I was impressed by Dances with Wolves (Eng/Kevin Costner/1990). I was more impressed to realise that Avatar (Eng/James Cameron/2009) shares its central plot with the Costner's movie. The plot: the saga of how our man becomes a part of the other men and ends up siding with them in their justified fight against us. Replace our man with a US soldier and other men with Na'vi or the Native Americans. Bingo! You get Avatar and Dances with Wolves. I do not say Cameron has borrowed from Costner. It would be like saying all the cop movies are the same; all the love movies are the same. It is just that I am surprised to see how the change in "treatment" to the central plot can lead to two very different experiences; Very different, but classics in their own right. When compared to seven, three is not a pretty figure, but when we append "Oscars" to the numbers, three is equally laudable. Avatar had managed three Oscars, while Dances bagged seven.
When we talk about "treatment" I can only awe at the confidence of director Shankar. Here is a man who teaches with examples. Year after year, starting with Gentleman (Tam/1993) and topping with Enthiran (Tam/2010), the director has made us deliver many super hits. But most of them with the same central theme - one man's fight against corruption. I am happy that Hirani is nice enough to give Shankar 3 Idiots for remaking in Tamil. Immaterial of the treatment, I do not have mood to watch any more fight against corruption by the ace director.
Well, coming back to Avatar, I am reminded of Unnal Mudiyum Thambi (Tam/KB/1988) where a radical from the society's upper strata enters the slums to empower the masses. In the process he fights his people. Well, probably the central plot in these movies seems to be "a reformer/activist's story".
I am not sure if this plot has been tried - rather than our man joining hands with them to help them win over us, the movie can be about their own hero winning us. Like, say, one among the Na'vi collects his fellow humanoids to beat us, the homo sapiens, black and blue.
By the way, only two more months left in 2011.
