Drishyam cinema enjoys a cult classic status in Mollywood and it is undoubtedly one of the best film ever made in Indian cinema history. There is a record of records broken by Drishyam and it is still the top grossing film in Mollywood and looks like it will continue to be in that position for some more time. It has been remade to 4 other languages and they are Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. Hindi version is nearing its release and Tamil version Papanasham released yesterday. Even though there are four remakes people waited more for the tamil version named Papanasam. The one and only factor for that is the choice of Kamal Haasan to play the role played by Mohanlal in the original version. This may be used as a comparative tool to analyze who is the best Mohanlal or Kamal Haasan as they are considered as the greatest actors India has ever seen and continues to be on that spot even now.
Even though comparing these two legends are not so easy and sometimes it may sound a bit rubbish as well because both following different styles of acting. But still when these two great actors play the same character it can be possible to some extent. To be frank George Kutty and Swyambhulingam are very different in their backdrop. But their reaction may be on the same side in some situation as the story of the film follows the same path in both versions. Mohanlal is more natural, subtle and sometimes makes us wonder struck with amazing flow of dialogue delivery and underplay of emotions. To say honestly undoubtedly he is the best when it comes to under-acting and natural acting. We never feels that he is acting or he is just like behaving as the character just like there is no camera in front of him.
When it comes to Kamal Haasan his acting is more methodical. Rather than underplaying of the emotions he is more on to the side of loud expression of emotions. Kamal Haasan’s acting is not as natural as of Mohanlal and in some places we feels that he is acting as a character and aware of the camera in front of him. But he does it brilliantly as well.
When we analyze the scene in Drishyam just before climax when he speaks to the characters played by Asha Sharath and Siddique he really created the emotional effect to unbelievable extent with his subtle acting. Even a blink of the eye expresses a lot and it was million dollar expressions as well. When it comes to Papanasam Kamal Hasan enact the same scene and created the same effect through loud expression of emotions such as crying and shivering with guilt, pain and helpessness. On this regard we can say that Mohanlal is more convincing as an actor than Kamal Hasaan. But Kamal Haasan using his method done a great job as well.
In the first half of Papanasam Jeethu Joseph had really cut down many expressions and shots which was in Drishyam done by Mohanlal so effortlessly. There are many scenes in which Kamala hasan tried his best but did not come up to the performance given by Mohanlal in a wider sense. But Kamal Haasan did a perfect job considering the tastes of Tamil people and Tamil culture. He is convincing to them.
Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan are the legends who were just born to become actors and that can be seen in each and every scene they performs and every characters they enacts. There is no such actor in India other than Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan who does a role with unbelievable perfection. That’s why we call them the complete actor and ulaga nayakan respectively.
