Happy Birthday Kamal Haasan: Can he recreate the Nayakan magic?

On his birthday Kamal Haasan announced he is coming together with Mani Ratnam again after 35 years. They last collaborated on Nayakan in 1987.The cult classic based on the life of gangster Varadarajan Mudaliar was given pride of place in Time Magazine’s ‘All time 100 Best Films’ for 2005.

Strangely though, after this critically acclaimed project, the two movie maestros never came together until now. Rumour has it that after Nayakan’s runaway success, both actor and director became too big in stature to be accommodated in one film despite being family: Mani is married to Kamal’s elder brother Charu Haasan’s daughter Suhasini.

Here we go again! #KH234
பயணத்தின் அடுத்த கட்டம்!
#ManiRatnam @Udhaystalin @arrahman #Mahendran @bagapath @RKFI @MadrasTalkies_ @RedGiantMovies_ @turmericmediaTM pic.twitter.com/ATAzzxAWCL

— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) November 6, 2022

When I repeatedly asked about the collaboration happening again, Kamal said, “All I will say is, the answer to the question that haunts both of us — why not another film together after Nayakan? Nayakan is no doubt the most influential film of my career.”

But what had baffled me the most about Nayakan was Mani Ratnam denying its source material, obviously Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Most filmmakers who choose real-life personalities as fodder for their movies ultimately turn around and deny their source material. Who wants to get into trouble and, worse, pay up huge amounts to the family and kin of the biographical subject?

That is understandable. But why did Mani Ratnam deny remaking The Godfather in Nayakan?

Mani had me stumped when he said, “I don’t see how the theory that Nayakan is my version of The Godfather, gained credence. It’s easy to classify films in simple categories. Nayakan and The Godfather both belong to the gangster genre. There’s no similarity to The Godfather. Nayakan was rooted to the Tamil culture and inspired by a character here. Godfather was rooted to the Italian Mafioso culture. And if you look at the famous scream that Kamal Haasan lets out after his son’s death in Nayakan you’ll realize there’s a similar sequence in Godfather Part 3 which came much after Nayakan.”

What was Mani implying? That The Godfather Part 3 actually copied Nayakan? Ahem ahem!

But the film’s leading man Kamal Haasan who shot to immortal fame as the Tamilian gangster in Mumbai was more candid. “Nayakan was definitely inspired by The Godfather. In fact, we were so conscious of our source material that we made deliberate efforts to make my characters dissimilar to Marlon Brando in bearing walk talk and attitude…hence the efforts to bring in a true-life Tamilian gangster in Mumbai …But Brando and The Godfather loomed large over Nayakan.”

Kamal Haasan went on to reveal that a lot of ideas and scenes derived from The Godfather couldn’t be used in Nayakan. “So we used it in my other Tamil tribute to The Godfather which was Thevar Magan. In fact in terms of ambience and setting Thevar Magan turned out to be closer to The Godfather than Nayakan.”

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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