SUPER DELUXE

 Super Deluxe! What's Super about this?

There’s what you do, and what you don’t – nothing’s right or wrong says Thyagarajan Kumararaja in his second movie. He treads the line between the real and the surreal in bringing together multiple strands of narratives into an ending, well multiple endings! The connections are quite tangential, like they were brought together so that it could be one feature film, not an anthology of short stories. The stories themselves look like they were written by different writers (as they are) with almost no idea of what the other writer was up to. In spite of that, one wonders how almost every writer (save the guy who wrote the character played by Mysskin) paints at least one guy in his story as a total dick. Really, men in this movie are portrayed as if they think only through their hard on, which they seem to have in their pants even when faced with the harshest of circumstances.

All problems of the central characters in this movie start off because of a sexual misadventure. The And it never stops. We have teenagers who don’t forget to gawk at a sensual song on TV even when they owe a thug a huge sum by evening, we have a middle aged lady at a CD shop who asks the said boys to not be shy about asking her for shady blue films, we have a sub inspector of police who doesn’t mind dropping his pants inside his station knowing fully well that his subordinates are aware of what he is up to. You start to wonder whether these characters feel nothing but lust through all their waking hours, not even fear! The character sketches are so one dimensional, they could have been huge dicks and no one would have noticed the difference. If women were portrayed the same way, it would have been called objectification, misogyny and whatnot, like the recent 90 ML was panned by everyone. It is hard to see how Super Deluxe is any better or different in terms of what it wants to say.

The answer to that lies in the skill of the director to capture his audiences through a mix of visuals, dialogues and sounds. It is the difference between saying a four letter cuss word in Tamil and English. You say it in Tamil and you are unsophisticated or unpolished, and you say it English you are the cool guy!  Super Deluxe is the cool guy of Tamil cinema who can get away saying ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’, while the guy who said ‘otha’ is frowned upon.

Thyagarajan Kumararaja chooses to set his film in some place in Chennai, we believe, where the building exteriors look straight from the 90s. One can’t recall one building in the film that did not have the paint falling off or the interiors looking dull and faded. And you have walls carrying posters of movies that were released over various points over the last 20 years. One doesn’t understand if those are pop culture references! What would a poster of Bulletproof Monk be doing on a wall in 2018, or what was adapted from that movie to Super Deluxe for the director to pay it a tribute. Pop culture references and tributes should not confuse the viewer about the actual year that the movie is set in. Apparently, not everyone can be a Steven Spielberg and make a Ready Player One. Anyone who watches Super Deluxe with open eyes is bound to feel confused about whether this is a period story. But then you see smart phones and LED TVs which allay your doubts. It is difficult to understand what the director conveyed to the art department about his requirements and how it was understood.

Vijay Sethupathi was brave to walk into a role that made him take such a huge risk for so little substance. That again is down to physicality and sexual orientation. The man has no starry egos or worries about his image. He doesn’t mind exposing his growing paunch or going half bald, nor does he mind being ridiculed by a child – he is the director’s actor. One just feels sad that even his character is a one-trick pony with precious little screen time. Samantha was challenged a bit and comes out well, but one wonders what drove Fahad Fazil towards this role! One feels that he took up this role more because of Aaranya Kaandam than the actual script of Super Deluxe. The same can be said about Ramya Krishnan. Bhagavathi Perumal is the epitome of everything that is wrong with this movie – writing that boxes characters into one dimensional puppets – the man who cannot think about anything but sex! And you have the teenagers – perhaps the only characters in the movie that have more than one emotion to portray. But, that too culminates in the most bizarre of ways – an example of escapist writing at it’s most extreme to mouth a few philosophical lines about how everything in the universe is almost the same. Even there, the director doesn’t spare the sexual angle.

The dialogues do help a lot in making the most disagreeable of ideas seem smart, and that is what keeps the movie going. There is some interesting idea about how casteism is just as good or bad as nationalism, which might make people think. The background music (or should one say the background sound track which is many old movies and serials playing out) has been studiously done, with songs and dialogues being picked to add context and humour to the dialogues of the characters. Curiously, the Stars Wars signature music is used here, one wonders why. It does show the director’s lofty ambitions, but he ought to have picked better written material to justify it. Here, it seems more like a desecration than tribute. It is the editing that somehow makes a little sense of all the mess. Even that cannot resolve the muddled timelines of all the threads that are left conveniently unexplained in the end – apparently not everyone can be a Christopher Nolan and make a Dunkirk.

Thyagarajan Kumararaja is a smart film maker. He knows the art of presenting pseudointelligent trash under the garb of philosophy and life advice. People were nude 1000 years back, and they might be nude 100 years from now, so why think that clothing is imperative – says a character in the movie. The director must be asked, copyright laws did not exist 1000 years back, they might not exist 100 years from now, so why bother with antipiracy laws, let the pirated DVDs flow freely. Nothing’s right or wrong, it’s just what you do – isn’t that what you want to say director?

 

Pesudointelligent trash and sexually overcharged males – nothing else!

Kaalapani during the Marakkar weekend!

This weekend was supposed to be Malayalam cinema's event of 2020, a record breaking opening was ensured, 500 screens in Kerala, an 'industry hit' that was almost 

pre-ordained according to the fans, Malayalam cinema's answer to Bahubali, the movie that would put Malayalam cinema on the world map, Marakkar Arabikkadalinte

Simham. It might look silly to lament on a postponed release in these times when life has been put on standby mode, but this is not about Marakkar; his time will

come sooner or later. This is about Priyadarshan's Govardhan, the prisoner in Cellular Jail who never returned. On Saturday, watching Kaalapani on Asianet from within

the confines of my home, I reflected on how cinema and our perception of it had changed over these 24 years with some scattered recollections of how Kaalapani had

been received back then.

Too costly for Malayalam?

Kaalapani was the Marakkar of 96. That was a time when the budget of a movie was perhaps not as intensely scrutinized or talked about as it is now. But, even in those

times, the scale of Kaalapani generated a lot of curiosity amongst the general audience. There was talk that this was too big for Malayalam cinema, that Mohanlal the

producer had erred in his judgment. Back then, everyone waited for a good two weeks before pronouncing the verdict on a movie. When Kaalapani released, the 

feeling was one of impending doom, that no matter how good this movie turned out to be, it would never bring back the money that had been put into it.Maybe I was too

young back then, but I remember getting the feeling that many people waited for the news on Kaalapani expecting a Goliath-like debacle that could be talked about around

dinner tables for months to come. Did that news come? Yes and no! It was not a debacle by any means, and there are still furious debates around this in fan circles.

For a movie that reportedly raised the budget bar of Malayalam movies by nearly 250%, a profit was nearly unimaginable, a prophecy which many people wanted to see

fulfilled to have that 'I told you so' moment. Years after Kaalapani, Priyadarshan reminisced about a remark that had come from another senior director over lunch.

Discussing Kaalapani, the senior director had wondered about how many small movies could have been made with the money splurged on Kaalapani. On the lunch table that day

was a plate of biriyani, and Priyadarshan, according to his recollection, had to fight back a temptation to ask how many idlis could have been bought at the cost of 

the biryani. That was the kind of pessimism that shrouded Kaalapani when it was announced, made and released. BUt, 25 years later, there isn't that kind of pessimism 

around Marakkar. Malayalam cinema has stretched it's limits multiple times in the last decade thanks to Pazhassiraja, Urumi, Drishyam,Premam, Pulimurugan and Luficer.

Now there is a feeling that if the movie is good enough, any budget is justified.

Priyadarshan's politics?

1996 was a time when cinema was looked upon as just cinema, and we look back fondly at those times. Kaalapani released, and for many of my generation, that was the first

we heard the name Veer Savarkar. I am not sure if I was too young or too naive at the time to understand if the movie exposed any political leanings of its writer

and director. But, as the years have gone by, more and more people have dug into the politics of Kaalapani and come up with their own interpretations. These are times

when it's almost impossible for a prominent film personality to remain apolitical in the public view. Priyadarshan has not tried to remain apolitical and has been

quite open on social media about his preferences. Maybe it is this very open admission by Priyadarshan that has lead people to look much more closely at the 

politics of Kaalapani. Nearly 20 years after its initial release, I heard that Kaalapani was an exercise in glorifying Savarkar! Really? I had never thought about it

that way. But, when doubts are planted in your mind, you start looking at things differently, you start looking to read between lines. Watching Kaalapani again in 

changed times and much more politically polarised climate makes you look at certain portions with suspicion. Yes, Savarkar is being shown as a hero! But, maybe he

really was a hero in the Cellular Jail at that time. Yes, you see quite a direct jibe at the Congress which is branded as the party that was founded by wealthy and

the priveleged to protect their interests, and the Communist is branded as an outfit that promotes violence. All this in the space of two minutes. There was 

enforced coprophagia on a Brahmin by a tyrannical jail warden who happened to be Muslim! Put it all together

and couple it with the obvious political leaning on Priyadarshan's social media - well, Kaalapani does not look so innocent anymore! It's at times like these that one

hopes we could go back to the 90s where cinema was seen as a story shown on the screen for 3 hours, after which we got on with our lives. No one bothered about the 

director's political inclinations, no one got offended by a few lines here or there. In 2020, Priyadarshan's real-life political leanings have already caused a 

debate about how he will present Marakkar, a hero from a community that is at loggerheads with the political outfit that the director beleives in. It was all so

simple back then.

What's with the accent?

How historically accurate is it? Everytime a period movie comes out, we keep going back to this question. Back in 1996, Kaalapani was as accurate as a Malayalam

movie had ever got with the pre-independence era. For the average viewer, there was nothing that could be faulted. Maybe the highly read or the politically

inclined had a question or two to ask about how Savarkar was represented. But, there was one very minute detail picked up by som prominent intellectual of the time,

you could even call it picky. Remember David Barry, the sadistic jailor who inflicted the most unimaginable cruelties on the inmates of his jail, through Mirza Khan 

of course! The problem, or so it was said, was that Barry spoke with an Irish accent in the movie. How could a British jailor have an Irish accent, the critic/

intellectual had wondered aloud? For those of us that cannot tell the difference between the two accents, it didn't matter. But, could Priyadarshan too have been

ignorant of the fact that British and Irish accents are different, or did he just cast the actor available? Neither Priyadarshan nor anyone associated with

Kaalapani responded to this at that time, they obviously had other things on their mind. But, many years later someone else said casually in an interview that the

Irish accent was not a mistake, it was there because the real David Barry was of Irish descent. The accent/slang trouble has been with Priyadarshan since then I guess.

In 2003, the most hated thing about Kilichundan Mambazham was Mohanlal's artifical North Kerala slang, which is trolled even today, and which was the biggest bone of

contention between fan camps when Marakkar's first teaser released. 

Did Mohanlal really lick it?

Classrooms those days were always divided into two camps! If it was Rajni vs Kamal in TN, it was Mammootty vs Mohanlal in Kerala. And, when Kaalapani released the big

debate was whether Mohanlal really licked Amrish Puri's shoes. Those were conflicting times for young fans of both Mohanlal and Mammootty. Neither knew whether it was

a good thing that an actor had shown enough committment, or a sign that Bollywood villains were a step above Malayalam heroes! Silly as it may sound now, this was a 

genuine dilemma back then. To see your favorite hero bend down and lick a Hindi villain's boots did evoke mixed feelings. Those were also the days when movie news 

could be found only in Nana or one other weekly, unlike now when every shooting spot event is out on Youtube even before the movie has released. It was quite a few

years after Kaalapani's release that we began to hear stories of how Amrish Puri burst into tears after Mohanlal did the 'boot licking' shot for real. That did puff up

the pride of the young Mohanlal fan, knowing that the great Mogambo had been moved to tears by your idol! It was also a turning point in fanship for many I beleive.

Mohanlal did not need to be the Aadu Thoma or Mangalasseri Neelakanthan to make his fans feel proud, showing unimaginable commitment to every frame in a movie was 

equally clapworthy! Marakkar faces the same question. Will it play to the gallery, will it stop the narrative at Marakkar's highest point, his victorious battle, or

will it show how he eventually fell?

What's 'tatti'?

For those who have learnt Hindi in Kerala or in the south schools in general, the word 'tatti' was not part of the vocabulary. After all, schools do not teach 'slang'.

So, when Amrish Puri force fed 'tatti' to Tinnu Anand (all characters spoke their native tongue in Kaalapani, unlike now when directors conveniently say that all

characters will be speaking in Tamil irrespective of where they come from or where the story is happening), me and many, who only knew Hindi through textbooks, wondered

what was being forced down his throat through the funnel. Some kind of non-veg broth I imagined at first because the conflict was all about Tinnu Anand's hunger strike 

over being asked to eat non-veg food. It took quite some asking around to finally find a person who knew what 'tatti' meant! And, when I found out, I hoped I hadn't 

asked.

For a generation of audiences who's memories start from the 90s, Kaalapani was Malayalam cinema's first spectacle! Now, spectacles have become commonplace. Sometimes

movies that aren't spectacles are hyped up to be so (the offspring of Narasimham and Aaram Thamburan comes to mind). But, Marakkar promises to reset the scales of what

a 'spectacle' in Malayalam cinema is supposed to be, like Kaalapani did back in 96. And for that, we wait patiently!