Kamal Haasan: A Cinematic Journey – K. Hariharan

In many ways, Kamal Haasan is unique.

One of the greatest actors India has ever produced, he has usually gone further than just enacting a role to completely immersing himself in it.

Kamal A Cinematic Journey explores some fifty films out of the 245 Haasan has been associated with and analyses his cinematic journey from his beginnings as a child star all the way to his latest blockbusters.

It traces how, even at a young age, he took on roles other actors would be wary of, positioning himself as an object of female desire in the 1980s; balancing both comedy and tragedy with aplomb; playing formerly caricatured roles such as that of a dwarf in Apoorva Sagodharargal and a woman in Chachi 420 with dignity; and having a resurgence in 2022 with the blockbuster Vikram.

This book is the best introduction possible to Kamal his life, his thoughts and his movies.