An Attempt at Science fiction

I saw an interesting question in a discussion group on films. I felt like sharing it will my blog readers:

A doubt relating to the movie dasavatharam...What is the significance of Lord Vishnu's idol reappearing in the climax of the Movie...Does it only prove chaos theory or does it have some hidden message and politics in it.... ?


Hi
I hope you will not mind reading my long email once again.

Politics in a Film: First let me clarify one thing. Politics in a film has two aspects - one what the writer consciously puts in and one that the audience discovers because of his/her perspective and social realities. Also, any work of art lends itself to several interpretations because of thsi multiplicity of perspectives of the many viewers. Someone may find the scene totally objectionable while another just glosses over it...

In Dassavatharam (DV) - I will not go into that aspect of DV at all.


Let me start from science at a popular level:

Chaotic systems (unilke non-chaotic "simple" sytems, like an accelerating train or tennis ball) have the property that there is a limit to how accurately you can calculate the dynamics (that is, calculate the way they will move and evolve in space). This is because they are "self-similar". That is, the graph of momentum versus position is the same, at whichever level you look at it. If you look at it closely at a microscopic level, or if you look at it from normal visual distances, or go away to a planet and then observe the movement of the system with a telescopeand plot its velocity and space distribution, it looks the same.

Therefore, if a disturbance happens at a micro-level it will affect all distances away from it.. To understand this better, you can google for Mandelbrot Set, or Self- Similar systems and you will find a good pictorial explanation of this concept.

Earth Quakes and Chaos Model: (highly simplified) In an earthquake model - you know that earthquakes are caused by a slipping of tectonic plates at the bottom of the sea.


Do you know how minute is the disturbance that can cause an earthquake? It can be as small as a few grains of sand slipping between the gaps in the plates.

This can happen because, at that moment, the ocean floor is coupled to this Self-Similar system, the same disturbance is felt on all distance scales (for distance scales, picture grains of sand slipping millimetres, chucks of stines slipping metres, boulders slippling hundreds of metres and so on) around it...

Thus, a slipping of a few grains of sand is magnified (note, it is not built up as in an avalanche, it is much more devastatingly quick) into the heaving of the Ocean floor, formation of earthquake, and huge tidal waves CAN result (they don't always, that's the catch as to why we cannot predict these).

Similar explanation is given to Huge forest fires, Spread of Epidemics; Why, even the way coffee decoction percolates through the filter across the stuffed-in coffee powder..

Dasavatharam: This was a story with several threads. The main line was that this prize-winning atheistic scientist and intelligent but simple and religious small-town girl go on a Witch hunt ( to get rid of the poisonous stuff the vial contains).

Apart from the adventure and how they accomplish their task, there is the little story of two complementary belief systems and how they learn from and accomodate each other.

When they recount the Tsunami experience, the believer says "Thank God" and the atheist says "Tectonic Plates." There is no judgement given in the story, and truly, science has no final conclusive answers to many puzzles. But the depth of the characterization and the authenticity of each character is what is built up by the mention of a very real and very well know result of Chaos theory.

The same story, if the writer wanted the pattern of computer science, instead of non-linear dynamics, could have this problem - a highly destructive computer virus which is out to defunct the defence mechanisms of the country - The hero a computer scientist and heroine, a military commando or love-story writer with fear of gadgets and computers in particular, get involved with the perpetrating gang and how they still stick to hating and loving computers at the end of the story! (How is it?)


If the point about characterization is not clear, I will explain later, I think you will get it from just this email.

Alright for the second question on the IDOl in the last scene- Why did the idol turn up at the end?
I have several interesting thoughts on that. Think of how the story would end if the idol did not turn up - The Tsunami over, everyone slowly smiles and the lovers hold hands and walk away bickering peacefully like Tom and Jerry. Would you have remembered the end scene? IN the actual scene, they really lean on the back of the old barnacled idol and get together ... (we do not know either that it is that rock they're leaning on, until the camera pans away showing the mysterious smiling, sleeping Ranganathan on the endless mythical snake Anantha.The theme music booms... !

It's a picture (image) that you don't forget so easily. It's as if to say that one ultimately never knows and it's your fundamental exitential choice, what you choose, or want, to believe in...

Have you seen the Michael Jackson video of "Thriller" - Throughout, the song makes you wonder if he is a vampire or not and it seems like it ends on a happy note, until Jackson turns back and gives his evil grin, leaving you guessing once again. Similar open ends in Back to the Future, Evil Dead etc ...

(ok apart from this, there was a news item too which may have made the writer write up this part... I won't mention it for having already probably bored you with too lengthy emails).

As a film, I thought it makes for several viewings and leaves an unforgettable visual memory and lastly, leaves room for thought for those interested.