When Shankar and Kamal Haasan Created History

 Let’s go 25 years back, to the day, May 9th, 1996, when the epic masterpiece Indian released

and how it has stayed strong in the history of cinema.

Just like how today cinema lovers are in frenzy with the excitement of waiting to see how a

young director Pa. Ranjith is going to direct Superstar Rajinikanth in Kabali, back then after the

announcement of Indian with Shankar going to direct Kamal Haasan should have created the

same excitement. As after all Shankar was the happening director in Tamil Cinema with two

back-to-back blockbusters Gentleman and Kadhalan, who had arrived at the cinema with a bang!

Another notable coincidence between Shankar and Pa. Ranjith is that their third film is with

Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth respectively !!!

Indian PosterTaking a social issue, adding grandeur, and bringing it out in a commercial format

has always been Shankar’s strong forte where he’s proved himself as a king with that formula till

Sivaji. After dealing with under-employment (not unemployment) in Gentleman, Shankar this

time choose corruption which was and is even now a bothering problem to Indians. Shankar

showed, how corruption will have a terrible impact on a common man, aided by Kamal’s epic

performance.

Indian was totally an uncompromising commercial film where there was no big introduction

scene for both the Kamals and no introduction song also, that too in a big star film. Right from

the first frame, the film started off seriously keeping intact with the theme with Senapathy silently

going and killing a government officer easily! Kamal Haasan underperforming in a freedom

fighter cum social crusader’s avatar as Senapathy and as the corrupt Subash Chandra Bose

roles was a major victory for his outstanding performance who was nowhere dominant as an

actor and was completely under Shankar’s direction. Kamal’s acting as an Indian has given spine-

chilling moments to the audience through his ‘Varmakkalai’ ancient art.

Nedumudi Venu gave a dignified performance and some of his investigations are logical,

building the seriousness to his hunt of Kamal. His intellectual techniques for figuring out that the

killer is an old man by handwriting analysis show that Shankar did his homework seriously.

Indian has one of the most outstanding screenplays which had two crucial flashbacks which are

completely opposite in scope and were handled in a brilliant fashion by Shankar. These two

flashbacks are very crucial for the film and with deft editing by V. T. Vijayan- Lenin, the

flashbacks had ample space in between. The pre-independence flashback was to show who

was Senapathy and the family flashback was to show why he became Indian? Even the ending

of the film must have been planned cleverly by Shankar, who gave Senapathy a mysterious

escape like his mentor Subash Chandra Bose during World War II

Indian Still 1Sivaji Ganesan had set a benchmark in freedom fighter’s roles of Veerapandiyan

Kattabomman, Kappolathiya Tamizhan, etc in Tamil Cinema. After a long gap, it was quite

refreshing to see a pre-independence portion in Tamil Cinema. The pre-independence was

picturized on a grand scale in black and white with special effects enabling Kamal Hassan to

appear in the same frame with Subash Chandra Bose which was truly a goosebump moment for

the audience. Cinematographer Jeeva must be appreciated for shooting in black and white,

using stock shots, since most of the audience connected nicely to the pre-independence days

through black and white images and visuals right from the olden days. This was like the audience

being taken back to those days in retro style.

VFX by Venki deserved a huge respect who with the available footage of Subash Chandra

Bose, merged it in the film making Kamal walk beside Subash Chandra Bose was epic stuff in

1996 itself.

Thotta Tharani’s sets in the pre-independence portions deserved a National Award especially

for the British soldier effigy at the beginning of Kappalyeri Poyachi song where it infuses

patriotism in the audience intelligently.

Another main reason for Indian becoming a masterpiece was the bullet kind of dialogues by the

great Sujatha where he wrote many hard-hitting dialogues and making Kamal say it enabled a

good reach among the people. During Kamal’s conversation with Nizhalgal Ravi in the tv studio,

the dialogues by Sujatha just gave the film a new feel and came out as hard-hitting on the

audience’s face literally.

Indian Poster 2Indian was a trendsetter in Tamil Cinema which started the corruption theme

trend in the films. Later on films like Citizen, Ramana, Anniyan, Kandasamy were made on

corruption themes.

If Gentleman had a Chiku Buku Raile song and Kadhalan the special effects as strong

attractions for the audience, in Indian, Kamal’s makeup by Micheal Westmore, was a huge

attraction for the audience to see the film. Kamal Hassan is unrecognizable in the realistic

makeup and transforms himself into an old man with his voice, walk, and gestures. He also

displays the Varmakkalai art stylishly when he murders the treasury officer and during the fight

with Venu which is played to the mass audience fantastically. It was a thoroughly deserved third

National Award for Kamal.

Like Gentleman’s Manorama and Vineeth death scenes, here Kasturi’s tragic death scene set a

good platform for the protagonist to go full-blazing on the corrupt system.

A R Rahman again proved that he comes up with his best tunes for Shankar with a variety of

songs that suit the occasion. His background music played a huge role in the screenplay and

has enhanced many scenes to greater heights on the screen. Pachaikili's song choreography was

fantastic and very beautifully showed the bonding, happy times, funny moments, emotional

attachments in the complete family of father, mother, son, and daughter using a song and was

executed nicely. 

         

Indian was a much-needed commercial blockbuster for Kamal. Nearing the release the film

had a huge craze and expectations among the audience. The box office had sold out tickets for

one whole month setting an unbreakable run continuously. Indian set a new box office record

running 175 days in South India, Bollywood and did a fantastic business overseas too giving

Kamal Haasan is a new career peak in his career. ‘Indian’ placed Shankar on the Indian Cinema

map and from there on Shankar has been scaling greater heights with every outing in his

career.