Director: Kamal Haasan
When Wissam (Kamal) and his wife Nirupama (Pooja) enter the elderly care to meet Wissam's mother, an Alzheimer's patient, we see that her world of four walls is adorned only by her son's images. It reminded me of another member of the extended Haasan family's film, OK Kanmani. There too a key character, suffering from Alzheimer's, had a loved one as an anchor. But Kamal the director pushes this trope further. Through a twist of fate, she isn't able to recognise her son standing in front of her. Akin to how Wissam is hit by flashes of images from the past throughout the film, this plot point took me back to the various moments prior to this scene in the series where Wissam is alienated.
Wissam's alienation starts when his father leaves him as an illegitimate baby; the Indian Army disavows him so that he can be an espionage agent; his colleagues want to get rid of him at the drop of a hat; his jihadi brethren feel he has betrayed them; his wife cheat on him; his motherland treats him as a terrorist; to top it all, his mother doesn't recognise him. The story clearly should have been about how Wissam, while fighting the existential crisis, stays more patriotic and principled in any room he walks into throughout the world. To the film's credit, in this Vishwaroopam universe, Wissam is probably the only constant in a multitude of variables and thus probably the title, Vishwaroopam (the magnificent incarnation). The ending in the form of salvation would thus fit in this universe mentioned above. But the series, part 2 in particular, is more interested in Kamal-ism.
By Kamalism, I am talking about his indulgences as an auteur. As a matter of fact, I do enjoy his indulgences, but only as a cherry or at worst as an icing on the cake. But in Vishwaroopam, and its sisters Dasavatharam, Uthama Villan, among others, the indulgences is the cake. For instance, take the scene where Wissam talks about nationalism. What ought to be the character's outburst when insinuated of treachery, lands as an indulgence. In fact, the whole episode involving Eashwar (Anant Mahadevan) comes through as a prop for the indulgences to play out.
As I walked out of the darkroom, I wondered whether I should be thankful that there is probably only one more of this phase of Kamal-ism via Sabash Naidu, or be sad that there isn't going to be another phase onscreen.
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