Actor-filmmaker
Kamal
Hassan,
who
turns
59
today
(November
7),
needs
no
introduction.
The
Universal
Star,
who
has
given
numerous
hits,
has
not
only
acted
in
movies,
but
lived
his
characters
in
movies!
But
there
are
times
when
some
of
his
best
performances
have
gone
unnoticed
in
several
underrated
films.
On
the
occasion
of
his
59
birthday,
Haricharan
Pudipeddi
of
IANS
has
listed
such
films
from
the
Ulaganayagan's
esteemed
career.
Aval
Appadithan:
Arguably
one
of
the
masterpieces
of
Tamil
cinema,
this
film
may
have
been
Box
Office
disaster,
but
it
was
made
much
ahead
of
its
time.
Kamal
plays
a
documentary
filmmaker,
through
whose
eyes
the
film
presents
the
moving
story
of
Sripriya,
a
men-hating
independent
woman
with
a
bitter
past.
The
razor-sharp
dialogues
with
surrealistic
filmmaking
style
offered
an
experience
that
no
Tamil
film,
before
or
after,
has
managed
to
deliver.
Anbe
Sivam:
The
actor
takes
an
agnostic
stance
about
atheism
and
communism
in
Anbe
Sivam,
which
translates
to
"Love
is
God".
The
film
revolves
around
two
characters
-
a
communist
and
a
capitalist,
who
learn
important
lessons
of
life
via
a
road
trip.
The
film
remains
underrated
to
date
because
many
misunderstood
its
sarcastic
undertones
associated
with
atheism.
Raja
Paarvai:
I
doubt
if
any
actor
would
take
the
risk
of
playing
a
blind
character
in
his
100th
film,
but
Kamal
Hassan
is
an
exception.
In
this
poignant
tale
of
romance
between
a
blind
violinist
and
a
young
Christian
girl,
director
Singeetham
Srinivasa
Rao
extracted
the
best
out
of
Kamal,
who
had
also
co-written
the
film.
Virumaandi
Borrowing
the
narrative
style
of
Japanese
film
Rashomon,
Kamal
addressed
the
abolition
of
death
sentence
from
the
Indian
judicial
system
in
Virumaandi.
As
a
happy-go-lucky
village
rogue,
he
delivered
one
of
the
finest
performances
in
his
career
with
this
film,
which
is
remembered
for
giving
Tamil
cinema
one
of
the
finest
actors,
Pasupathy.
Hey
Ram
In
this
semi-fictional
recounting
of
India's
partition
and
the
assassination
of
Mahatma
Gandhi,
Kamal
as
the
film's
writer-director
and
actor
highlights
religious
extremism.
The
film
was
a
Box
Office
disaster
and
paved
way
to
a
lot
of
controversies,
but
the
audience
hardly
realised
that
its
purpose
was
to
showcase
the
journey
of
a
character
named
Saket
Ram,
who
rejected
the
notion
of
securing
rights
through
violence
and
allowed
religious
hatred
to
be
taken
over
by
love.
Guna
It
is
very
unlikely
that
Guna
would
ever
feature
in
a
list
of
best
films
featuring
Kamal
because
it
still
remains
unappreciated
and
had
turned
out
to
be
yet
another
Box
Office
failure.
But
I
doubt
if
anyone
else
could
have
played
an
innocent
schizophrenic
to
perfection.
A
complex
love
story,
the
film
could
only
be
embraced
if
one
understood
an
important
line
from
a
song,
which
translates
to
"this
love,
to
be
understood
by
humans,
is
not
human
love;
it's
beyond
that.
This
is
divine
love".
Varumayin
Niram
Sivappu
A
satire
on
the
unemployment
situation
in
India
in
the
1980s,
Kamal
collaborated
with
his
mentor
K
Balachander
to
play
an
unemployed
youth
in
the
film.
Varumayin
Niram
Sivappu,
which
fittingly
translates
to
"Colour
of
Poverty
is
Red",
is
a
unique
film
that
not
just
entertains,
but
questions
the
veracity
of
modern-day
youth
in
a
socialist
India.
Mahanadi
Easily
one
of
the
most
tragic
films
in
Kamal's
career,
Mahanadi
pits
a
villager
against
those
from
a
town
who
rob
him
off
his
prosperity.
As
a
tormented
father
in
search
of
his
missing
children,
this
is
easily
one
of
the
actor's
best
performance
in
the
1990s.
Swati
Mutyam
As
an
adult
with
the
mind
of
a
child,
the
actor
proved
once
again
why
he
is
considered
one
of
the
country's
finest
actors.
It
was
touted
to
be
the
Indian
version
of
Tom
Hanks-starrer
Forrest
Gump,
but
in
reality,
Swati
Mutyam
was
a
brilliant
effort
to
confront
existing
socio-cultural
traditions
through
the
eyes
of
an
autistic
man.
It
is
considered
underrated
because
many
failed
to
understand
what
it
set
out
to
achieve.