IITM,very recently, organized a theaterics workshop and Kamal Haasan was among the celebrities invited. He happened to speak about movies, in the international forum, which had inspired him and he named films of his which had been created around those movies. Mahanadhi had been inspired from the theme of Les Misérables. This movie was in turn an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name. Mahanadhi is one of my all time favourites. It plays with raw emotions and shows how one crucial decision can affect an entire family. Powerful dialogue, true to life scenes, the movie had it all.I wanted to check out how much Kamal had plagiarized from LM.
I was proved wrong. Kamal had put together a very beautiful story taking only millilitres 
of the essence of LM. The two movies are poles apart, each unique in its own way.
LM is set in France and is the story of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict. Hungry and on the streets, he steals bread from an eat out. ”only the glass separated me and the bread”. He is tried for the offense and is given a sentence of 20 years in a place called Toulon. In jail, he is abused by the other prisoners and learns to defend himself. In the process he loses compassion and lives like an animal with only the instinct of survival.
After a few years, he is let out into neighboring towns on parole bearing a paper stating his identity and status. Nobody gives him accommodation and he is taken in by a pastor. He steals the pastor’s silver and is caught by the police. But the pastor tells them that he had given it to him as a gift. Jean Valjean flees the place as he doesn’t want to go back to the quarries again.
A decade later, in the town of Vigau, Valjean is the Mayor and the richest man. The pastor’s words had moved him and he had started life afresh. The town gets a new Police Prefect, Inspector Javert. He recognizes Valjean as he had been on duty in the quarries. Meanwhile a woman is dismissed from her job at Valjean’s factory for having an illegitimate child. She had left the kid to grow up with a family and had been working to pay them. She doesn’t know that they ill treat the girl. Out of a job, Fantine(the woman) becomes a whore and is beaten up by a group of freaks. She is arrested by Javert when she hits back at them. Valjean comes to her rescue and tends to her in his home. Javert fumes as he’s got no evidence against Valjean.when Javert comes to arrest Valjean, Fantine dies in the commotion after telling Valjean to protect her girl, Cosette.
Valjean escapes with the silver and some savings he had kept hidden. He buys out Cosette from the family and they flee to Paris.”Can I call you Papa?”
As the gates are being watched, they climb up the city walls and enter a convent. The police are forbidden entry and Valjean and Cosette start life as a gardener and a student respectively.
Ten years pass and Cosette wants to see the world. Valjean reluctantly agrees and they move into a house in the city and do charity work for the depraved and homeless.
It is the time of revolution against the monarchy and Cosette falls in love with Marius, the leader of a group of radicals. Meanwhile, Javert has fixed a spy to trace the movements of Marius. He reports of the pair’s meetings to the inspector. Javert learns that the girl’s father is an important man in the area and goes to meet him. The maid informs Valjean of the inspector’s arrival. Valjean locks himself up in his room after instructing Cosette to tell the inspector that her father was out of town. Javert gives Cosette a letter and tells her that it is for her father and leaves the place. Valjean reads it and comes to know of Cosette’s love affair with Marius. He scolds her but she fights back telling him that he had no right to question her as he had never told her who he was.
Valjean breaks down and tells Cosette his history and she regrets for having misunderstood him.Further investigation makes Javert conclude that the girl is Cosette and she is with Valjean.He rushes to their hiuse to arrest him.
They flee to a safer area and there when Cosette and Marius meet, two nights later, Javert arrives. He is overpowered by Marius who takes him to the radicals’camp. They decide to kill him when Valjean offers to do the job. He takes Javert to a dark alley and sets him free. The inspector tells Valjean to kill him as he would hunt him down with renewed vigour if alive. Valjean just fires a shot in the air and lets him go.
During the fight between the police and the revolutionaries, Marius is wounded and Valjean rescues him.He is caught by Javert who lets him on the condition that he’d leave the boy in a safe place and return. After leaving Marius with a nurse, he bids Cosette farewell. She begs him not to go, but he only says:”I stole Happiness with you all these years, kid and that is enough for me” and leaves.
Valjean returns to Javert. There is a river in the backdrop and this scene is nail biting with dialogues containing few well chosen words. Javert tells Valjean that he is a free man,handcuffs himself and falls into the river. The climax has a beautiful view of Paris and Valjean running towards his home, smiling, with tears in his eyes.
Solid performances by Liam Neeson (Valjean), Geoffrey Rush (Javert) and Claire Danes (Cosette).My favorite was Uma Thurman (Fantine).Javert was the perfect prefect and the hard hearted maniac. Cosette had the right looks as the star stuck damsel and Uma’s performance as the desperate whore was awesome. Time well spent!!!
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