perfect, striking off-aim regularly. One bad throw stabs the crippled owner of Hotel Pushpak, the resulting funeral is replete with fake mourners, and with Tinnu and Kamal continuing their cat-and-mouse game among them, while pretending to mourn.
Kamal recovers his sense of right and returns to his life with renewed hope. The movie is always commentating on the philosophical side, while leaving you shaking with laughter every five minutes. Recommended for whenever you feel a little jaded. Or if you’ve got time on your hands, and ice in the freezer.