Kamal Haasan recently addressed the students of an engineering college in Chennai. He also discussed the prevailing tension in the field of art, where films are turned into a political issue. He said many of his movies from the past can’t be made in the present times.
“I won’t be able to make Anbe Sivam today. If I do I will have court cases. Today if I do Dasavathaaram, I will have court cases. If I do Varumayin Niram Sigappu, I will have to face problems,” he said. “Who knows? They may even create problems for Indian 2.”
Kamal Haasan said that politicians are ready to turn anything into a controversy as long as it gives them political mileage. “They (politicians) don’t have a clear vision for their journey as to where they want to go. They just want to travel from one point to the next,” he said.
“There is no controversy. They create it. You tell me what is the controversy in Padmaavat? School children are being stoned in the name of a film and hurt pride. That’s ridiculous,” he rued.
“I can’t make Thevar Magan today or I can’t show Poovaragan character in Dasavathaaram because they get angry at everything these days,” he claimed. He also suggested that such level of intolerance was not good for a healthy democracy.
Kamal’s films have sparked many controversies in the past, forcing him to make creative compromises, including changing titles and editing out scenes deemed offensive. His spy-thriller Vishwaroopam in 2013 had made national headlines after it was banned by the then Jayalalithaa government after it was accused of showing a minority community in a bad light. He even had said he managed to preserve Vishwarropam 2 “in spite of political interference.”
