Spoilers ahead…
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/super-deluxe-movie-review-baradwaj-rangan-mysskin-vijay-sethupathi-thiagarajan-kumararaja-unique-ambitious-insanely-detailed-blessedly-amoral-drama-thats-as-epic-as-it-is-intimate/
How does one talk about Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s second film, Super Deluxe? A logical place to begin is perhaps the director’s first film, Aaranya Kaandam. Super Deluxe is certainly something of a companion piece. The monologue-y trailers are similar, as are the multiple storylines revolving around ensemble casts and bound by an overarching philosophy. (Remember “Edhu thevaiyo adhu dharmam” from Aaranya Kaandam?) There’s even the sense of a cinematic universe being created, one that contains both films (and maybe future films from this director). The women in these films have similar-sounding (and male-sounding) names: Vaembu/Subbu. From a poster on a wall, we sense that Jackie Shroff’s character from Aaranya Kaandam appears to have existed a little before this film’s timeline. I could even imagine the father-fixated little boy (a superb Ashwanth Ashokkumar) in Super Deluxe growing up to be the Guru Somasundaram character’s son in Aaranya Kaandam. And remember the little plane that the Ravi Krishna character “swallowed” as part of a magic trick? We get big planes here, and they perform their own bits of magic.
And yet, the films are different. Aaranya Kaandam was filled with adrenalin-pumping pleasures: the pulse quickened at the pulp rhythms, the slo-mo stretches. And the film was emotionally direct: you felt for the Guru Somasundaram character and his son, and you laughed at the story about the gangsters named Gajendran and Gajapathy. Super Deluxe is far more ambitious, and moment for moment, far less instantly gratifying. It’s a long, slow fuse that keeps you on edge about when it will explode, and when it does, it’s a big bang. Or, perhaps, the Big Bang. WTF, right? More on that, later. For now, I’ll just say I’ve never seen anything like this in Tamil cinema, with its mix of the sacred and the profane, the epic and the intimate, the earthly and the otherworldly, the pop-cultural and the philosophical. It’s a film you want to view as much with a microscope (zooming in on the details) as a telescope (zooming out to the bigger picture).
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2019 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
shaviswa
March 29, 2019
Ok. Another film address to my must watch list. Awesome review BR
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Siva
March 29, 2019
Okay BR. I have duly skipped reading the review after reading your pre-review note. I missed Aaranya Kaandam in theaters. Have been meaning to, but haven’t had a chance to catch it in television airings either. And YouTube does not seem to have a copy. Still waiting for ‘Vijay Super’ channel to air it again. I had seen it in their schedule once.
Guys, you really might not want to miss this. BR has rated this 4 stars. Only for a select few movies have BR rated 4 in the past couple of years or so, since D-16 — which released on December 29, 2016.
I guess that elite list goes like:
D-16
Maanagaram
Oru Kidayin Karunai Manu
Aruvi
Super Deluxe
Note:
1) BR does not believe in star ratings.
2) The reasoning behind BR’s star ratings goes something like this — ” How far has the filmmaker been able achieve on what he/she set out to do. The rating really is a measure of the filmmaker’s success percentage towards his own goal, as to what he/she wanted the movie to achieve/convey/turn out to be. “
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Vijay Nayan
March 29, 2019
@Siva Aaranya Kaandam is available for free viewing on Hotstar app… Easiest way to catch it without any ad breaks… 🙂
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Siva
March 29, 2019
Vijay Nayan: Thank you so much. Will try to watch it some day 🙂
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Manikandan
March 29, 2019
முகிலின் விரிவு, வேம்பின் இனிப்பு,நிகழ மறுக்கும் அற்புதம், லீலா வினோதம், கறைபடிந்த மாணிக்கம் – சூப்பர் deluxe அளிக்கும் காவிய அமைதி – நன்றாக கூடி வந்திருக்கும் ஒரு முழுமை சித்திரம்
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Paras
March 29, 2019
Though ancestrally I am from Andhra, I am born and brought up in Bombay. Never ever saw Telugu movies, leave alone Tamil movie simply because I really felt Telugu movie standards are low and was ignorant of Tamil movies. Just as a coincidence I saw BR’s article around 3 weeks back about this movie Super Deluxe. Until then I knew zilch of Tamil film industry. After reading BR’s article I saw the trailer and my God…..
I was completely blown away by the trailer …it’s visuals, it’s music, narration and it’s hypothetical ‘story’ Line.
Until then i didn’t even knew who were these chaps called Thiagarajan and Vijay Setupathi. (Don’t kill me) 🙂
And since last 20 days I have been eating, sleeping and drinking only Super Deluxe details. Saw the movie Aaranya Kaandam, read all reviews about it, read/watched Thiagarajan’s interviews. And Tonight I will be watching the movie here in Mumbai. It will be in Tamil with probably subtitles. Even if there are no subtitles I am sure I will like it if my reading of BR’s review is right.
Thanks Sir for being a lighthouse and providing solace to cinematic souls like us. 🙂
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SUPERAWESOME
March 29, 2019
SPOILERS
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.
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Another Aaranya Kaandam callback was the line “Gaji, nee yen eppovume ivlo gajiya Iruka” similar to “sappa nee yen ivlo sappaya Iruka”
Also the use of course especially red and orange spilling through right from clothes hanging on terraces to Samantha’s bed to a flower in a staircase was incredible. I’ve only seen Shyamalan use purples this way in unbreakable before. The entire consistency of the palette was nuts.
And the sound design guys had their own movie with all the announcements and foreshadowing. What a beauty.
And they even acknowledged the Shilpa Shetty yoga videos hahahahaha. Speaking of interconnectedness, “en per manickam” “ennaku innoru perum iruku” 🙂
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ini
March 29, 2019
This is the first time I am reading a New York Times review of a Tamil movie on the day of release! Hype. It’s heartening to see the right filmmakers get their due on the international stage. I remember my heart skipping a beat when Indiewire had the review for Mercury on its front page for a while.
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Isai
March 29, 2019
Just saw the movie. This is what BR would call an ‘interesting movie’. It gives you a lot of things to talk about. But is this an engaging movie? I doubt it.
VJS should be lauded for taking up this role. Only someone truly dedicated to the art form will agree to do those scenes of Shilpa. And Samantha also manages to break many barriers regarding what (married) heroines are supposed to do. But these constantly depressing scenes involving amoral characters are a bit too much to take. As someone remarked in my theatre, why is EVERYONE’s house so unclean and dingy?
I had three main problems with this movie:
1. the flow and the intercutting of the multiple stories is not done well.. . it is like random scenes keep happening, some of which will turn out to be good and in which a few clapworthy (mostly) A-rated dialogues would emerge.
2.there is lot of philosophising dialogues in the movie (which contributes to the sluggishness). I am surprised that BR, who rants about Cheran and Samuthirakani’s lectures, is forgiving of this director’s sermons.
3. The ‘Tsunami Andavar’ track is a clear reference to Christianity. If you want to criticise ‘blind faith’ worship, you could have as easily done it without using what looks (and doesn’t look) like a Jesus statue and without using ‘Christian Tamil’ words.
The movie has many interesting scenes and dialogues which would amount to 45 minutes – 1 hour of screen time. But the remaining 2hrs was difficult to sit through. That along with this being an A rated movie means that this movie is not going to do well in the box office.
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Rad Mahalikudi
March 29, 2019
@Siva: Aaranya Kaandam is available in hoststar but it is a edited version – scenes removed, and dialogues beeped out. The version I checked out.
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Manikandan
March 29, 2019
கழிவிரக்கத்தில் தொடங்கி அத்வைத வேதாந்தத்தில் முடியும் மனிதனின் முழுமைத் தேடல் – அதே ஆற்றில் அதே மனிதன் மீண்டும் இறங்குவான் – யுக யுகமாய் நடந்து வரும் பயணம்.இன்பம் நாடும் பால்யம் பொருள் நாடும் இளமை அறம் நாடும் நடுவண் வீடு நாடும் முதிர் பருவம் என்ற காலத்தின் அட்டவணையை புரட்டிப் போட்டு முகிலின் அறம் சார்ந்த அரற்றல்கள் , பொருள் தேடும் லீலா தனசேகர் , மாணிக்கம் நாடும் இன்பம் , காஜ் அறியும் வீடு என்று கலைத்தது சிறப்பு
மரபும் உண்டு மரபு மீறலும் மரபில் உண்டு மரபை நிராகரித்தலும் மரபில் உண்டு – மின்னல் அடித்த நாள் முதல் இன்று வரை சம்பவாமி யுகே யுகே
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Jupe
March 29, 2019
I saw the movie today and as is my usual ritual, came back to read your review. While I appreciate a few additional aspects of the movie post your analysis, the movie didnt work as much for me as it seems to have done for most others going by the gaga reviews. Maybe it was the hype but reason I am commenting is 2 things.
I saw it at Cinepolis Bannerghata Rd in Bangalore and I thought I saw at least 4-5 people in the audience who could have been BRangan fans/visitors to this blog. The stereotype is coz a) some of them had come alone for a 1245 pm show (like me which is how I prefer savouring the bestest of movies picking an uncommon hall n timing to avoid the mass crowds) & b) there was one couple who went thru the whole range of emotions independently throughout the 1st half, chatted incessantly during the break amongst themselves and were talking deep stuff n then went back to their own world for the 2nd half. Was it any of you regulars?
Btw, the screen I saw it in had subtitles and boy, was it fun???? It wasn’t a literal translation at all & many a time it was a wonderful, weird, whacko interpretive line…almost as if the sub titlist (Latha Karthikeyan?) was having a ball !!! Well worth watching the movie just for her efforts!! If only I’d had as much fun.
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Rad Mahalikudi
March 29, 2019
Hi BR, happy to see you call out Magnolia in your review. Same movie ran across my mind as I watched Super Deluxe. Intercut of highly emotional multiple threads and the answer from the sky coincidence. Agree with you on the disorienting part. I liked the way the threads start on a high, takes a nasty turn, go on an emotional roller coaster ride before coming to closure. Like you mentioned this is something completely new for Kollywood universe. Alien in the midst of Tamil movies!!
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Sai Ashwin
March 29, 2019
@Siva BR gave Ee.Ma.Yau , Mayaanadhi and C/o Kancharapalem also 4 stars, and if you search harder you might even find more.
I will admit that I had a few problems with the film such as the whole other-worldly aspect, no good inter-connection between characters(Kumararaja said its not an anthology but it is), it gets a little boring near the end with all the philosophical ramblings and scenes which felt like the director was shouting “SEE HOW PROGRESSIVE I AM”.
BUT, the good parts like the cinematography,shot composition,characters,sound design,music,editing and so on and so on outweigh the bad.
So I hope the film does well at the Box Office, at least so that I do not have to wait another 8 years to watch Kumararaja’s next film.
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Rad Mahalikudi
March 29, 2019
I was happy to see my favourite maverick director Karnan’s name as director for the movie “Secrets of life”!!
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therag
March 29, 2019
The philosophizing bit was like 5 minutes in the end? And keep in mind, this was just a clear statement of the film’s thesis/theme and not sermonising. Even Aruvi had that extra-long sad ending. Super Deluxe OTOH is just pure entertainment start to finish.
SuperDeluxe is that rare Tamil film that earns its right to deliver a message. The message is not delivered at inopportune moments spread throughout the film, but right at the end after all the threads have been explained. The film effectively ends right before the philosophizing starts: the DIng-Ding moment for Shilpa-Raasukutti, the broken TV disposed by the teenagers and the TV falling on the inspector.
Considering how risky the narrative is, and the fact that we had an alien on screen a few minutes back, a little explanation in the end is not at all unwarranted.
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vijay vasan
March 29, 2019
This one is turning out to be an over-appreciated movie. Here are the problems I had with the movie:
The 4 stories were tonally inconsistent between each other and had to shift in tones to get connected to the other – Shilpa’s story had to shift in the subway to fit into Arputham’s, Gaaji and the boys’ story had to shift completely in the beginning from Leela’s to get spawned into their own story, Vaembu’s story abruptly shifted and ended through Gaaji and boys’ story.
The entire timeline of the 4 stories were so confusing – If all the stories happened within a single day, was Berlin following around Vaembu and blackmailing them or was he harassing Shilpa and getting cursed by her? There was no other indication in the movie of a day break either.
The all-giving alien in the end was so non-satisfying that even Annamalai’s councillor got justified in my head.
The unnecessary sermon by the alien/narrator in the end
Arputham’s vain prayers and Berlin’s irritating taunts could’ve definitely been shortened – the length of those prayers and taunts vs. the amount of gratification given by ending them was so disproportionate.
Gaaji and the boys going out to poison a random guy at Idi Amin’s direction could’ve easily been done away with and still the fat boy would’ve broken a second TV at Idi Amin’s house.
There are many more aspects in this movie like lighting, framing, story writing, editing (NOT), use of pop culture references, Yuvan’s BGM (the restrain in it as well), Samantha/ Fahaadh/ Bucks/ Rasukutty’s acting, Vijay Sethupathy’s guts in choosing scripts, quirkiness, etc. that should be appreciated, but the above points spoiled it for me.
PS: I hate subtitles which bring in their own flavor to the scenes. It is as distracting as a drunk loser in the audience passing smart ass comments.
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brangan
March 29, 2019
The messages of Cheran and Samuthirakani are the level of “Be a good child and eat your vegetables.”
What’s in this movie is not a “message” at all. It’s a summing up — and even this “summing up” is deflated of importance by having it delivered by a man in a “matter movie”
There’s a UNIVERSE of tonal, functional difference in these two situations.
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Isai
March 29, 2019
BR, you are only talking about the ‘matter movie man’ at the end. But before that the alien talks about how everything is the same. And right from the beginning of the movie, Fahadh lectures about caste, electricity, traffic signal etc. This from a man who has just learnt that a stranger had died in his bed while having sex with his wife. Do you think it is realistic for him to correlate gangsta speak ‘pothu-thalradhu’ with his wife’s actions (that too so soon)?
I remember you telling about how ‘golf course’ dialog in Kaala looks more like the director’s research rather than a natural dialogue. I agree. But if you use the same logic here, nearly 25% of the dialogues (mainly Faasil, Sam and Mysskin’s) are only director’s views/philosophies. They don’t move the story or add depth to the character. (unlike Ramya Krishnan or VJS son’s dialogues).
I found this movie to be bit unrealistic right from the opening scene. Why would someone who is having an affair inside her house, leave a bedroom window open? Does Samantha even have a job? (or does the fact that she is progressive/cool enough to have an affair makes such questions irrelevant?) Why did her parents force her to marry a struggling actor Mugilan instead of her car owning friend? Which SI comes twice to your house for passport verification, that too in mufti? Why would Shilpa agree to that nauseating scene with the SI (after all it was her son and she had already met her family; what serious harm could a police verification do?) And what is the relevance of the title to this story?
Super Deluxe bus’nu nenachu pona namma ‘Ultra deluxe’ bus madiri irukku. 😥
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Baldmonk
March 29, 2019
@vijay vasan: As far as I have understood , all the stories dont happen on a single day. Somewhere in the second half, Arputham says ” Nethikk enna nadanthath theriyumaa…”,explaining about his encounter with Shilpa. Also, when Shilpa enters the flea market( the opening shot in the trailer), we encounter that “Kadala podara” guy, whom the gang of boys were supposed to kill. Also, (this might be wrong!!), immediately after that when Shilpa moves on to the adjacent room, you could see a group of men. A person among them resembled that dead body( Samantha’s ex).
I need to watch SD once again to connect some dots… 🙂
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 29, 2019
Vijay Vasan: I hate subtitles which bring in their own flavor to the scenes. It is as distracting as a drunk loser in the audience passing smart ass comments.
This I noticed with Sacred Games also, perhaps they are making it more colourful for the international audience.
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krishna prasad
March 29, 2019
My tastes are similar to BR’s but for me, this one was quirky for sure but nothing extraordinary. Felt it was too slow without necessarily adding any value to the slowness. A decent movie at the best. Mayb the trailer and review built up my expectations.
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Sai Ashwin
March 29, 2019
@Vijay Vasan
Arputham tells Ramaswamy that he met Shilpa yesterday and at the end Leela sees Mugil and Vaembu walking on the road.
So, that clears the timeline of the events with lets say Shilpa’s timeline is on day 1 and the rest of the events happen on day 2.
I do agree its a bit confusing but the more puzzling aspect was Berlin following Vaembu and Mugil. There is a scene where he enquires about Mugil and if the car was his or not. But a little more follow through would have been good. I hate it when there is a scene that is happening and at the end only we see someone observing everything that happens in the scene. Its just so lazy.
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edwardssammy
March 29, 2019
@Jupe, regarding the subtitles, Aaranya Kaandam too had similarly wacky original subtitles. My favourite one being the one where Gajapati’s reply of ‘Prabhu’ and ‘Khushbu’ to the jyotishi trying to predict ‘poo’ was subtitled as ‘Andy Flower’ and ‘Grant Flower’, the Zimbabwean cricketing superstars of the 90s.
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jaga_jaga
March 29, 2019
I thought I understood most aspects of this movie. What is with that Alien part?? I dont understand that scene at all! Can someone please explain me that. Or are the kids on drugs or something and halluconating? Or is the Director telling – here in the midst of all the shit. Here is some Alien thing thrown in also?
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TamilThanos
March 30, 2019
I would say I was just whelmed by the movie initially after watching it. But it starts growing on you once you start wondering about all the philosophies and easter eggs. I found the second half to be a bit too random initially but then that is exactly the point, isn’t it? That life is just random and everyone has to be appreciative of whatever comes their way.
There is just so much to consume in every damn scene. The movie begins like Aaranya Kandam with a couple having sex. While the former one had Jackie Shroff not being able to perform on top of a woman, the roles are sweetly interchanged in this movie? A woman on top of a man who couldn’t perform? Dhanasekaran’s religion has its own bible that is titled “Anjathey Nambu”. Also, when the kids are carrying the brand new TV into the home, one of them goes on ranting about his abusive father. The packaging box in the frame reads “Flying Monkeys”. Now fasten your seatbelts folks – Wikipedia states that “Flying monkeys is a phrase used in popular psychology mainly in the context of narcissistic abuse(parent to child abuses)”.
I am really glad Tamil Cinema is in a position to give traction to this film which would have majestically bombed had it released five years ago. I simply hope Vijay Sethupathi inspires a whole new generation of actors who want to be more than “mass” heroes. Man, I cannot think of any other South Indian actor who has the balls to play Shilpa.
Ps: Kindly excuse typos and punctuations as I am typing this from a mobile phone.
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Anand Meenakshi Sundaram
March 30, 2019
Super Deluxe keeps juggling with it’s genre and delivers an insightful philosophy that connects everything from ants to aliens.It is an epic that keep on mocking at the morality of our contemporary society.
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Anuja Chandramouli
March 30, 2019
I loved the things I loved about Super Deluxe and hated the things I hated about it unlike Aaranya Kandam which I loved from top to toe. Some epic performances courtesy Faahadh, VJS, Ramya Krishnan, and the kids, the deliciously dark humor which had me clutching my sides and the succulence of the anthology style narrative deserve all the love in the world. I adored the philosophy and funky fundas when it was casually slipped in.
There were problems though. I always get suspicious of people who wear their progressiveness like a badge of honor though it would seem to appear that the wanton wokeness is an effective armour against negative reviews from otherwise trigger happy critics. Kumararaja seems to have taken an earnest shot at being tolerant and non – judgemental but, but, and a big ol’ but… The adulterous wife is not exactly torn apart by remorse. So far so good. And yet when her husband and a vile cop take it in turns to slut shame her, it feels like this character is being deliberately brutalized for a misdemeanor. If that were not bad enough she is blackmailed into agreeing to provide sexual favours and her husband tries to talk her into it. That is just plain ugly! Sure she gets a happy ending but her punishment for being guilty of adultery feels gritty and all too real while the manufactured happily ever after feels like the director was blowing fairy dust at the camera while playing at being an ungainly and unconvincing fairy Godmother.
Ditto Shilpa. Her excruciating ordeal at the police station again makes it clear that she is being punished for her ‘transgressions’ and selfishness for abandoning the sweet wife and precious son. Then there is the ‘confession’ where Arputham informs her that there can be no forgiveness for the likes of her and the nature of her crime is so appalling and grotesque the audience has no choice but to agree. Cut to an abrupt and absurd happy ending which is really hard to buy unlike her violation. Even when Shilpa blows up like a volcano she is less an avenging Goddess and more of a much loathed, current jailbird who launched a thousand memes with her ‘saabam’ at a beloved leader’s samadhi.
Ditto Leela… Sure she gets some superb lines pertaining to teddy bears, Goddesses and whores but she does not escape her ‘wrongdoing’ either. Her son calls her a whore and tries to off her. Even worse, she lives in a hovel with barely a buck to her name let alone the funds needed to save her son. But why worry when the faux tooth fairy is just around the corner?
And BR, we can split hairs all we want about tonal, functional differences but sermonizing/summing up is irritating whether it is Cheran, Samuthirakani or Kumararaja simply because it has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer driving home the message which you usually deplore.
As for the damn alien, it is just crap wrapped in arty, farty gauze. And yet, there was a farting corpse and so many such redemptive moments in the midst of the self – indulgent muck and pseudo intellectual jerking off. So yeah, I loved the movie every bit as much as I hated it.
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Ruminating Aesthete
March 30, 2019
The first half of the film was a great experience. Probably it was the best cinematic experience that I had in Tamil for sometime. However something about the second half was amiss.
It could be the more of tell than show in the 2nd half screenplay.
The casting of the laughing villain, a better actor could’ve added depth to the character. (Think Christoph Waltz).
At times the dialogues are excessive and there is way too much exposition towards the end. One argument could be that rules were broken for a new kind of cinema. As u see in some of QT’s films some scenes are dialogue intensive yet the dialogues are just layers.
Somehow the storylines did not resolve for me organically.
I also felt the melodrama and sentimentality of certain scenes in the second half did not feel appropriate.
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Selva Ganapathy V
March 30, 2019
BR: I would have to respectfully disagree with you about “not a message at all part”. I was swayed by the brilliance in craft just like most people on my first watch. But having watched it a second time, knowing the pay offs, I would even go on to say almost a third of the movie is nothing but “messages”. He just took the effort to veil it with excuses.
Mugil – Rant about caste, rant about democracy, rant about banks, rant about privacy
His excuse – Aspiring politician
Shilpa – Using female toilets, lecture about transgender psychology, pointing out insecurities of public when someone is different
Excuse – He owes these explanations to son
Alien and the life guru- Science above all, patterns, religion and meaning are just human constructs. These aren’t even brave or bold statements. They’re at least 200 years old. And it is kind of hypocritical of a filmmaker telling moral tales to call other moral tales meaningless. Why add to the meaninglessness then?
Excuse – I have a fun ending to compensate for this rant
Leela’s lecture about pornstars, the lady at the CD store, even the gangster had something to say about respecting food
These are some that didn’t need an excuse
These aren’t summations of what goes on in the world within the film. These are generalised opinions about the society. That is what makes them “messages”
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Mank fan
March 30, 2019
My word BR, this is some review. Sort of expected kumaraja to hit the ball out of the park, seems like this is a much denser film compared to his first one. Can’t wait to watch the film now.
PS – The transformation is now complete, looks like u’ve turned into a full fledged sethupathy fan.
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vandana
March 30, 2019
BR, I am surprised you didn’t mention anything about Fahadh’s performance
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Ramachandran
March 30, 2019
That thavil and nadaswaram version of the Star Wars theme! That was the moment I I went from agnostic to believer. Surreal to experience what Yuvan is capable of when challenged.
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brangan
March 30, 2019
Anuja: I hav addressed this point in my review. The point is NOT that they are punished. The point is that the PUNISHER ends up dead. That is what ties up the “no God” theories etc.
As for the messages, Mugil’s rants — say — are easy to ignore as a part of his persona. And the philosophies at the end were more like the voicevers in a noir film. But even if you don’t want to be that generous, there is SO MUCH ELSE going on in the movie that it’s easy to brush aside. Unlike the Other message movies where the messages are the results of scenes contructed to give you a moral nudge.
I feel having the “matter doctor” deliver the philosophy is what makes the difference. YMMV of course.
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jaga_jaga
March 30, 2019
@BR:
Can you kindly explain the alien scene to me? Does it happen as part of the movie? Or some hallucination of those boys?
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Selva Ganapathy V
March 30, 2019
Walking out of the theatre I overheard a group of friends talking about the movie. One guy went “ Kadaisiya ennadhaanda solla varaaru?” and another replied “ Edhuvume thappu kedayaadhaan da”.
Which is not far away from a direct quote from the end of the movie. When filmmakers make such vague claims about questions that have daunted us since our inception, like existence of morality, it’s hard not to call them preachy.
I’m all for artists exploring the big questions. Vikram vedha did it really well in my opinion. It managed to shake our moral code by placing us in a gangster’s shoe. And it also left the question open for audience to ponder.
Even films that push this idea to the extreme like Kim ki duk’s human time space and human and lars Von trier’s House that jack built (Just picking examples from last year), don’t make any concrete claims. They take the audience to the darkest places and leave us there to figure out for ourselves.
But in this case, the filmmaker does not even push the idea far. I mean none of it’s lead characters even actually “pottu thallify” anybody. Everybody is happy at the end and the only conventionally bad guy in the film dies. To name this film “Aneedhi kadhaigal” would have been absurd. It would have been based on the assumption that being an adulterer or a transgender person or a porn actor by itself is considered immoral. At a time when a culturally conservative country like India accepts sunny leone as a mainstream actress and casual sex is pop culture, I don’t think he’s pushing people into a moral dilemma. And then to go on a conclude the movie with claims about morality just seems desperate.
I love the direction Tamil filmmakers are headed. It’s refreshing to see so much new content. But we do need to help them stay on track and not become too over the top.
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SelvaGanapathyV
March 30, 2019
I guess am coming off a little harsh on the film.
I loved the film for its performances and craft.
But we need to be able to separate the craft from content right?
From how engaging and entertaining the film was to what the film is talking about.
I’m just saying let’s always have the bar higher for filmmakers to reach.
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SelvaGanapathyV
March 30, 2019
I completely agree with the review and the 4 star rating. But we do need to talk about the fifth star at some point right. From just comparing Tamil films to earlier Tamil films to comparing them with the best films of the world.
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brangan
March 30, 2019
Mank fan: I have always liked VS. It’s not like I am a recent convert. Some lines from earlier reviews:
Soodhu Kavvum: Vijay Sethupathi, the poster boy of this cinema, was welcomed in his first scene with cheers and claps usually reserved for mass heroes making their entry. It’s the sweetest sound I’ve heard in years.
But he is not a consistently affecting performer, at least for me. There are many films I’ve found him sleepwalking through. From his interview, it appears he puts in effort every time, but perhaps the effort doesn’t always translate?
But he is one of the good ones, and I have felt that right from when he started out.
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Sai Ashwin
March 30, 2019
@brangan
Could you ask for the screenplay of Super Deluxe and share it on Film Companion like Aaranya Kaandam, of course after a few months when the film is no longer running.
Even though I dont understand Tamil very well, the screenplay of Aaranya Kaandam was fun to read and helpful for aspiring filmmakers.
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shaviswa
March 30, 2019
“That is what ties up the “no God” theories etc.”
Oh….another of those atheistic, arivu jeevi films? Thanks – then I will have to keep a safe distance. We have had enough such sermonizing – for lack of a better word – from ulaganayagan. We don’t need more arivu jeevis in Tamil films.
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Anuja Chandramouli
March 30, 2019
BR: “The point is NOT that they are punished. The point is that the PUNISHER ends up dead. That is what ties up the “no God” theories etc.”
And my point is that the punishment feels organic and it is hard – hitting realism that has the impact of a fist to the jaw whereas the punisher ending up dead is farcical and absurd. Hence while the punishment has emotional heft that makes you quake in your seat, the fate of the punisher is not satisfying and you feel vaguely cheated. Even with Leena, unapologetic though she is and assured about her choices the fact that the director spent a major chunk of her arc delving into the wretchedness of her existence is more telling… Still Kumararaja is one of my fave filmmakers and it is why I have held him to ridiculously high standards. Looking forward to watching SD again.
‘I feel having the “matter doctor” deliver the philosophy is what makes the difference.’
How dare you Sir? Some of us take matter and all matters related to matter very seriously indeed. 😉
“YMMV of course.”
Agreed.
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harish ram
March 30, 2019
Super Deluxe was clearly a mixed experience for me; part great, part underwhelming. Don’t know whether I have a solid answer yet. But on the internet, this film is being portrayed as the best film in tamil cinema. So I will quietly drop some of the issues that marred my viewing experiences. This doesn’t denounce the laurels the movie is receiving. I agree with most of them.
While watching Super Deluxe, amongst the countless thoughts swirling my head, one thought occupied my mind predominantly. It wasn’t the seamless performance of Vijay Sethupathi or that of Fahad Fazil. It wasn’t the demonic performance of Bagavathi Perumal, who makes me ponder through his no holds bar, yet subtle performance in this film, whether this is how Kamal would have performed Red Chitti in Enthiran. It wasn’t the wacky directions and unexpected/ unexplored characters the movie was showcasing. The question was more fundamental: it was about the pacing of the film.
Every scene in the film is painstakingly slow. By slow, what I mean is that after the crux of the information and emotion is conveyed, the scene goes on and on. The worst one was Myskkin’s stoned revelation scene. Is it fear or apprehension which led TK to decide this pace for the movie? For unknown reasons (at least unknown to me), a marvellous debut by TK didn’t mint gold at the box-office. Did TK think the pace of narration in Aranya Kandam was the culprit? We may never know. But I am shocked to see that his indulgences to extract the last drop of nectar from each scene has led to this outcome in Super Deluxe. As an outsider, if I was shown individual scenes from this film, I would have been glob struck by the depth of work. But as a complete film, I can’t say the same. That’s because of how we subconsciously consume content. In short, it has to do with the theory of relativity. If we are watching only a scene, our mind is tuned to expect the end pretty soon. Hence, the indulgences in showcasing the emotions through body language and creating multiple points of focus will look mouthwatering for a cinema connoisseur. But if that same strategy is used for a 3hrs film, it becomes restless. Game of Thrones which has the same pacing issue smartly solved this age-old problem by ending on a high in most of the episodes. Thus the satisfaction overrides the snail-paced screenplay. Here, the climatic wacky idea (Nalan Kumarasamy) doesn’t translate well on screen to deliver that expected high. Incidentally, another Nalan Kumarasamy screenplay (Mayavan) faced the same problem. Could it be that the only person who could direct a Nalan’s screenplay is Nalan? If you think otherwise, I urge you to look at Nalan’s short film, Thurumbilum Errupar to understand why he was brought in to writing this portion and what Nalan is capable of.
This reminds me of another problem with the movie: it spoon feeds many of the twists. Again, the stoned revelation by Mysskin and that which happens to the boy needed better filmmaking and certainly fewer dialogues. When Mysskin utters, ‘do you know what happened the other day’ to narrate a flashback, I facepalmed at the tackiness of the narrative. It felt as if the director got into the characters’ body to explain to us why things are going bizarre. Sorry, TK you don’t have to breathe in our ears. We are perfectly capable of understanding your ideas.
Speaking of dialogues, the weakest ones are allocated for Fahad & Samantha during their car journey. The motive behind the last journey (pun intended) was to create an arc where two people understand each other when placed in an extraordinary situation. Unfortunately, this romantic idea becomes a cliché since lines are aimed at completing arc and not to speak the mind of the characters. It also reminded me of the ineffective climatic car journey in OK Kanmani which suffered from the same problem. There is another reason for saying the dialogues during the car journey are the weakest in the film. It’s because the couple also gets the best dialogues of the film when they are in their home. The theatre went down in laughter and claps for every quibble of Fahad’s. The icing on the cake was Fahad’s explanation as to why he speaks about the system when angry. For a director who is so astute in perfecting the periphery, I was surprised he went for cliché in the core arc of the couple. The religious angle too suffers due to the same problem, especially if one is exposed to a healthy dose of Kamal’s filmography.
On the whole, while I was underwhelmed keeping Aranya Kandam as a benchmark, by other Tamil directors’ standards, Super Deluxe is certainly a class above.
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Pazhaniappan
March 30, 2019
I didn’t have a problem with the tonality of the film – it was quite impressive and the spillovers from one storyline to another was absorbing. But except for a couple of scenes (including the one you mention where that boy was consumed with rage – the whole sequence was beautifully shot), this film is horribly staged.
the writing is so over-the-top, bungling, clumsy, amateurish, and just incompetent.
Of course, you are free to call this film “unique,” “insanely detailed,” “blessedly amoral,” that is “as epic as it is intimate.”
But do realize that using such terms to describe a cultural product in a film/literary milieu that had produced works ranging from Iruvar to Pudhupettai to Onayum Aatukuttiyum to Visaaranai (in the case of films) or from G.Nagarajan’s “Naalay Matroru Naalae”, Aadhavan’s “Kaagidha Malargal,” Asokamitran’s 18th parallel to the more recent Pa. Venkatesan’s “Bhagirathiyin Madhiyam” is an unfortunate insult made out of sheer ignorance about the multi-layered writing and literary achievements made within TN over the past three decades.
This pseudo-philosophical rambling-BS of a film is what you’d call “blessedly amoral,” that is “as epic as it is intimate,” then I just can’t help but wonder if Indian film critics should be forced to undergo an elaborate remedial education on literature and aesthetic sensibility. Pauline Kael had that sensibility, so did Alexander Mackendrick. And even Roger Ebert did
for e.g. his review of La meglio gioventù https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-best-of-youth-2005
They understood that film language & grammar is different from literary style & grammar, but they were also well aware that underlying both these art forms is a more fundamental aesthetic sensibility – and therefore, they didn’t mask their ignorance through inane statements such as “film is different from literature etc etc.” They slogged their ass off and read more literature, went to multiple galleries, and developed their own aesthetic sensibilities – not just through watching a gazillion films with no other points of reference.
Therefore, their reviews did not sound like some self-referential circus, where only prior films are used to make sense of/evaluate a current film. Instead, their scale and writing was a lot more nuanced and grounded in the broader art/literary history – a far complex tapestry that was sublime and a joy to read. But more than that, such reviews showed some respect and awareness about the historical achievements – both literature and filmmaking – of a milieu – something that is lacking in tamil/indian film criticism.
So BR-please, you are writing about tamil films, so do make an attempt to read more (or at least learn second-hand) about tamil literature (beyond Sujatha). You’ll then perhaps understand the fundamental flaw in the writing of this film.
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jaga_jaga
March 30, 2019
And another question I have is, why is this film titled “super deluxe”. What does that mean in the context of this film?
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shaviswa
March 30, 2019
Also, heard that the movie has too many vulgar scenes and dialogues. This article also talks about the same:
https://tamil.filmibeat.com/news/is-super-duluxe-a-sadist-movie-058916.html
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Ruminating Aesthete
March 30, 2019
Hi BR do u think the excessive exposition towards the end and the too much of tell than show in the second half was a conscious stylistic choice. If so did that choice really deliver the freshness and add layers as intended.
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Ruminating Aesthete
March 30, 2019
I really preferred the subtle way in which the theme and subtext was hinted at in Aranya Kaandam and in the first half of this film.
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Ruminating Aesthete
March 30, 2019
I even felt the characters we meet in the first half were well rounded. But towards the end the laughing subinspector or the matter doctor kind of look flat, moreover cliches start to creep in. If a better actor had played the police guy, he could’ve created a christoph waltz like feel for that character. However the one scene I shall never forget is the rope scene, i felt it was probably VS’s best.
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murugavel
March 30, 2019
Hi,
I read and found your review on super deluxe interesting, especially the way you observe and dissect the movie. but there are also other things that came across my mind while watching the movie, in terms how this movie visually conveys so many things
How inventively they use the staircases as tool for creating perspective lines(eg scenes where fahad climbing the stairs) and also use it as mise e scene ( ramya krishnan looking down from top of stairs).
using architecture to convey characters interior thoughts.( especially the scene where vijay sethupathi walking with his son and in the background we see demolished building)
Visual metaphors ( mysskin coming down the subway staircase with background as whitelight and sethupathi coming to meet him from dark, soon they have conversation and when realisation kicks in we see the two of them switch the back grounds and finally leading sethupathi to go up the subway staircase with white light hitting him from front, this scene happens towards the third act of the movie.)
Amazing to see they use match cuts or tonal montages to flow seamlessly from one plot to an another.
180 degree rule , and they use planes to switch to view another direction.
There are so many others, i have seen lot of movies and find it rarely a movie from tamil cinema doing this. This proves Thiagarajan Kumararaja prowess in visual story telling.
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murugavel
March 30, 2019
BR what did you make of a dead body sitting in back seat of a car and two other characters sitting in the front and a KEY hanging from the rear view mirror, i knew this as visual metaphor, but what does it convey ?
shall we take it as a key to open up their realistionship, which was closed before.
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murugavel
March 30, 2019
They show so many shots using the car as tools to compose frame within frame composition,(scenes involving samantha , cop and fahad ) conveys so many stuff , are they framed together as one window or individually in two separate window with the cop in between them(like conveying the cop invading the space between them in their life).There are also scenes involving the auto driver, ramya krishnan and other people are trying to save her son , scene where myskkin was also there and nearby neighbours watching the incident like a circus from the balcony of a housing board. i
These scenes show how proficient the director is in control of his craft.
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murugavel
March 30, 2019
all these scenes are there ,but sometimes i cant make a finger out of it ,what it conveys?
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doctorhari
March 30, 2019
When I came across the ‘Oru naal, oru aal malai paathaiyila thaniya…’ story in the trailer, I felt intrigued – as this is a story we come across in Buddhist/Vedantic texts as a metaphor for the pleasures we experience in life.
Kumararaja uses the movie to convey a similar theme. Life itself is the Super Deluxe movie we are a part of, he says. ‘Dance to the music of life till you are alive in this world’ he tells us, sending us off, appropriately, with Bappi Lahari’s song. All the offbeat, affecting tales he tells beautifully arrive at that common theme at the end. (Only difference – TK’s nirvana seems to also lie in scene padam).
The Vijay Sethupathi part in this movie was pure gold. I was left simply astounded at VS’s performance which is, for me, right up there with the most courageous performances we have ever seen by a mainstream hero in Indian cinema.
A few minor flaws – some scenes (Mysskin’s and Bagavathi perumal’s) felt a bit stretched in the second half. And in the final part, that sex doctor on screen, Ramya Krishnan, that alien, all getting into saintly mode giving gyaan to the audience felt a bit too much. When the stories have already led us to this point, a brief mention would have suffice, I felt. But again, that was a minor niggle.
The use of background music and the songs alone would require at least two viewings to process, I think.
All one can tell TK is, may the Bappi Lahiri music never stop playing in your head!
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RAmesh
March 30, 2019
What was the directory trying to convey through that alien? I didn’t get that..Can anybody explain
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brangan
March 30, 2019
jaga_jaga: My reading is along these lines. Each of the three stories has an “alien”, an outsider. In Shilpa’s story, she is the alien/outsider — the way Jothi gazes at her while she is undressing is as though she’s had an other-world visitation. In Fahadh’s story, the corpse is alien — a dead man in the world of the living, a thing that does not belong in this world of Fahadh and Samantha. And in the story of the boys, we get a literal alien.
Why? Then again, why not? Like the ants, like the centipede, here is another “inhuman” creature that’s been around us for millennia. Why do we assume we are the highest beings on this planet? For all we know, there may be higher beings.
Remember how all-inclusive this alien ia. She even includes inanimate objects as part of her speech. So yes, for me, she was not “special” — just as inclusive as the transwoman was, or the corpse was. A companion on life’s journey for a while.
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vijay vasan
March 30, 2019
Baldmonk & sai Ashwin – I had to talk out the chronological order of events in the movie with my wife to establish the timeline. I realized late y’day that it’s a movie happening over two days because of one of the major factors – Shilpa’s story doesn’t affect any if the other 3 stories except creating a doubt in Arputham’s mind about his self founded religion. In retrospect, all the 4 stories don’t intertwine with each other at all. 1 or 2 of the 4 stories merely graze against each other and that’s why I feel the movie would’ve been equally satisfying as an anthology with common plot threads. Would it have had the same impact – I don’t know.
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jaga_jaga
March 30, 2019
@BR: Thanks for the explanation!
So, it did happen, the scene is not the kids hallucinating.
And the need for it in the context of the movie is some kind of an anti-speciesism. That, we are not central to the universe.
And the Director is OK even if for some audience, this alien part was not realistic (using the word “realistic” in a literal sense) and included an element of fantasy, while all the other portions featured instances which were definitely plausible (but highly unlikely) in real life, is it?
I was completely knocked off (in a negative way) with that alien scene alone. Barring that, I found everything else to be believable. All of that could happen in real life. And portrayed immaculately here – coincidences, connections, chutzpah, utter randomness, everything was fine. But again believable.
That alien part alone threw me off, and I found it completely jarring, and this concoction of fantasy with reality did not work for me.
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Dinesh Ravi
March 30, 2019
@BR what do you make of the key that was hanging in the jeep and was also prominently featured in the poster??
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jaga_jaga
March 30, 2019
But again, like you explained, the Director’s opinion is perhaps that, why can’t aliens also be part of our reality? Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
I get the philosophy now, I guess.
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Gokulakrishnan Ravikularaman
March 30, 2019
The nadaswaram music that plays just before the intermission point at the gangster’s place when he is chasing the boy is cover version of waltz suite no.2 of shostakovich. Do you think it is just to add another hilarious element to the scene or is it a small ode to Stanley Kubrick as it is used predominantly in eyes shut wide?
Just kumararaja stuffs. Apart from having the intention behind the things even the mere thought that there could be definitely a meaning and conviction behind why he did that why this trying to find subtext is just I would say cult in itself. These are the stuffs i associated mainly with kamal and balachandar.
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Ramesh
March 30, 2019
@BR , I also did not get why FAhad is helping Samantha in getting rid of the corpse when it is not a murder and also when Samantha is being honest about the episode. Especially when they are not in good terms , why would any guy want to put up with such a situation? He could have easily walked away. Is shame the only reason? Isn’t dealing with shame a lot easier than dealing with this ordeal?
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Sai Ashwin
March 30, 2019
@jaga_jaga
I too agree with you, even though BR’s explanation gave some closure. I think the film should have built it up better to reveal such a crazy thing so that the audience dont feel its jarring. You know some foreshadowing would have been good (not that TV stuff) with the actual characters. Again maybe i am an idiot who didnt understand the film fully and need to watch it again or I guess expectations were unreasonably high.
@harish ram
What are you talking about? The film has mixed reviews. Its a highly polarizing film even within its two halves(with majority preferring the first half). Conservatives hate it due to its themes and adult or lets say “vulgar” content. Its a very niche set of people who are championing it and they are mostly film buffs.
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Akash Balakrishnan
March 30, 2019
The reason that whole alien thing didn’t break the movie for me was that it was not an essential part of the boys’ resolution. In hindsight, one could clearly see that the boys already resolved their conflict once they got past the sleeping man. The rest is just an extension of that scene which really ties with randomness and the overarching philosophy of the movie. I wondered about the alien choosing Gaaji. Maybe he saw things simply and in primitive, existential terms ? Like when he didn’t mind getting hit for failing the assignment. Like when he didn’t give a shit about Leela being on the film. When he completes what he intended to do that day. And his answer, “Yes. Naan already intha padam paathuten”. Just an absurd line. Maybe because he is just another human.Also, loved the lack of seriousness at the end of the doctor’s monologue. Felt like a casual and neutral commentary on cinema(I first thought that super deluxe was the name of that matter padam) not just being an art but also a form of entertainment. Like like the basis of storytelling. Ties in well with the simply BEING nature of the movie.
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Bharath Vijayakumar
March 30, 2019
Saw a post on FB in Tamil. Sharing the link here . Heavy spoiler alert!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2260070740680696&id=100000333770088
My translation of the post in the above link
The tiger, snake and the bottomless pit mentioned in the trailer are nothing but the unnecessary constraints/norms created by us the humans.If you care a damn about these, then life is akin to tasting the drop of honey is what SUPER DELUXE is in a nutshell. If you remove the societal construed norms from all the four tracks of the film, there is no actual crisis in any of them. Only when the characters try to overcome or deal with the imaginary crises do they give rise to actual problems.
Vembu/Samantha (who is now married to Mugil/ Fahadh) has sex with her boyfriend from college days and the guy ends up dead during the ‘act’. That this was not a murder could have been easily proved through a post mortem. What prevents them from taking this straight route is the fear of society and in trying to cover up it only puts Vembu in a situation where she is being forced to have non-consensual sex (bordering on rape) with a blackmailing stranger. How is this in anyway better than your neighbours commenting that you slept outside marriage?
The problem with Arputham/Mysskin is that he creates a belief system for himself based on an event that happened to him long ago and holds on to it tightly without any rationale. I have a personal experience on these lines. My father attempted suicide after a series of failures and was saved by a priest. My father converted to Christianity 15 years back but his problems have not ended. But when questioned now he says that these are God’s ways of testing his trust on HIM. He would often get out from the house saying that ‘Satan’ resides there. For my mother her religion is very important. Both my parents cannot digest the fact that their partner follows a different faith. Even after 15 years this problem continues. Both have lost their peace in giving importance to something that should actually mean nothing. I married a christian girl 10 years ago and we haven’t had any conflicts with respect to religion between us because we care a damn for it. Life is honey for us.
In the Manikam/Shilpa(Vijay Sethupathy) track the last scene is the solution. In hindsight there was no problem in the first place for a solution to be identified. The only thing that the child wanted was that his father should ring the door bell and he should come out and hug him/her. The gender of his father is immaterial to him. This should have happened naturally in the beginning itself. But why isn’t it happening? Why do people give more importance to norms than what is right?
As Leela/Ramya Krishnan says, “For 4 lakh consumers to view porn there need to be 4 persons to act in it”. Who are the ones that need to be ashamed? Or is there anything here to be ashamed at all?
What is the actual problem?
RELIGION is UNNECESSARY
The norms bestowed upon WOMEN in the name of PURITY are UNNECESSARY
The general attitude of looking at the THIRD GENDER DIFFERENTLY is UNNECESSARY
There are numerous other UNNECESSARIES in this world that we keep fighting for and lose our PEACE.
LIFE keeps dropping HONEY on us. It is left to us if we want to taste it or keep fighting for irrelevant things
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Mank fan
March 31, 2019
Absoletuly agree with you BR, Super Deluxe is a far richer, denser, loftier film compared to AK. Just the sheer audacity and craft on display left me gobsmacked – framing, composition (Shilpa and Rasukutty strolling across a wall plastered with film posters in the background), staging, performances (VJS, samantha, fahadh) and the fantastic interludes of music.
Happened to accidentally see the film with Vikram Aditya Motwane (was seated right next to me) and I think he was super impressed with the film.
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Sri
March 31, 2019
“And on the same wall, we see the poster of a film whose subject is life and its mysteries.”
I watched the movie twice, and yet I couldn’t spot the movie poster you are referring to. Could you please fill this in for me? Thanks.
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Manikandan V
March 31, 2019
@jaga_jaga @BR
For me movie is a travel from self pity to Oneness of all(Advaita), Four purusharthas namely Kama,artha,dharma & moksha are fitted against Shilpa,Dhanasekar,Mugil & Thooyavan(kaaji) respectively. Traditionally adolescence is attributed to Kama, youth to artha, middle aged to dharma & old age to moksha. Director has cleverly shuffled the end goals , adolescent thooyavan getting the bliss of moksha, youthful mugil ranting about dharma , middle aged shilpa getting the love she longed for & Elderly dhanasekar getting the wealth. This shuffling is directors s way of questioning the Order or Tradition on the Whole
Further , there are numerous acts which happens twice 1)Mugil & Vembu Visit the rail track twice, 2) Berlin’s Standoff with Shilpa twice in Police Station 3) Boys gang visit Settu house twice 4) Dhanam comes back to his Sabha twice 5) Shilpa deciding to leave again but stopped,6) plane seen through the roof, this makes a curious case of repeatedness of events possibly hinting at rebirth or second chance
Further, there are various clues in the background as the movie moves on indicating for things about to happen (Vazhvin Ragasiyam & Alien movie posters) a touchy crafty way of hinting at the role of Intuition
Further, most touchy of them all is how Thooyavan is split into Two indicating the first cell splitting into two a revelation most needed to understand the oneness of all
Further, heady cocktail editing, music, old songs timelessness of the visuals makes viewers lose their time orientation, possibly indicating eternity of Time
Further, Director reposes his faith on Karma & Morality unstatedly , Berlin s end may be a work of Chance but director punishes the most evil , for other characters have their redemptive moments despite all their faults perhaps second coming of everyone of them is their chance for redemption which they grab on to, all except, Berlin. In him we watch excruciatingly helplessly the unfolding evil.
Full hundred marks for those two pickle jars as installations
What a Fine Film !
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Sutheesh Kumar
March 31, 2019
Can anybody enlighten me about that alien part, I just went WTF. That fantasy element felt so incongruous and jarring.
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Siva
March 31, 2019
Rad Mahalikudi: Ugh!!!! These stupid, self-proclaimed secondary censors of India — and their hypocritic morals 😦
Sai Ashwin: I should have mentioned that my guess-work list applied only to Thamizh movies. My bad 🙂
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Akash Balakrishnan
March 31, 2019
Clarification : The film felt like a casual and neutral commentary on cinema not just eing an art but also a form of entertainment through engagement and emotions*
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raghavan0418
March 31, 2019
It was certainly an engaging movie with brilliant performances. But the narration at the end took away from the joy of drawing and redrawing our own conclusions.
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therag
March 31, 2019
@Manikandan, Wow, that’s a superb reading of the film.
@Bharath Vijaykumar, superb explanation. Credits to the guy/girl who posted this. My Tamil reading skills are pretty poor and this is something I should work on. I feel I miss a a lot of great analysis on Tamil films and politics because of this.
Why is the 5-minute explanation in the end such a problem? This is not an easy film to understand at all I feel, even for people accustomed to watching non-mainstream films. I know I would not have got the theme by myself if the explanation was not present. Even with the explanation, it took some reading and thinking to actually arrive at a satisfactory answer. The explanation is not a moral lesson so much as the director gently steering the discussion to the interesting bits.
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Recovering Macaulay perapulla
March 31, 2019
I can’t believe what I saw. Most fascinating movie I have seen in ages. There were so many incredible moments in the film.
1) The Matter Doctor who gives “thathuvam” is the famous Tamil writer Manushyaputhran. It would be a grave injustice to say that the last five minutes, the movie was giving us “message”. This exposition connects the dots so beautifully and like few others said, it earned its right king size. And to hear it from such a wonderful writer was a cherry in the cake.We hooted for the director’s name like we have never done in hyderabad theater here.
2) Minor details such as the mother of rasukutty ( name seems familiar, heard in one bhagyaraj movie) applying kumkum at the end of the collar and so much more details warmed the cockles of my heart.
3) Sound Design was incredible. The deadpan idi-amin scene amidst the annoying cat background | The constant underlying sound of machinery in the police station made one extremely uncomfortable. Bhagavathy Perumal was superb. He should move to the next league.
4) Few of the rising tension scenes used the background similar to what Nolan used in Dunkirk. I would love to watch the movie just to relish the background score once more
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Ramit
March 31, 2019
@Anuja, there is only pronouncement of punishment (losing child, rape) but the punishment is not delivered. The director explains at the end that what is considered amoral today may not be considered so tomorrow. Ramya not only gets her son back, she is allowed to explain her point of view as well. Samantha not only is saved from rape but her marriage also appears to have been saved. Vijay not only gets his son but also gets acceptance. Their ordeals last just for one day but the resolutions/happy endings are longer lasting. In my opinion, the director is not being ‘an ungainly and unconvincing fairy Godmother’ but rather a forgiving and methodical professor.
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Maruthi Kumar
March 31, 2019
I might be over thinking here, but do you think the movie constantly talks about duality: Aambala-Pombala, Baasha-Antony, nambikkai-madham, right-wrong, and finally says there’s no two-sides, there’s just one singularity.
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Manikandan V
March 31, 2019
Super Deluxe cheekily means within the confines of what is shown in the movie ,a popular “Ice cream” brand – haha 😉
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Selva Ganapathy V
March 31, 2019
I noticed how the movie deliberately tries to break the conventions of how people think. The film does this on several levels. Here are a few examples I could recollect.
Breaking the cinematic conventions (Clichés)
The entire Berlin in the warehouse scene is an elaborate exercise in showcasing this. First deliberately showing Berlin’s gun placed on scooter, then asking Vaembu to handcuff Mugil so we expect some sort of cheating, and then the bottle behind Vaembu which Berlin even calls out. It’s all there for us to think of a conventional twist only to be blown away by the actual twist.
It also happens in earlier scenes like when Leela is shown pulling the screw driver out from son’s stomach. Usually leads to Leela being framed for murder. But it is immediately broken.
When the dead body in the bed slips from their hands, we expect some sort of disaster but we get the most fun rendition of Star Wars theme.
Breaking character conventions (Stereotypes)
Vaembu hides the body seeing Mugil coming home. So we expect a dishonest wife. But she immediately confesses.
When Shilpa shows up, we’d expect the conflict to be within the family. But wife and son turn out to be non judgemental.
In the hospital we would expect Leela to offer her body to save son at some point. She does. But not sexually.
Breaking social conventions
The entire plot. The way people think about adultery, transgender people, religion and porn.
The alien showing up at the end even talks about the convention it is breaking.
This is just one layer of the film. I guess there’s many more.
Like @Manikandan V and @Akash Balakrishnan had mentioned above, there is some sort of meta layer. The Gaaji character is a strange one. He never complains. He is accepting and clear headed no matter what goes on around him. His statement “Yes naan already indha padam paathutten” could refer to Super Deluxe or even life itself. Like he is a person who has already lived a full life and has taken rebirth to experience it again. Hence, no complains.
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Manikandan V
March 31, 2019
@BR @Ramit @ Selvaganapathy @jaga_jaga @therag @Bharath,
Though there is a widespread word calling Thiagarajan Kumararaja as iconoclastic, its heartwarming that he derives the juice to criticize and deconstruct Tradition within Traditions own framework instead of going in for mere criticism or messaging, More than being iconoclastic, Director shows us the continuing contest between Today s Reality Vs Traditional accumulated wisdom. Mere Iconoclasm is almost nihilistic rejects any establishment or power center but Director s TK s route is not mere rejection of accumulated wisdom or anything sacred but a dispassionate take on our accumulated wisdom.
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SUPERAWESOME
March 31, 2019
MORE SPOILERSSS (These are good!!!)
Saw it for the second time today. Unlike earlier spots, in the flea market with “Sinthanai Sirpi Singaperumai” Kanneer Anjali posters, the words MAGIC EVENT can be found on the corner those walls. After shilpa goes away from us to look for her son and return to the same point, the words “REAL LIFE” surreally appear over MAGIC EVENT as she crosses it 😀 WATCH! IT’S INCREDIBLE HOW MUCH HE TOYS WITH US.
Also the same market has a RED board that says “Asuthham Seibavargal Dhandikkapaduvargal” with the dhandanai part broken/destroyed. And so he clearly doesn’t agree with that moral centre and neither does this film, which keeps growing 😀
I also found Arpudham’s prayers and the warehouse scene rather perfectly paced this time around, now that you know what happens plotwise. I believe both scenes do require that kind of breathing space before Shilpa and Arpudham’s worlds meeting and the tv curse with Berlin.
They put YOU the viewerr in an uncomfortable space the way the characters are at that moment, before Vaembu’s and Arputham’s respective breaking points. I found that bit of exhaustion incredibly effective!
Also the Title (in its exact font) appears in many forms – Vaembu’s neighbour’s screen saver, The blue icecream cart, the ice cream AD in the theatre screening ManushyaPuthran’s film (with the tagline LIFE IS SUPER DELUXE – Kadaisi Thuli Varai something) How cheeky was his wink after that monologue? 😀 (Makes a WORLD of difference) and the gigantic neon light over the settu alien’s terrace, which I’m guessing stands for the ice cream brand as well.
And both Rasukutty and Surya’s friend (Mohan?) get to enjoy the orange ice-cream at the end, unlike Kodukapuli who had to drop it, before running after his dad in Aaranya Kaandam 😉
So, to one set of an audience, the title’s just an ice cream brand, like how cinema is just a product and to us, I think it is all-encompassing and in various sizes/forms depending on where you choose to look and in it’s multifold pleasures like cinema, it’s life itself 🙂
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SUPERAWESOME
March 31, 2019
^and oh the other boys do end up having the ice cream too, inside the theatre in silhouette 🙂
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Manikandan
March 31, 2019
@SUPERAWESOME good observation s Life is indeed an ice cream sweeter shorter:-)
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
some things that I noticed after all the comments that are already posted.
Spoiler alert
The director was foreboding the end of each story in the middle when it was unfolding. take the below example
re-imagine the school scene with Shilpa and her son this way. – The inside of the school is our world, the outside is her world. she has come far and is at the edge of her world, not sure whether she should enter our world. ( Even the son does not bring her to school to meet the teachers but for his friends to meet her. a beautiful visual frame where the watchman is sitting in his chair on the right side of the door frame with Shilpa standing to the left). then a fight ensues between her son and his friends and She decides to enter the verandah. this tells us that eventually she is going to enter our world (especially since she has brought her return ticket and we dont know whether she will return to mumbai or not). look at the characters. The watchman is the fringe element who is always at the edge and blocking people like Shilpa from entering the mainstream world (or the school building in this case). His master is the HM of the school who asks Shilpa to leave adamantly after she enters just like how the masters of the fringes do in the society.
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
when the teens are introduced to the gangster the agent is wearing a shirt with inverted “fuck” written in tamil. When they goof up the assignment, they see that the agent is tied to a rope upside down and now the tamil letters are accurately seen. Shows 2 things. That the world of the teens is going to go upside down after that scene and only this world is realistic and accurate and not the life that they were living before
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
Thooyavan (the name itself implies who would be chosen by the alien among the friends) or Kaji is wearing a shirt with the image of the cat – implying Schroedinger’s Cat which is a thought experiment performed by Schroedinger to test Quantum super position – the super strange phenomena of the same particle being at 2 places at the same time – Well that’s what finally happens to thooyavan when he is cloned/split.
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
Another one is the alien program that is going on in the background i remember it coming in Fahadh Fasil/Samantha story when they are about to leave the house and in another story (dont remember which one) implying that the stories are happening in parallel.
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
in the same breadth – we see 2 things from the star wars universe – the theme and the “may the force be with you” line uttered by Kaji. my sense of the timelines from the movie is still hazy, but probably they both happened at the same time at different places?
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Aravind
March 31, 2019
@Manikandan V – i could place the 4 purusharthas slightly differently.
Artha – means of fulfilling life – Dhanasekaran
Kama – lust – the teens
Dharma – way of life – Mugil (with all his rants about the system)
Moksha – enlightenment/self realization – Shilpa (after she “finds” her place in our world in her family)
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letstalkcinema14
March 31, 2019
“It’s a film you want to view as much with a microscope (zooming in on the details) as a telescope (zooming out to the bigger picture)”. This review is everything!
Would mean a lot if you could check my review as well:
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projectmgmtweb
March 31, 2019
@manikandan v – on your 2 times theory- 2 broken TVs, 2 dead bodies, 2 airplanes, 2 kids of contrasting characters, 2 moles, 2 references to public toilets…
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Sahir.
March 31, 2019
Glad someone brought up the alien. What a whacky, whacky touch. I loved it. Put me in mind of the superheroes in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd.
Mr Rangan, your theory does make a lot of sense, about an alien in each story; but to me, the alien was just adding to the glorious summation at the end about how we are just specks in the cosmos.
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mdwbala
March 31, 2019
How do you reflect upon a movie which throws at you so many ideas and you are forced to face some relentless stream of questions coming out of the screen? It was like thalaivar walking in his suave best and casually dismantling the truth-constructs that someone has carefully built over a life time. The most striking take away (personally for me) was the Kafkaesque revelation at the end for Danasekhar. He realises that there is no God (When he wonders if there is no God inside the stone) and it is juxtaposed with a confirmation of his idea of penance and faith when the statue actually reveals itself to solve his situation -a Godly act( it opens up to show that it is not a stone at all and that is the very reason he had been saved twice ) . In this irony filled movie universe, all the 4 narratives have a similar structure and it is the solid writing that conceals this brilliantly. A yearning, disturbed by a dramatic act and the resulting chaos that leads to explore some crazy landscapes. The way magic is woven and references, music and the choreographed staging sure gave me a high.. The moralising/ philosophising that happens at the final act before the start of a soft porn movie -that s the deception that the movie does upon you.
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Varsha
April 1, 2019
Spoiler alert!
Saw the movie yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had an issue with the messages, but more on it towards the end. First off, I, personally, could not see the main characters(Shilpa, Vaembu, Leela and the boys) around whom the stories happen as amoral people. Maybe w.r.t “conventional tamizh cinema”, they are, but seeing them as characters in a story, real or imaginary, I wouldn’t call them amoral. I see them either as people with moral values who commit mistakes at a particular point in their lives and later repent(Shilpa, Vaembu) or people who are victims of circumstance(the boys and Leela). I think calling Vaembu’s act as simply cheating on her husband is a bit too harsh. I don’t fully justify her act, but then again it’s not fully unjustified either. She is forcefully thrust into an arranged marriage when she loves another guy, and she finds out after some time that her lover is depressed. She feels guilty and that prompts her to call him over and they end up making love before he dies. This sequence of events makes all the difference between simple adultery and what Vaembu actually does. That Vaembu is not amoral is very much visible in the warehouse, where she squirms as if surrounded by worms, when cornered by Berlin into providing sexual favours.
Manickam gives more importance to his own feelings over that of his wife and son, flees to Mumbai and ends up being the reason(unknowingly) for two boys getting maimed and converted to beggars. Comes back home as Shilpa. That Shilpa is not amoral comes about when(already guilt-ridden on seeing the boys as maimed beggars), she loses her son and, naturally imagining a similar fate for him, begs for forgiveness.
In Leela’s case, its not as much a question of morality as a question of being practical. As she herself says, when there are lakhs of people asking for porn, there obviously has to be four or five people doing it. Isn’t the morality of a person questioning the same in only the people making porn itself questionable? Leela comes across as a very practical and level-headed person as opposed to her husband who is an unreasonable crackpot! If Arputham’s thoughts on religion and God are indeed a reflection of general public thoughts on the same(I don’t think so!), then no God can help us!
And the boys steal only to escape from being reprimanded for breaking a television set. Like Vaembu, their act is not completely unjustified. The only truly amoral, evil person in this film is the SI Berlin. The only compassion he shows is towards a centipede, if you can call that compassion as opposed to being averse about a squashed insect in the police station.
Which brings me to the messages at the end. I did not find the messages to be preachy, and, while I would never compare them to Cheran’s and Samudrakani’s rants, I did have a slight bother. Given that I see the characters as moral, I was able to see their happy endings ALSO as providence rather than just as random chance. I mean there are two interpretations equally possible, and the messages(partly) rudely intervene into my imagination and start dictating how I should interpret the stories/ endings. If TK had shown Berlin succeed in his scheme in the end, ideally by having the tv set just miss his head, then I would have bought into his messages about chance. And by providence, I don’t mean simply a judgemental entity sitting up there deciding things. That is Arputham’s viewpoint that is, IMO, rightly debunked by Leela. It could very well be much more complicated than that. Given that we, even today, don’t have a complete understanding of an everyday phenomenon as Gravity, how can we hope to have a clear picture on the universe and it’s workings? To be honest, the real world always keeps me confused and searching, whereas the universe of Super Deluxe allows me to root for providence.
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Prasanna Ramachandran
April 1, 2019
Does anyone else get the feeling that this review is an amalgamation of all reviews and especially of all comments in this thread?
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TheManWithTwonames
April 1, 2019
Phew! What a film! I’m stunned. Kudos the the cast for getting behind the director’s vision. I’m willing to wait another 10 years if TK’s next film is gonna be like this.
I have to agree with varsha regarding the amorality. Measured with the traditional tamil cinema standards, ofcourse these people are amoral. But, as a whole each of these characters have some regret for the sins they have committed and are not amoral people per se.
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Sam
April 1, 2019
To someone thinks how that stones turned up from the statue there is a radio commentary playing in the back saying a ship got struck due to tsunami in the bay of bengal with diamonds and still they could not find the missing diamonds. Seems like the background audio track should also be dissected for clues. Will wait for the dvd release. This more than a masterpiece if we compared to any movie.
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Tsar
April 1, 2019
@aravind: The shirt message said fuck(in Tamil) and 1/2 (which was blurred maybe by censor board). Also, in the end when the hindi song plays it start with F U C K O F F with chorus repeating the letters and then the song starts
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murugavel
April 1, 2019
Bottomline – mocking the morality of societal views and how people draw boundaries and function with it. ultimately it is science , all matters in the world are solid ,liquid or gas comprises of number of molecules consisting of so many atoms and each atom has protons, electrons and neutrons. protons(+charges) and electrons(-charges) needs to co exist to form a nucleus that is stable.
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murugavel
April 1, 2019
This is a kind of movie that needs a acquired taste, it may not work with many people and also when you can sync with its wavelength you can feel the madness behind it. this is definetly an Erotic Bonafide masterpiece !
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murugavel
April 1, 2019
BR-what do you make of the background scores especially in scenes between shilpa and berlin (railway track) and the scenes that involve the boys and the gangster(kitten’s murmuring).yuvan minimalistic and restraint composition was scintillating.
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murugavel
April 1, 2019
BR – what do you think of berlin character? He is funny and yet there is a crudeness within him that stands out, this is one of marvelous character that is ever been written in tamil cinema?wahat do you say? TERRIFIC
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Baldmonk
April 1, 2019
Another interesting detail that i noticed is that amidst all those CAT noises in Idi Amins house, Amin and the “Kadala podara” fellow were having dishes made of FISH 🙂
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Srikanth Govindan
April 1, 2019
Bhagavathi’s last 2 stories (one with VJS getting wild at police station) and the next one in the climax with Fahad and Samantha was immediate (with Bhagavathi’s change of dress since it was 2 different stories) – weren’t the stories supposed to happen parallel and at the same time? Not sure if I misunderstood this.
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bart
April 1, 2019
I felt slightly more gratified reading the comments section this time.. Not your fault, saar. Padam apdi irukku.. “Aaga” nnu innoru thadava sollittu vandhu paakaren..
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bart
April 1, 2019
Meanwhile, few interesting reviews:
a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqpD5nkUi3g
b) https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/super-deluxe-review-this-delightfully-layered-movie-is-a-treat-for-all-your-senses_in_5c9e232de4b0bc0daca734b4
Came across this as well. Few interesting titbits:
https://scroll.in/reel/908268/the-film-behaves-like-its-title-the-weird-and-wacky-world-of-super-deluxe
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palm_is_tree (@opunsoars)
April 1, 2019
Was thinking if there is any chance Berlin is the father of Thooyavan?
#unsaidConnect
https://letterboxd.com/opunsoars/film/super-deluxe/
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Manikandan V
April 2, 2019
Kaaji s name is not thooyavan, it’s actually Balaji/Hari – I didn’t notice it properly. Thooyavan is the other person with specs but he says directly to vasanth & Gaaji “Our Motcham Lies there” on going back to Settu House. far earlier gaaji says ‘ its as difficult as sliding on razor edge invoking —–“The Razor’s Edge is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. … The novel’s title comes from a translation of a verse in the Katha Upanishad, given in the book’s epigraph as: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to ‘enlightenment’ is hard.”
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SUPERAWESOME
April 2, 2019
LAST ROUND OF SPOILERS/EASTER EGGS (stick with me):
The porn actor walking upstairs in Mallu Uncut is Vaembu’s LOVER. He’s holding the key as he walks upstairs in silhouette!! And the same key is hanging on his car that Sam and Fahadh drive. It’s also on the poster of the porno. And on the official poster of super deluxe 🙂 And And! You can find it hanging in Aaranya kaandam’s car 🙂 He’s also in the flea market (with Shilpa searching) asking for more time to fix his loans. The disclaimer before Mallu Uncut says “idhu oru thanimanidha uzhaippu” and asks for donations, too. So that explains his predicament.
It certainly explains Vaembu and Leela (Ramya Krishnan) sharing a look at the end.
The alien foreshadowing also harks back to the video game in Aaranya Kaandam where Subbu says “Indha game la Vara maari nambalum Vera ulaguthukku pona nalla irukum” la? And Jackie Shroff mentions a “settu” in the beginning whom we never see in either film, but it’s possibly this one.
Also the alien-duality thing rings true. The porno the boys watch has a CD cover with Senthamarai written twice – the alien has two doors with – you guessed it – blooming flowers, and two of everything – furry chairs, large symmetrical windows on either side of the long mirror and two wallets. She has another set of her blue dress hanging right there!
Gaaji’s tale even says that he came to town with Two URGA JAADIS! The plastic bags must be multiple cloning trials and errors, as the fat guy with her is busy examining all of them. Infact if there’s one cat in her house, the other one should be with the gangsters, which is why we hear the meowing offscreen 🙂
Finally, the guy Berlin talks to at the warehouse over the phone (some video in a “little boys” WhatsApp group which sounds just as scary/horrendous) – Maiyilvaaganam is likely the corrupt cop from Aaranya Kaandam 🙂
^and the inverted t-shirt after censoring reads “BUCK” but that’s how the kid in the Fahad story pronounces it! 😀 hopefully this answers all your questions. Thanks for reading!
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SUPERAWESOME
April 2, 2019
PS – idk if anybody has brought this up here yet, but the bright/saturated red and blue colors in the palette definitely emerge from the bright red and blue on either side of “the old-school 3D glasses” the boys use. There are an extreme number of backgrounds and props from the blue “Maya’s Plaza” shutter to a blue scooter with a red Gas Tank tied to it that fit this bill.
(Arputham’s house with the screwdriver has a blue kitchen and a red curtain so the tsunami effect isn’t just restricted to his place of worship, Rasukutty’s welcome sign is red on his face against the blue wall behind him, the orange flower in a bottle next to a blue box on the staircase, Mugil and Vaembu – you get the point)
We can over-read into the aspect and say this screams the characters are deeper and more complex than our initial 2D assumptions about them, but for my money, I think it gives the whole thing an EXCELLENT FORMAL UNITY 🙂
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brangan
April 2, 2019
SUPERAWESOME: There is no over-reading here. Even those who dislike the film at a “story” level will have to agree about the formal unity. Such deliberate narration through colour, framing, shot-taking and even the pacing of the editing cannot be attributed to… chance 😀 The film may deny the existence of God but TK has certainly Created one heck of a universe 😀
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jaga_jaga
April 2, 2019
Thanks Manikandan and Sai Ashwin for your explanations. I will get back with my addendums for your great enunciation soon.
For now, another question about the alien scene – the settu house also has the settu’s daughter as an inhabitant right. What happened to her? I understand the Seth is dead. Then there is this alien. What happened to the Seth’s daughter??
Can nyone kindly answer this?
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Isai
April 2, 2019
A transgender’s perspective on Super Deluxe’s depiction of them (in Tamil):
https://cinema.vikatan.com/tamil-cinema/interview/153931-transgender-grace-banu-talks-about-super-deluxe-movie.html?artfrm=home_tab1
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Manikandan V
April 2, 2019
How Great is Myskin s Acting , cannot take the movie outside of my head, with all IR Songs playing in the background, one liner dialogues echoing now and then, it s been such a immersive experience watching and speaking about this movie.
Dear BR – you are very right when you say enjoy the movie in its whole irrespective of subtexts & Metaphors
For me its back to days of Uttamavillain, Tharai Thappatai & Kammatipaadam, the movies I devoured again and again.
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Prasanna PV
April 2, 2019
A contradiction exists at least when it comes to philosophy?
Inconsistencies in writing like Aliens exist but god doesn’t? Mocking theism and elevating fantasy (alien) and luck by chance, both the fallacy of mind? This movie seems like creative writing for an award – “A rationalist fantasy”- “Christian Science”
There is someone above us who watches everything, but it ain’t “God”, it is an Alien with the ability to sermonize and mock a commoner. God is attributable to the associative schema of our psyche but Aliens form an integral part of his muse consolidating and psychoanalyzing human misgivings? or Is it a desperate attempt at a sermon to humans by someone beyond them as humans don’t give a crap about one another?. In the eyes of a rationalist, a believer cannot refute the theories of an alien?.
The child understands “test tube baby” but does not have a problem with Trans-dad being laughed at by his fellow mates. I understand the part of happy with dad. But It is more of a sculpted lesson of a mature person empathizing a transgender using the ill portrayed innocence of a child who seems to know a bit too much and is a tad little too mature for his age. Or maybe that’s innocence. That’s a Ding dong for me.
His movies showcase the desperation of men, Mugil still craves for her attention maybe he loves her after all ain’t he, despite all that has passed. He is psycho shamed for suggesting a way out. What would indicate Chivalry is for Mugil to have laid down his life defending her “honour” but that was not written to pamper Tamil pride. Guess Idhuvum kadandhu pogum
The threads still show, the stitches of fantasy – the television, the diamonds from Tsunami Andavar, the cash from an alien – with four writers collaborating was there a need for the connections to be this absurd?
If its my ignorance talking – Forgive me in the name of “God”
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projectmgmtweb
April 2, 2019
@tsar – 1/2 could also mean “, intermission”. Wow?
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Sanjayan
April 2, 2019
The innocence carried by his characters in his movies ❤ Innocence is pure ,it makes you forget all the shady things in the world .
For me Kumararaja is Raaskutty , who still believes world is one and the same for everyone . Innocence respects everyone and expects the same from everyone.
For me Kumararaja is Vembu , who accepts what she has done and feels nothing wrong about it . She is not begging anyone for forgiveness . Innocence gives you the guts to accept things as it is and make no fuss about it .
For me Kumararaja is those 4 school going adults , who still have their innocence safeguarded in them from the society . Society kills it ofcourse.
For me Kumararaja is Arpudham (aka) dhanasekar , who fights within himself to find the truth about God and the miracles . He even calls God “Alpam”. Innocence searches for truth .
For me Kumararaja is Leela, who says ” people can have their own opinions about me ,but I am what I am . I don’t feel guilty for anything “. Innocent conscience fears nothing.
For me Kumararaja is Mukil , who questions the system and criticizes mob mentality . Innocence always questions .
For me Kumararaja is Shilpa, who explains to her kid about her situation . She is not complaining about God for creating her like this , instead she forgives him/her and says that it’s an human error like sometimes how we used to wear “right” slipper for left foot and vice versa . Life is not all about left and right . It’s sometimes right being left 😅 . Innocence forgives people .
“For me Super deluxe is all about Innocence “. Innocence has its own charm , so do Kumararaja 😘
For me “A Thiyagarajan Kumararaja film” means a kid with his innocent smile saying **** *** 😁
If you admire something,you have the innocence in you . Keep admiring things , there is nothing wrong in being innocent.
Still not able to come out of this hangover man .
Note: People often confuse Innocence with Ignorance. Innocence is questioning to know something , ignorance is answering without knowing something. You can be an innocent ,but make sure you are not becoming an ignorant.
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boredguys
April 3, 2019
I think the presence of covers is because the fat guy in the alien’s house is learning how to clone, starting with the black covers. And the film is named ‘Super Deluxe’ after the ice cream brand shown in the film as that is the only unifying factor that appears in all 4 stories, IMO. The superbad reference was cheeky AF.
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Amit Joki
April 3, 2019
I am yet to watch Super Deluxe but I am sad that although Twitterati went gaga over it, the grassroot audience which make the film a hit supposedly were playing PUBG, going through Instagram if the accounts given by my friends is to be believed.
I’ve seen Whatsapp Statuses reducing this film to “Super Deluxe = Bad Words from Vadachennai + Bittu from 90ML”. Hope it rakes in enough moolah that TK doesn’t go to exile for another 8 years. Sensibilities such as his, are acquired and he should continue making such movies regularly if only to acclimatize the audience with his unique perspective and taste.
Aaranya Kandam was way long back and failed. It was a small ripple in the Tamil Cinema. Super Deluxe came as a shocker to the conservative Tamil audience. If such tastes are to be acquired they should not come few and far between because then, they will be disregarded as a indulgent, shockingly made, folly of a film.
When more and more such films like 90ML, Super Deluxe are released, then there’s a chance that the tide may finally turn. Currently these films lie on the extremities. We have to normalize them. What we need is no more small ripples, but huge waves to make the people wake up and take notice.
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Sathish
April 3, 2019
Another hidden detail. When Shilpa searches for her son in the alley, lot of references
1) The dead guy (samantha lover) can actually be seen sitting in one of the rooms when VJ enters, towards the left of Shilpa.
2) Singaperumal reference – white poster( already identified)
3) Vaazhvin ragasiyam poster (in many shots actually)
4) The TV shop where the boys come next day.
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Thupparivaalan
April 3, 2019
Amit: I thought the film was pretty entertaining. Even if one doesn’t have the ‘acquired’ taste, the film has lots of jokes that everyone can get. If the film is not a hit (which we don’t know as of yet), there will be other reasons other it being hard to get. But for now, we can safely say it is bloody entertaining.
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praneshp
April 3, 2019
@amit joki: nothing wrong in playing pubg/browsing around on instagram. Not everyone has to like what you like.
Setting aside depth as well as the craft, it is stlill an entertaining movie for the most part. The pubg audince will eventually watch it somewhere. TK is smart enough to know what kind of audience will show up to super deluxe. Hopefully the makers are smart enough to make the movie accessible to those that change their minds later.
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praneshp
April 3, 2019
@amit: what were you doing watching aaranya kaandam btw? I thought there is no dvd/internet copy in existence? Weren’t you like 5 years old when the movie released? 😛
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lurker
April 4, 2019
For a movie that is centred around sex, having the opening sequence with 2 fully clothed adults dry humping was a note of discord. Minor quibble, but I guess that is how far even a kumararaj can push the envelope.
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Gautham
April 4, 2019
I read the film slightly differently to BR.
I felt that it explored the cyclical/circular process emanating from the natural desire/search for meaning – and the tendency to search for it through one’s origins.
Mugilan desires a world that’s inherently meaningful; a world that makes sense. His rant, and his hopes of becoming a politician/legislator, might simply stem from a need to order the disorderly/chaotic. His frustrations lie less with Vaembu and more with the idea of meaningless/nihilistic sex(and everything else). Vaembu’s nihilistic world is inherently risky.
Arputham is unquestioning and uncritical – of himself and his environment – to the point of disingenuously suggesting that anything but blind faith would go unrewarded. Shilpa is incredulous and critical to the point of cynically denying herself, or society, a chance. Their sons (a metaphor for society ?) are worse off for their judicial restraint.
Shillpa’s son wants a natural/organic origin. Arputham & Leela’s son wants to reject his. They both have to compromise to varying degrees.
Shilpa needs a bit of Arputham’s faith to make the leap while Arputham needs a bit of her censure. But with this, contingent meaning is created. Emphasizing on meaning a la Mugilan, creates order and hierarchy with morals being ascribed to them, as a corollary. From this springs forth the executive. The executive though shackles/suffocates the search for meaning and poses a threat to the nihilistic.
Mugilan needs Vaembu’s help to free himself from being cuffed to competing with – and losing to – the inanimate/dead. This forces a need to dismantle the existing order. Gaaji’s anarchic impartiality (to recipients of his sexual attraction) is preferred to Berlin’s impartiality. The zeitgeist too is replaced.
This then makes the terrain fertile, akin to the primordial soup, to restart the whole cycle. The alien might merely be observing/studying this cycle (with some selection/intervention).
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mrinalnarayan
April 4, 2019
Super Deluxe reminded me of these lines from “Sirichu Sirichu vandhaa Seena thaana Doi”
“Vaazhkai Vaazhvadharke, Gemini Edutha Padam, Adha Na Unakku Mattum Kaata Poren da”
A Philososensualophical movie by Thyagarajan Kumararaja
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Thupparivaalan
April 4, 2019
Thupparivaalan: There are so many theories coming up in internet explaining various aspects of the film. Can’t remember the last time a Tamil film had this effect
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Amit Joki
April 4, 2019
I would enjoy the movie no doubt, given how BR has written such an exquisite piece of review. Haven’t read it fully because of spoilers.
@praneshp: I am talking about browsing insta and playing PUBG within the theatre. It kind of puts me off if someone does that. Also, it is not true about there being no internet copy. In fact, another commentator here pointed me to a torrent, which was decent though heavily edited.
I think I only missed the “unakku nikkila na enna yen adikkira” scene that BR talks about in his review, while other cuts were mostly aural.
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v.vijaysree
April 4, 2019
Put some Spanish subtitles on this and I see this move working well for Latin American audiences as well. They are more used to magic realism — will buy the ‘alien’, the horniness of the boys (Y tu mama tambien), that Virgin Mary-esque idol etc. fit right in …
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praneshp
April 4, 2019
@amit: gotcha, playing in the theater is inexcusable, yeah.
I know about the tormented version, which is on YouTube as well. When I saw the movie, the first scene you talk about set the tone of the movie for me, and i find myself unable to watch it if the scene is cut out 😦
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Paras
April 5, 2019
Hey BR, really thanks to you for having this platform for all cinema buffs to discuss, debate and dissect cinema and the philosophy behind it. Yes…I am the same person from Mumbai who hasn’t watched a single Tamil video, forget a movie, and was clueless about people like TK & VJS, until a 4 weeks back. And yes, I have been regularly reading your this blog since around 5 years now and this is my just second comment here. the first one being the one I wrote few days ago on this movie.
Ok, so coming to the point now 🙂 I watched Super Deluxe 1st Day last Show and liked it, though not loved it. And since then until yesterday, I have been devouring all the reviews, comments, ASK BR video, IMDB reviews, etc. That is when I realised that I missed out on few intricacies and few scenes altogether. Then, it suddenly struck me that since I have zero knowledge of Tamil language. all along the movie, I was mostly engrossed in reading the subtitles and hence couldn’t really imbibe each and every scene. So, yesterday again I watched this movie in Cinepolis, last show. And yes, this time, I liked the movie more than I had the 1st time. Still, somehow I cannot really say that I loved the movie, TBH.
May be, may be….I got swayed by yours and others’ reviews and had very high expectations and so now feeling slightly disappointed. May be I should have read your review as ‘This is among the best movie in Tamil’ and not necessarily among the best movies in India. Nevertheless, the technical aspects of the film like cinematography (color pallette, framing), BGM, character arcs, acting, production values, broad themes are really good and have been already discussed and dissected here in this forum and hence won’t be able to contribute anything new from my side. However, one issue which I am not able to digest are few incongruities in few scenes and feel TK could have been slightly more honest as a director. Below are few of my observations and questions I have. Request BR and readers to pls help me to understand this movie better. (These are just few humble aspects and in no way meant to disrespect BR, TK or the readers. 🙂 I just intend to learn Cinema, more from a technical and artistic viewpoint)
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Paras
April 5, 2019
Samantha’s Boyfriend:
Is he the porn actor in the movie along with Ramya. Few readers have pointed this out but I did not feel so, even when watching the movie second time.
Why is he visible during the scene when VJS searches for his son in the market area? Does his visibility in this scene anyway related to the storyline. If yes, how? If no, then does this indicate Director’s dishonesty in showing him just as an easter egg.
Many have pointed out that the steel key hanging in the boyfriend’s vehicle is kind of key to the storyline. Even after 2nd watch, I could not really find anything as such. Then why did TK focus on it prominently during the scenes between Fahad & Samantha, and on the official movie poster
VJS:
Tsunami occured in 2004 which VJS had witnessed firsthand that means VJS had by then left Chennai and his family. And he has come back after 7 years. That means, the current movie timeline is 2011. Did a middle class household in 2011 really have flat LCD/LED TVs (at the boy’s home, which was broken). Also the price of the TV is shown to be around 28k, which is almost 2017 year price. Am I missing something in the year timelines?
Also, Ramaswamy keeps on saying that 12 years back Dhanashekar went onto commit suicide in the sea. Assuming this is true, it means the timeline year in the movie is around 2017
When VJS got out of the taxi, he was all beaming happily. Didn’t he anticipate that his wife, son and other family members would be shocked as hell, seeing him as a Transgender
Ramya:
Does the current technology allow to watch a 3D movie on a TV, forget on a cheap 30k priced TV? Ramya’s movie ‘Mallu Uncut’ would have released not later than 2004 (Tsunami Year). Were porn movies in India made using 3D technology in 2004?
Why does Ramya look at Samantha with a knowing glance, while she is walking with Fahad on the road,after disposing Berlin? If it was just a coincidence, then is TK right in putting that scene and thus putting audience in a dilemma, with no payoff.
Berlin
Does any sub-inspector cadre officer come twice in 2-3 hours, just for passport verification? In any case, it is only a constable who generally comes for passport verification. Did TK take this liberty to show us how powerful (in the police station/abandoned factory) Berlin is? If he was a constable, the powerplay (between him & other constables and between him & Fahad-Samantha) and subsequent scene tensions, would not have happened. Is this a major flaw in the storyline, since lot of subsequent incidents happen because he is NOT JUST A contable.
How Berlin knew Samantha’s mobile number when he called for the 1st time when Fahad-Samantha are waiting at the railway tracks? How did Berlin know that the person sitting in the backseat is DEAD, since Berlin was around 100 metres away from the vehicle when he was recording them on his phone
Samantha- Fahad
Why don’t they both just goto police station and surrender since the autopsy will anyway clearly reveal the death reason as heart attack? Why does Fahad take a huge risk on himself and his budding acting career by helping unfaithful Samantha in concealing the death
Alien presence:
There was mention of alien in Aaranya Kandam, and shown in the posters behind the 3 boys and also playing on a TV near Gaaji. Just because of these aspects where aliens is just a blurry background, mean that the movie can completely take off onto a different tangent of Aliens. Was it really necessary to add the whole alien angle? Could the movie been as effective without aliens? Specially since the whole movie is meant to be a real-life like story/situations and then suddenly taking a alien/miracle route. The closest example I can think of is Nolan’s movie The Prestige. Many people argued that showing a miracle (teleportation) in a movie as a crucial plot pint when the whole movie otherwise is real life situations, was incorrect. However, you can still give the benefit of doubt to Nolan because the broad theme of the movie itself is about magic.
BGM:
Is BGM or actual sound of a nearby heavy machinery that plays in the police station?
Overall, we can make out that the spatial location of the scenes is around 10 km radius if we carefully observe the time taken by characters to move from one location to another location and it seems all these locations are somewhere near to railway tracks..in fact even the houses of boys, Ramya and Fahad all look like railway quarters. Then, why do we hear the railway engine/horn sound only once in the beginning when Samantha cries seeing her boyfriend dead
Does Idi Amin have a cat at his home or is it just BGM? What is the cinematic significance in either case of having cat meow sounds while characters are speaking
Few scenes:
Why is the aeroplane shown prominently in the movie? Does it have any relevance to the proceedings? Showing an aeroplane flying above, from exactly the same roof-hole from which the TV fell, is misleading and some audience felt that TV fell from the aeroplane. Is TK misleading the audience with no real motive?
The boys threw the TV down against a vertical wall whereas when the TV hits Berlin, he is standing in the centre of the factory with no vertical wall nearby at all. How did the TV then land on Berlin
How does Rasukutty know that VJS has taken a ticket to Bombay to go back permanently, due to which Rasukutty thought of absconding, which then leads VJS to the subway where he meets Aruputham and the story completely turns.
Is showing all the 3 story characters (Rasukutty, 3 Boys and Ramya’s son’s friend in the Hospital eating ice-cream) in the last scenes adds any explicit value to the storyline
This all for now 🙂
Apologies for the extremely extremely long post but just wanted to learn and understand the movie better.
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Ramit
April 5, 2019
“Why is he visible during the scene when VJS searches for his son in the market area?”
This is to justify that the events in the movie are indeed taking place over the course of two days.
“Many have pointed out that the steel key hanging in the boyfriend’s vehicle is kind of key to the storyline.”
I am not sure if anyone has said that the key is the key to the storyline. But I think this is just another ingenious detail from the director, of the universe he has created. For more details, refer SUPERAWESOME’s super awesome comment above.
“Tsunami occured in 2004 which VJS had witnessed firsthand that means VJS had by then left Chennai and his family.”
Chennai was also affected by Tsunami 2004.
“Ramya’s movie ‘Mallu Uncut’ would have released not later than 2004 (Tsunami Year).”
Why?
“Why does Fahad take a huge risk on himself”
to escape from shame of his being wife cheating on him?
“Showing an aeroplane flying above, from exactly the same roof-hole from which the TV fell”
BR sir explained this in AskBR that it was to connect with the previous scene where the boys threw the TV off the roof.
“How does Rasukutty know that VJS has taken a ticket to Bombay to go back permanently”
Intuition and fear. Even a regular child doesn’t want to get separated from their parents. And this is Rasukutty, who had been abandoned once. He is thinking in extremes now (and that too correctly.)
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anon
April 5, 2019
“Isai: The ‘Tsunami Andavar’ track is a clear reference to Christianity. If you want to criticise ‘blind faith’ worship, you could have as easily done it without using what looks (and doesn’t look) like a Jesus statue and without using ‘Christian Tamil’ words.”
Why not Christianity? Max instances of faith healing.
“Baldmonk & sai Ashwin – I had to talk out the chronological order of events in the movie with my wife to establish the timeline. I realized late y’day that it’s a movie happening over two days because of one of the major factors – Shilpa’s story doesn’t affect any if the other 3 stories except creating a doubt in Arputham’s mind about his self founded religion. In retrospect, all the 4 stories don’t intertwine with each other at all. 1 or 2 of the 4 stories merely graze against each other and that’s why I feel the movie would’ve been equally satisfying as an anthology with common plot threads. Would it have had the same impact – I don’t know.”
Agreed! The stories intertwining did not work for me – 2 of the stories hardly did, in fact. The Arputham track was the most flabby, though I enjoyed Myskin’s acting very much – he’s a great presence on screen.
“@BR , I also did not get why FAhad is helping Samantha in getting rid of the corpse when it is not a murder and also when Samantha is being honest about the episode. Especially when they are not in good terms , why would any guy want to put up with such a situation? He could have easily walked away. Is shame the only reason? Isn’t dealing with shame a lot easier than dealing with this ordeal?”
Dude, she’s still his wife! There’s so many complicated feelings there. You can’t just abandon your wife in her hour of need.
@Bharath Vijayakumar: That summing up was great! That’s definitely one of the overarching meanings in the movie, apart from how everything from ants to aliens is one.
“Tsunami occured in 2004 which VJS had witnessed firsthand that means VJS had by then left Chennai and his family. And he has come back after 7 years. That means, the current movie timeline is 2011. Did a middle class household in 2011 really have flat LCD/LED TVs (at the boy’s home, which was broken). Also the price of the TV is shown to be around 28k, which is almost 2017 year price. Am I missing something in the year timelines?”
2011 is most deifintely NOT the timeline, because I saw posters about Edapaadi Plananisamy in one of the scenes where Shilpa is searching for her son. Timeline is 2016-17 for sure.
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anon
April 5, 2019
Interesting things to note while watching this re audience: I saw it alone (F) with guys on either side of me. While they were chup chaap to distressed during the Shilpa harassment scenes by Berlin (not even nervous laughter), the Vaembu forced into sexual favour scene elicited a few laughs. Just goes to show lack of empathy plus othering/objectification – I almost wished Berlin had hit on Vaembu’s husband just to make men feel for once what it feels like to watch a rape scene on screen. Sometimes I don’t understand the Tamil audience’s nervous need to laugh wherever possible, regardless of tone of scene. It was an interesting watch just for the Shilpa scenes – VJS is so popular right now, audience has nothing but empathy in those scenes. Had it been played by someone else, I feel like there’d have been a lot more laughter / less empathy.
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anon
April 5, 2019
Also real life parallel with the pollachi stuff in the Vaembu scenes
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Paras
April 5, 2019
Thanks Ramit and Anon for quick replies.
@ Ramit and @Anon
VJS says that when he was in Bombay he escorted 2 boys to Kalyan station (which is near Mumbai) and he realised his folly when after few days he saw those same 2 boys incapacitated and so he became overwhelmed with guilt and hence thought of committing suicide by drowning in the sea. And then he continues to say that he tried drowning but surprisingly he even survived the Tsunami. Does this mean he came to Chennai all the way from Bombay just to drown himself (since there was no Tsunami in Bombay).
Continuing… since He came back to his home after seven years, adding seven years to the year 2004 makes it the year 2011.
However If we think from Aruputham’s perspective since even he survived Tsunami in 2004 and Ramaswamy keeps on talking about ‘around 12 years before’ that makes the year as 2016-17.
Did TK missed this incongruity or am I missing something here?
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Isai
April 5, 2019
@Anon:
“Why not Christianity?”
In my view, if Y is bad and Y happens to be a subset of X, it is NOT justified to insult X just because it contains Y.
For example, Y is caste system and X is Hinduism.
A bigger problem is when people criticise Z which is another subset of X and has no overlap with Y, by using the logic that Z is contained by X which also contains Y. Example: Ganesha idol breaking scene in Kaala. There is no direct relationship between Ganesha and caste system.
A certain ‘aandavar’ is known for criticising only Hinduism and when questioned, he replied that he does this because Hinduism only made his ‘brother’ as an untouchable. The irony is that in none of his movies is the untouchability issue highlighted or the victims emphatised with. Rather, he is known to portray and project characters belonging to the oppressive castes. In such cases, the ‘Z’ logic mentioned above is used as a convenient excuse (sappakattu).
Similarly, here blind faith worship (Y) is used as an excuse to attack Christianity (X) because it encourages religious conversion of the poor and illiterate. I also don’t like dubious conversion practices (as it reduces the diversity of thought) but that is not sufficient grounds to mock Christianity as a whole. If the director had used more anonymous/obscure statue and not used ‘Christian Tamil’ words, he would have still made his points about faith healing etc. without hurting anyone’s feelings.
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Isai
April 6, 2019
@Paras: Very good questions. The hype for this movie is because it has many things (like a popular hero playing a transgender parent, heroine having an affair, nihilism, aliens, lots of easter eggs like Schrodinger’s cat etc.) which one would probably have not seen in Indian movies. I feel BR would have usually rated this movie as ‘Parts greater than the sum’ but something (perhaps nihilism?) seems to have struck an emotional chord with him.
@paras,anon: When the movie starts, Samantha in a voice-over, asks her ex to come to her home, promising him that ‘I WILL make you happy’ while also mentioning that her husband won’t be there. (Why not invite him to a coffee shop?). She is encouraging him for a 2nd ride when she realises that he is dead. She later says that the sex happened in the spur of the moment due to guilt and that she was forcibly married to Fahad, who is a struggling actor (why??). She appears to have not told her husband about the forced marriage either before or after the marriage. But, we are told by reviewers that ‘this is not just an affair’ because…she says so. (Except that the scenes shown makes her statement look more like a lame excuse).
What I don’t get is why don’t Samantha and Fahad clean up the man and tell police that he died of an heart attack. I don’t think his post mortem would reveal about the sex.
@Anon: They don’t seem to have bonded at all. Fahad asks her for an immediate divorce post body disposal which shows that he is neither the ‘forgiving type’ nor has strong feelings for her.
So, a person like Fahad taking a huge risk for such a wife seems unrealistic to me. If he was caught after the train crushed the body, then he would be suspected of killing the ex after discovering the affair. Why take such a huge risk?
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Karthik
April 6, 2019
After a very long time replying to your review.
IMO the film can be split into two parts, one which has grown up people who were until some point self-centered having their own belief about existence realizing the value of their dear ones. The other is about people who are slipping into the self-centered condition, those boys.
Vembu-Mugil have traces of being a hedonist-narcissist couple. Vembu is said to be a buying clothes and shoes, has a fling, gets a poori for breakfast (pongal would have been a better pleasure). Mugil takes acting classes, demeans everyone else and thinks his end is in politics(grandeur), he has a inflated sense of self which is punctured by Vembu’s affair. The policeman is a mixture of both who gives them both a idea of how the two are by his actions.
Leela-Arputham also follow the same as above but Leela has reformed as a hedonist but Arputham slips deep into his delusion and also propagates it to others. While Leela is sane Arputam is delusional and believes in his divine nature to solve worldly problems. Here Shilpa who is getting out of his self-centered nature pushes Arputham out of his delusion after which he stops being dogmatic.
In Shilpa-Jothi track I found Shilpa to be self-obsessed, Jothi was not given good time to understand more about her. Rasukutty though looking cute was very easy with his father which was not so real. I think he is the expressing image of his mute wife that pushes Shilpa out of her self-obsession.
The 5 boys were sipping into their self-obsession when the rest were getting out, 3 of them were clearly hallucinating and the images were getting weird. The 2 boys in the hospital were more bothered about Leela’s past than the injury though she tried to reason with her son abut her choices.
In all self-obsession results from the thought about what others who are unseen i.e. society, God would think of them, exhibiting some sense of bondage. The soft porn at the cinema has a Doctor say about Love, it seems that is what this film wants to emphasize as the reason for existence. Manushyaputhiran as that Doctor !!
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praneshp
April 6, 2019
@anon: no justification to the behaviour you describe.
One thing I observed: The bgm in the berlin-shilpa scene was terrific, it really drew men in. I felt that the Berlin-Vaembu scene was at a point when the movie started feeling a little slow for me, as well as the actor (bagavathi perumal) having reached the limit of his acting ability, and the bgm wasn’t great. I didn’t react by laughing, but my reaction to the two scenes was different
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brangan
April 6, 2019
pranesh: I too felt that about Bhagavathy Perumal’s performance. There was a level of stylisation required (the way the character was conceived) and he just couldn’t nail it.
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Recovering Macaulay Perapulla
April 6, 2019
Watched it for second time today and I still felt so thrilled towards the end. The movie delivered a lot during the second viewing. I could connect more dots.Few moments that stood in the second viewing:
1) “Tasting the ice-cream” becomes a beautiful motif connecting all the three stories deeply. Loved the framing in that portion when the camera is behind the hospital bed ( teenagers story) and then it segues into the shilpa story and then moves to vaembu’s story. All of them ( except probably Vaembu and Mugil) have ice-cream (Super Deluxe one ofcourse) towards the end and their arcs are complete. They have transformed. From the teenage boys taking the ice-cream to the victoria theater screening “Vaazhkaiyin Ragasiyam” ( Directed by Karnan, couldn’t help but notice all the trivia this time) to Rasukutti asking Dad if they can have ice-cream and watch TV to the friend who took Ramya Krishnan’s son joking with him with an ice-cream.
2) I could appreciate BR’s point about payoff better this time with the Shilpa scene in the subway.
3) I loved the fact that Manushyaputhran thathuvam was beautifully interspersed with actual references of the thathuvam being played out in the protagonist lies.
4) Immediately after the diamonds are revealed, we are taken to the saettu house and there is a radio broadcast ( before they meet the alien) regaling us with a story of a longlost mystery affair of some diamonds from Africa that were lost in Indian Ocean forever. Here is a director, giving so much effort to add more depth to the proceedings. My respect for TK grew many fold and I literally hooted like a rajini fan more joyously this time in the end.
5) Ten tonne impact scenes ( courtesy BR) were very moving in the second viewing as well. I felt Berlin with his affable presence, made it somewhat softer. I didn’t fear for him so much.
6) I liked thooyavan this time. It reminded me of my childhood days. I used to be like Thooyavan.
7) Throughout the movie, almost every scene which had some reference to some name of the street and it was deliberately hidden, plastered with some poster. I could identify the road opposite the luz anjaneyar temple ( I am from Mylapore) when the three teen heads towards thooyavan house. However, there was a death obituary poster posted on that road plaque entrance as well. TK deliberately wanted to remove all spatial references and featured spaces ( Govt. colonies like Foreshore Estate and the likes) that are lost in time. What does that do to a movie like this? Is it his way of saying this kind of stories could happen anywhere, anytime?
One more unexplored easter eggs
1) When the 3 teens get to watch the first porn movie featuring Ramya Krishnan, it starts offf with a long philosophical disclaimer with words like “அழகியல்” ( Aesthetics). I wished I could pause the movie at that moment and read through. Could anyone decipher that disclaimer?
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anon
April 6, 2019
@Isai: None of that was a problem for me (reg X,Y,Z comment) so we can agree to disagree. Regarding Mugil and Vaembu not bonding: Mugil explicitly says to the dead body how much he likes Vaembu and wants to impress her. They’ve lived, slept together for a few months at the very least under the banner of marriage – more than enough for him to not just abandon her in the worst crisis anyone can face. Plus, she’s HIS WIFE. I would’ve preferred a whole film of them – crisis bringing couple together. I’m not saying the method of disposal etc. didn’t have problems – I didn’t care about those because I wanted to see how those 2 would play the situation out.
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Isai
April 7, 2019
@Anon:
Mugil is a strange guy. When he finds out about the body, he doesn’t console his wife or agree to her idea of going to the police. Instead, he puts both of them at far bigger risk by trying to dispose the body. He immediately asks for divorce and keeps complaining about trivial things like shoes, while having the dead body with them. He doesn’t take the blame when faced by the SI and even tries to convince his wife to agree to the SI’s demands. And, he chooses to share his feelings for his wife with a dead body, during her absence. No wonder his wife didn’t like him.
Abandonment here is not the same as say abandoning your wife/gf when her mother dies or say in the Titanic ship. Here, what Mugil does may mean becoming a crime accessory/suspect that may lead to years of imprisonment for something that happened only because of Vaembu.
Your multiple comments about she being ‘HIS WIFE’ seems… romantic. I would say your husband/future husband is/would be lucky to have you. But, when I think of any real woman saying/doing something similar along the lines of him being ‘HER HUSBAND’…I am only reminded of what happened at the Titanic.
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anon
April 7, 2019
@Isai: hahaha touche!
“He doesn’t take the blame when faced by the SI and even tries to convince his wife to agree to the SI’s demands. ” I didn’t really buy that he would do this, considering his notions on shame, but maybe my romantic notions are getting in the way again. The whole “let’s just let Berlin record stuff and blackmail us for the rest of our lives so we don’t have to go to jail” was hard to buy but maybe that’s what an average person will be forced to do in the heat of the moment.
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Paras
April 7, 2019
Hello, had written very very very lengthy post two days back, can someone please help with their opinions 🙂 Thanks
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Gautham
April 7, 2019
@Paras
I felt the timeline was deliberately fuzzy, maybe to hint at quantum fuzziness and go with the larger arc of observation, and the codification of observations, causes aggrievement.
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Chaitanya Chvs
April 7, 2019
Hi all,
Do you see any resemblance of this film with the telugu film AWE which got released in last year..in terms of the initial introduction scenes and the philosophy of the film..
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Jay S
April 8, 2019
Absolutely loved the movie .. As drawn out some of the scenes were, they were very effective in evoking the exact right feeling the director wanted to evoke. Whether it is the irritation with Arpudham’s blind faith or disgust with the cop, he went for feelings, not message, not even content/logic. He makes you feel not just for a ‘protagonist’, but as every character in every scene. How many other movies make you see and feel for a kid, the wife and a transgender husband at the same time. WHich other movie makes you feel sympathy for an aduteror and the affected spouse at the same time. Which other movie has you invested in a doomed chase for a TV and drops you in an alien’s lap. It was such a worthwhile roller coaster that the roller coaster feeling continues after the movie ends. Even things that bothered me during the movie – dingy indoor sets – they are so jarring jsut like the diverse deep corners the director wants to take your brain to. This a movie I would be proud to show to any movie aficionado who follows any genre/region of movies be it hollywood or international as long they enjoys movies as thoughtballs and not thoughtless entertainment.
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Sutheesh Kumar
April 8, 2019
Paras:
Does the current technology allow to watch a 3D movie on a TV, forget on a cheap 30k priced TV? Ramya’s movie ‘Mallu Uncut’ would have released not later than 2004 (Tsunami Year). Were porn movies in India made using 3D technology in 2004.
Nowhere does the movie say that the broken TV was 30k. There are TVs that let you covert regular content to 3D by the TV’s software and the conversion is not seamless as you saw with the movie the boys were watching, the images though they had depth, had red and blue edges. They also come with free 3D glasses, but these are different from the ionised glasses you get at the movies.
If you consider the colour pallette of the movie, it’s a play on the colours of the 3D glasses red and blue and I feel what TK is saying here is that life may look deep when you put on those 3D glasses but in reality it is as shallow and 2D as that TV that can be broken by a soda bottle.
In short he’s saying that life is like that Super Deluxe ice cream, short and sweet, enjoy it while it lasts.
More answers to your questions later.
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Enna koduka sir pera
April 8, 2019
BR fan moment when Vijay Sethupathi talks about the high he got on getting praise from BR around 3:07 🙂
Also, seeing TK and VS sort of interviewing each other is just too good. I am enraptured (polished version of having a huge crush) by TK seeing his attitude towards everything and way of life.
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Manikandan V
April 8, 2019
ருத்திராக்ஷம் என்னும் ஞானக் கண் இல்லாத பழைய நூல்களின் குவியலாய் இயங்க இயலாத ஒரு மதம் , உலகம் முழுவதும் பிரச்சார வெறி கொண்டு கடல் கடந்து ஆக்ரமித்து பொருள் சேர்த்த ஒரு மதம் , சம்பவம் செய்து கொள்கையை நிறுவ முயலும் ஒரு மதம்.
நூல்களின் குவியலூடே ஆன்மீக சாரம் மிளிரும் மதம் ஒன்று,தியாகமும் கருணையும் உணர்த்தும் மதம் ஒன்று, தனிமனித ஒழுக்கத்தின் வலிமையை உணர்த்தும் மதம் ஒன்று .
பழமையின் நிழலில் ஆன்மீக சாரம், ஆக்கிரமிப்பின் நிழலில் கருணையும் தியாகமும், வன்முறையின் நிழலில் தனிமனித ஒழுக்கம் . #SuperDeluxe – Manikandan V.
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Manikandan V
April 8, 2019
A Religion,amidst heap of Outdated Texts unable to act devoid of Spiritual Eye Rudraksha, A Religion which went all over the world backing on imperialism to garner wealth,A Religion trying to establish Order through act of Valor,
A Religion which imparts spiritual wisdom to light us from the darkness ,A Religion which schooled us on Compassion & Sacrifice, A Religion which taught us the Value of Character
Under the Shadow of Outdated texts we have the Spiritual Continuity, Under the Shadow of Imperialism we have Compassion & Sacrifice, Under the Shadow of Ruthless Valor we have the Strength of Individual Character – #SuperDeluxe – Manikandan V.
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bart
April 8, 2019
Alternate take: After rethinking a bit, I feel convinced that the “mallu uncut” movie hero was Mugil. A wannabe actor, he comes with a cap on in the porn movie. The sub-inspector visiting home for passport verification (instead of a Head constable or the likes) probably adds up as he is a lecherous person (he says “avasarapattu vaaya utradha” in the climax to Mugil) and would’ve seen the movie. The key in car is just an easter egg reference to Aaranya kaandam, :Leela looking down knowingly at both of them walking back (while he doesn’t notice) and Vembu looking up with a puzzled look also gets explained.
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Paras
April 9, 2019
@Sutheesh: 30k is the price the 3 boys are trying to amass to buy the replacement TV, so I thought the broken Tv must also be around the same price. And so I was surprised to find a 3D TV at such a cheap price.
@Bart: Even I also thought that the porn actor with Ramya must have been Mugil. Hence during my second viewing I paid extra attention to the 2-3 second silhouette that appears to climb up the stairs. Neither the body frame nor the body language looked to be of Mugil. Second reason why he could not be Mugil is that Mugil as a character is someone who is very society conscious and he worries a lot about his society image if people know that his wife was having affair. Also, he is worried about What his own parents will say when they get to know that his wife was having an affair. Such kind of a timid (or rather societal image conscious) person can never dare to be a porn star.
I rest my case.. your Honor 🙂
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bart
April 9, 2019
@ Paras: Yes, both are possible but the “society conscious” etc is the facade as you could see Mugil mocks himself as a future “Puratchi ..” something. It could be tongue-in-cheek dig at such actors’ pasts. Also it could be an indirect statement against the society’s male-mentality that their wives should be a pathini while the same rules do not hold for men. He does say he had 3 girl friends whom he walked out on (we do not know when and where). So as I said, just an alternate take which I feel is more stronger…
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Aadhy
April 10, 2019
I would’ve picked up maybe a quarter of all the connections that are being discussed. The remarkable thing is that even on the surface the movie is bloody entertaining and a trippy one at that. TKRaja packs his film with so much sub-layers and detailing, and yet presents an anti-thesis about making sense of the same. I was hypnotized by the end that I left the theater with a stupid wide grin on my face. It’s like TKRaja is the alien himself coming down to earth after 8 years of extraterrestrial asylum only to remind us about the momentariness of life as species beings, after having watched the 4 stories unfold from an outsider’s POV himself.
One line from Gaaji (my favorite character) sums the whole movie for me, “We discovered our friend’s mom is a pornstar, made a murder attempt on some random dude, even had an encounter with an alien while attempting to rob a house, but did you realize that we haven’t watched that matter padam we set out to do in the first place?”
Life as we know it, is the porn movie Gaaji wants to watch afterall. No wonder the alien picks Gaaji to have a conversation.
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Thupparivaalan
April 10, 2019
10 days later, I still can’t stop thinking about the film. The last time a movie had this effect on me was sila nerangalil sila manidhargal, which I watched an year ago. Tamil Cinema might not have an separate art film culture, but we do make up for it by making such films every now and then.
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Sutheesh Kumar
April 11, 2019
The scooter that Berlin is riding is a Honda Dio and Dio in Greek means God. Does this mean that the Devil(Berlin) is riding the God?
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Sutheesh Kumar
April 12, 2019
In local parlance matter means sex, but in reality the actual definition is that matter consists of atoms(with electrons revolving around the nucleus, the Manushyaputhran voice over specifically alludes to this, that the distance between the electrons and nucleus is proportionate to the distance between the planets and star across the universe). Though Big Bang theory is about randomness, whatever it brought forth works in mathematical precision. This is TK genius at work here, now you may guess what he meant by Matter Padam(Vaazhvin Rahasiyam).
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Sutheesh Kumar
April 12, 2019
In that writers interview with BR he says that he gave this story to these writers so that it brings a different flavour and layer to the story he had originally conceived. It takes balls for a writer to do that and it shows that he is completely non egotistical when it comes to achieving perfection in his craft. Guys, what you are witnessing here is a Master at the height of his craft here, not withstanding his self professed laziness.
Writing, characterisations, performances, technical virtuosity and the sheer craft on display here is just simply next to perfection.
Fucking Fabulous! That’s it.
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V
April 13, 2019
Saw the film yesterday & here I am to say Aagggaa – to the film, BR & the amazing commenters here.
I havent watched #AskBR, so I could have missed some discussions, but some points I thought I could add (illa, to be honest, I want to say something here – and be part of this superb thread!)
Mugil goes to Koothupattarai for acting classes. Vijay Sethupathi is from Koothu Pattarai background (though he started as an acct there). If you notice, when his neighbor says “periya star aanaa nyabagam vechukunga”, Mugil says “Commmmedy pannadheenga sirrrr” which sounded like the slang which VJS speaks (and Mugil doesnt speak like that normally). And VJS is the star who constantly gives his opinions on Society, Injustice etc – and Mugil too takes off on such rants – often in inappropriate situations! Was TK playfully ribbing on VJS?
That Pookkari paati outside Rasukutti’s school – was she that infamous lady who appeared in both the ADMK & DMK propaganda video in 2016? If so, her words to VJS about social persecution make more sense. Same with Manushya Puthran (the matter doctor) who is a differently abled person – who had a traumatic life, but has turned out to be a successful media person now.
Just two varuthams:
As anon says – Berlin should have hit on Mugil too – more explicitly. He should have handcuffed Vembu and instead taken on Mugil. TK has put a twist on so many things in the film – why not the traditional abuse scene too.
And instead of Bugs, they could have had someone more charming, suave & conventionally handsome play the depraved SI. Say, Prithviraj (who aced as the villain in kana kanden). That would kinda put a twist on Vembu’s complaints on Mugil for not been suave.
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V
April 13, 2019
@Paras: Good dissection. Let me try to explain a few things which might have slipped your attention due to subtitle dependency.
a)) How does Rasukutty know that his father is going to fly back to Bombay? Rasukutty says, during his outburst, that he saw the travel ticket to Bombay in his dad’s purse when he was paying for his Paan. It was after this realization, did he leave his dad & go missing (deliberately!)
b)) Timeline: There is a newspaper poster that shows Edappadi Palanisamy (our Chief Minister) who came to the forefront only after Feb 2017 i.e after Jayalalita’s demise in Dec 2016. Till then he was an unknown entity, atleast in Chennai. So it is definitely 2017-18. Tsunami happens in 2004 – at that time Shilpa/Manickam had also attempted suicide (probably knowing his orientation & embarrassed by it). Arputham also had a near death experience at that time – knowing his wife’s profession.
However Leela is still in the same profession – and so Mallu Uncut is not a 2004 movie, but a recent one. Possibly shot in 3-D too 🙂
Regarding the TV – the children dont go to any branded showroom, but to a flea market electronics shop & so the 3D set too could be got at 30k (an assembled Flying Monkey brand!)
c)) Easter eggs: There are quite a few clever and subtle things placed in the film just to intrigue the viewers (i.e those who catch them). No explicit revelation are kept for them & to be honest, those explanations arent required at all. Take this: The nuisance guests who walk into Mugil Vembu’s house mention that “Balaji” also uses the same word (fuck) to swear. Now in just about one or two scenes later – we see Leela rush her injured son to a local doctor – and his name board reads Dr. Balaji. These things are just for the heck of it.
The Alien – this trick is similar to the Rabbit in Andhadhun (and the rabbit head on Ayushamn’s walking stick). It could be a figment of the boys’ imagination – remember they also bought booze in the beginning. So having taken the money from the Seth’s house there was no logical need for the alien, except to make us think. And you can notice Alien movie posters all over the place – so the boys could have watched that film as well & conjured up images. Or, like someone mentioned, as in Honeymoon travels – to put a spin on things, the alien is for real.
d)) As for Mugil supporting Vembu, had the guests not been there – he would have probably burst out & walked her to the police. But there were people with them & the neighbour too had nice words to say about Mugil (that he would be a hero soon). So maybe he steps up to support her. Mugil says he likes Vembu to the corpse, but keeps taunting her too. The quirks of an arranged marriage where the couple doesnt have enough reasons to separate & fewer to stay together. In the end too, they are shown being just cordial & not romantic yet.
4)) Leela giving a glance at Vembu – I thought it was just a glance & not a knowing glance. Or as someone said, the key could have been Mugil’s and Mugil was the porn star who is shown to be twirling a key. He even wears a cap to cover his high forehead in the Mallu uncut scene (maybe!)
5)) Berlin is recently promoted. So that could explain his visit (as part of his original duty). Or Vembu’s picture could have lured him (or even Fahad’s – given his preferences). And he would have her number wont he? (The application could have been for Vembu and Mugil)
I definitely have to watch this again! And again!
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V
April 13, 2019
@Isai: Two things:
In the beginning, they keep reiterating that Arpudham is not a Christian. As BR mentions, he has started a cult with his own holy-book. But yes, those are just distractions, for one could clearly see it is Christianity that they are alluding to. Plus Leela, in the end, says Dhanasekar became a Christian as he hugged an Aandavar idol, what would he have turned if it were a teddy bear. Yeah, but atleast they attempt to make it sound like a new belief system headed by Tsunami Andavar (like how they show Sidhdhar or some Baba in other films)
Secondly, it is shown that Arpudham gains a windfall, thanks to his Idol. Even in our old Tamizh mythological films, God will test the Bhakta’s devotion & only when he is about to snap or has snapped, would He intervene. So to a believer like me (of God), I see it as a reward for Arpudham’s single minded persistence. To an atheist, it might seem like an affirmation of his non belief. I feel that this is TK’s point – not to fret too much over these things. Plus, I dont know about audience elsewhere, but those in my theater did not let out even a chuckle when Arpudham prayed vociferously. (Unlike in Paradesi, where the preachers were made a caricature)
Which is why I dont mind Ulaganayagan’s anti-God rants. Because before coming to that portion, he would have definitely shown a lot of faith-reaffirming scenes (Dasavataram – how the vial goes into the idol & is kept safe, Anbe Sivam – the scenes with the Nun, Viswaroopam – the devout Muslim’s prayer & faith before embarking on his journey etc). His final customary naathigam, is just his signoff which I skip for the things depicted before (in Tamil very few mainstream movies these days show providence or divine intervention.)
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Baldmonk
April 14, 2019
To add to the TK Cinematic Universe, the shopkeeper in Aaranya Kaandam who keeps the bag & gives it to Subbu in the end is the same person who gives money to Shilpa in SD.
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Isai
April 14, 2019
@V: I don’t mind Kamal’s atheism related rants. One can always express one’s views/philosophies using cinema. What I dislike are scenes like Nassar being shown as a devout Saivist and also an exploitative capitalist. What is the relation between the two? In contrast ‘NallaSivam’ (Kamal) is an athiest communist and the Christian nun is a kind altruist. This kind of SUBTLE ‘opinion making’ is what I dislike (Irrespective of whether I like/dislike the opinion itself).
I recently watched Made in Heaven which I found to be quite engaging, at least in the initial episodes. But there too, I couldn’t help but notice that out of 9 episodes, the only normal happy weddings are the Christian, Muslim ones, though there would have been no difference even if those characters were Hindus. In fact we hardly get to know anything about those 2 characters except that they are ‘simple, nice men’.
Similarly, both BJP and Congress had severely opposed homosexuality 10 years ago and both have been shifting stand solely based on vote bank calculations. Yet, MIH portrays as if only BJP is opposed to this and frequently resorts to violence. Such subtle opinion making is especially problematic when only a small group has the wherewithal to make them.
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Paras
April 15, 2019
@V
Thanks for the exposition 🙂 Few scenes really makes sense to me now. There are still few inconsistencies in the timeline. VJS says that he was in Bombay when he escorted 2 kids to Kalyan railway station (which is 20 km away from Bombay) and then he realised his folly and out of guilt he wanted to commit suicide, for which he went to sea to drown himself. So, my question is why would he come all the way to a Tamil Nadu sea (and get struck by Tsunami) when Bombay also has a huge sea coast to drown 🙂 This is the 1st inconsistency with regard to timelines.
Secondly, it means during the period of Tsunami (i.e the year 2004) he was already a eunuch in Bombay ( since he was ‘escorting’ 2 kids ) That means he left away his family around the year 2004. And since he has come back to him wife after 7-8 years, that means the movie timeline is year 2011-12.
My wild guess is that TK wanted to connect the 2 stories (Mysskin and VJS in the subway) desperately and somehow used Tsunami as a link. As a result of which, the timelines are inconsistent. Also, Rasukutty looks to be around 7-8 year old boy, which is consistent with the fact that VJS left the family after his birth, ie around 8 years back and if take the movie timeline as 2017-18 that means VJS left his home to Bombay in 2010. But then Tsunami didn’t happen in 2010
Coming to your suggestion that Ramya’s 3D porn movie is a recent one, I feel that cannot be, due to 4 reasons. First, after Mysskin tried to commit suicide in 2004 (after knowing her porn background), why would she still continue to act in porn movies and risk rift with husband. Secondly, her son who looks to be aged 14-15 years which means he would have been born around 2004-05 and after his birth I wonder if a woman would still act in porn movies. Thirdly, I feel looking at her home/locality and the way she struggles to arrange money in the Hospital shows that financially they are very poor, which means she left porn industry long back ie right after Mysskin suicide attempt and birth of her son. Lastly, in the prom movie she looks young around (30 years) whereas in the movie timeline she looks to be around 45 years.
About the TV replacement, the boy whose TV was broken clearly says that his father will kill him if gets to know if this and hence I assumed they wanted to buy an exact replica and not a random assembled piece called Flying Monkey. I wonder if a lower middle class household in Chennai has a 3D home..Don’t know Just asking.
However, your explanation of Berlin’s visit is bang on and is pretty convincing since now in hindsight I realise How arrogant and overconfident he was during the scenes.
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Paras
April 15, 2019
Sorry ..typed on mobile ..Typos
Meant 3D TV and NOT 3D Home 😦
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Balaji V S
April 15, 2019
When Vaembu & his boyfriend start their 1st “round” of making love, the camera literally goes for a full 360 clockwise. Moments later, Vaembu says,” let me do it again” and then the same music starts & camera starts to go for a round clockwise …stops and comes back to the starting point . Can’t shoot the sequence better than this …lol
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anon
April 15, 2019
Dude Paras, you need to watch the movie again cos you’re bringing up all sort so things that the movie never claimed and saying they are inconsistencies. Just go watch again
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satishkvasan
April 15, 2019
Berlin is the other side of Rasukutty , who too never differentiates between genders. And just because you treat everyone equally bad, it does not make you right! The end serves him right!
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RamG
April 16, 2019
My take on the keys aspect. As someone rightly pointed out in the ask BR tweet, the keys, appearing at the middle of the forehead of the corpse, who again seems positioned in the middle of the estranged couple, is metaphorically the padlock between them.. The dangling key is shown as well, seemingly indicating that the corpse is again the reason they start opening up and seemingly warm up to each other eventually.
Note the thirukkural written on the school notice board (தெய்வத்தால் ஆகாது எனினும்….), appearing by the side of Shilpa, when she tries to dissuade her little son from sparring with his friends. That popular quip of wisdom too, is a misfit for Shilpa.
Few (among other) things I did not get:
1.When Vembu is forced to handcuff Mugil, the camera is from the inside of the car, and we are shown that the corpse looks on (rear view mirror). What is the significance of this.
2. Why is Berlin clad in a white shirt and veshti is his very first appearance, arriving at the police station.
3. What does Vembu whisper to Mugil’s ear when she mentions about her other physical relationships, that too with nobody around.
Despite the mention about chaos, the movie has pro-spiritual undertones. Patterns both microscopic and macroscopic (அண்டத்தில் உள்ளது எல்லாம் பிண்டத்திலும் உண்டு), metaphysics, cosmic oneness (advaitha vedantha), connection of events, the ‘curse’ of the 3rd gender becoming a reality, etc.
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V
April 16, 2019
@Paras: I may have to watch the film again – but from what I remember, I dont think Shilpa or the Director connected the Tsunami suicide attempt & Shilpa’s grave mistake of escorting those two boys in Mumbai. That is, Shilpa did not attempt suicide because she was overcome with grief – that attempt happened earlier (for reasons undisclosed – Im assuming, perhaps when he became aware of his orientation). Shilpa even says – one week she was stricken with grief & then because of that, she decides to reconnect with her family here in Chennai.
See – the Director seems to have given importance to minor aspects too. So when he shows Edapadi Palanisamy poster, refers to the Tsunami (not any random storm), has a person mention repeatedly that Arputham discovered his cult 12 years back – it means he wants to set the timeline clearly.
Reg. Leela, they dont show her as a younger self in Mallu uncut. So I have my doubts – plus it could be some soft-porn movie (which most matinee show Mallu movies were) & nothing explicit. And they dont show Leela as having any other occupation too – did you note that? With Arputham not around, or probably immersed in his own beliefs – we really dont know her source of income. (And I thought Arpudham and Leela were already estranged)
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Paras
April 16, 2019
@Anon
Yes, I would love to watch the movie again 🙂 but it is not playing in Bombay anymore except in one theatre and that too a matinee show. And since I know nothing of Tamil Nadu Or Tamil Movies, the 2 times I had watched, I was focussing on sub titles and hence may have missed on few aspects and therefore I am bugging you all with my queries..pls don’t mind
@V
Hey Thanks…Can you pls help me to understand these three events:
Event 1: Escorting 2 boys to Kalyan station and realizing the folly of it after few days when she saw them maimed
Event 2: VJS trying to drown when Tsunami came
Event 3: VJS deciding to come back to see his family after 7 years
In the subtitles, even after watching the movie twice, I felt that these 3 events were cause and effect i.e. Event 1 led to event 2 which led to event 3
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Paras
April 16, 2019
@RamG
About your query 2:
Even I introspected on this during my 2nd viewing. Not only does he wear a formal attire in his intro scene but also has a garland in his hands/neck. Stretching my imagination, I guess he has been called as a chief guest at some forum or may have been appreciated and honoured by his colleagues on his promotion. Also note that during the Mugil-Vaembu scene in the abandoned factory, he says that he has got a promotion recently and hence will not get any promotion for next few years..And this can also be the reason why he keeps on referring to himself as Officer Berlin, quite a few times. Thus, he has self-grandiose illusions about himself and hence he unabashedly abuses Shilpa in the police station and that too during day time
About your query 3:
That was just TK’s way of inducing some fun moments in a tense situation and the same time keep us guessing (obviously with no pay-off as her count of boyfriends is immaterial to the story-line)
Someone has already pointed out how TK uses few visuals during the Vaembu-Mugil-Berlin scene at the end. Camera shows us a close-up shot of Berlin’s revolver when he places it on the bike. Similary, camera shows mid close-up when Vamebu is handcuffing Mugil so that we assume that she will slyly not cuff him. And then when Berlin asks Vaembu to stand near the bottle, we intend to think that she will pick up the bottle, break it and harm him. I think these are all TK’s genius masterstrokes which enhance the taste of this super yummy dish called Super Deluxe
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anon
April 16, 2019
@Paras, in that case, let me tell you wha I think of these:
“Hey Thanks…Can you pls help me to understand these three events:
Event 1: Escorting 2 boys to Kalyan station and realizing the folly of it after few days when she saw them maimed
Event 2: VJS trying to drown when Tsunami came
Event 3: VJS deciding to come back to see his family after 7 years”
VJS tries to drown himself in 2004 timeframe cos he realises he wants to be a woman but is unsure of how to go about it, probably depressed etc. Myskin also tries to drown himself in the same timeframe since he’s found out that his wife is also a soft porn actress or maybe just actress. Both of them survive. Myskin starts a new religion and becomes a born again Tsunami Aandavar devotee and preacher with healing (!) powers.
VJS eventually abandons family and runs away to Mumbai. At some point in the recent past, for money he ruins the lives of 2 kids without quite knowing what he’s doing. This makes him repent and miss his son and family and he decides to come back to TN.
That’s the chronology.
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Isai
April 17, 2019
@Anon:
The loophole in that chronology is VJS son looks only 7-8 years old which means VJS got married 3 years after realising his gender identity, which looks unlikely. (Actually most trans people start realising their gender identity during late childhood itself but they may be reluctant to ‘come out’. But an adult trans woman who tries to commit suicide and 3 years later marries and fathers a child is extremely unlikely).
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anon
April 17, 2019
Well Isai, don’t know if that’s a loophole. People struggle all their lives to accept something or to come out. Who’s to know VJS would NOT have given in to societal pressure and married/fathered a kid? So many gay men and women have had married spouses of opposite sex and continue to do so because of many many factors.
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Paras
April 17, 2019
Your are bang-on Isai..thanks.. and that is what exactly I have pointed out in my few of my posts above.
The chronology of VJS character arc in terms of his realization that he is a transgender, trying to commit suicide in 2004 in Chennai, escorting 2 kids in Bombay, coming back to Chennai in 2017, birth of his son, etc. is little hazy and unclear. I would have ignored and not nitpicked this aspects so much if the timeline was immaterial to the storyline or the final pay-offs. Contrarily, timelines in this movie are too important to be ignored, since Mysskin’s story completely takes a drastic turn, only because he ‘suddenly’ met Shilpa in the subway and more importantly even she ‘happened’ to be part of the same Tsunami at the same place.
Also, just a minor correction to what you suggested…
VJS tried committing suicide in 2004 and his son is now around 7-8 years i.e. he was born in around 2010. Which means after full 6 years (and not 3 years) of he realizing that he is transgender…
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V
April 17, 2019
There is a dialog in which a sister-in-law comments snidely that the Gayathri character must have been extremely talented to beget a child, that too a male child, that too someone smart like Rasukutty with a husband like Manikam.
I think it is this aspect of the film that irked the Transgender community – misrepresentation of their life.
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ssridhar2
April 19, 2019
While the film itself is discussed ad nauseam (quite justly so), am surprised nobody is talking about the trailer which is a self-contained gem in and of itself, particularly VJS’s monologue. I watched it only after watching the film, and has been hooked to it ever since, like I’ve never been. I was instantly reminded of Roger Ebert’s words on Tommy Lee Jones’s opening monologue in No Country for Old Men – “When I get the DVD of this film, I will listen to that stretch of narration several times; Jones delivers it with a vocal precision and contained emotion that is extraordinary, and it sets up the entire film”. Scintillating!
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Baldmonk
April 20, 2019
@ssridhar2: Also the “Ding Dong” promo cut by Alphonse Puthren of Premam fame. Brilliant one! Could see the credits appearing similar to how Brad Pitt flashes occasionally before his Intro sequence in Fight Club. Perhaps a Reference to the Production house name!(Tyler Durden & Kino Fist).
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Srimugunthan Rishithan
May 18, 2019
Hi there BR sir. I have finally watched Super Deluxe and I have to say, it is good but one thing that I simply did not like was the Alien stuff. It just pulled me out of the experience. I understand the reason it is there but I think the film could have just ended with the shot of aliens to further hone in the message of evolution or there is more connection to the world than we think without coming across as a distraction. Apart from that, a great movie and I would give a 8/10. Is it slightly over-hyped? Yeah kinda but it is still a great movie. Thank you for the movie recommendation.
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shemz
May 22, 2019
Was it just me or did anyone else see the front of Kaji’s shirt as a picture of a dinosaur? The leaf-eating kind with long neck? It was especially wacky in the climax, when Kaji and the girl are having the conversation on the roof-top, the scene is framed from behind the Super Deluxe neon sign and it was like Tk saying – there is space for everything in my movie, even aliens and dinosaurs! I kept trying to see it as the lower-half of a cat, but my mind kept going back to the dinosaur! Sigh, Laurel or Yanny all over again!
Also, the alien part did not irk me as much. Until then the characters are suffering for their deeds and after the appearance of the alien is when the movie starts tying everything story with a pretty bow. TV falling on the inspector’s head, Ramya Krishnan explaining her stance to her son, Shilpa finding her son back at home all happen after the appearance of the alien. It was like TK saying they may not have happy endings in the universe as we know it, but in a universe where there may be aliens walking amongst us, they may have their happy endings!
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shemz
May 22, 2019
Doesn’t aneedhi also mean injustice? I read ‘aneedhi kadhaigal’ as ‘stories of injustice’, speaking about society’s unjust treatment of people like Ramya krishnan, vaembu and shilpa and how aliens might walk among us before the former are treated with respect.
And the character with unwavering faith in religion(Myskin’s friend/associate) is named…. Ramasami! Cheeky, TK!
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shemz
May 22, 2019
There were so many beautiful spillovers to the other stories all through the movie. My favorite one is in the climax, just before the boys enter the screen running the matter movie, the camera moves to the wall outside the screening and in the blue wall there are white pictures of two circles – one large and one small and a crescent nearby. Just as I was thinking – Hey that looks like the Sun, Earth and the Moon, the settu girls talks about Sun, Earth and the Moon and the visual cuts to them standing on the roof top! Brilliant!
The movie has so many details that I could not take my eyes away even during the second watch. Like those crazy mohan-Kamal movies, where during every viewing I will find a new joke, SD will keep giving new meanings and details with every subsequent watch, I guess.
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bala
May 26, 2019
A bit late here:
Some things I noticed in the movie:
* Things keep changing to opposite extremes almost instantaneously.
One boy is excited to watch a porn movie, but suddenly he is in pain by watching the porn.
The boy tries to kill his mother, but suddenly finds himself struggling for life. He damages an auto, suddenly is being carried to hospital in the same auto. The other boy tries to kill someone, next moment, he thinks saving the same guy will be more beneficial.
Samantha is happy one moment because of sex, next moment the mood changes because the guy is dead. One moment she is unable to cut a deadbody, next moment, she dares to kill an innocent kid. Fahadh wants divorce from his wife for having an affair, but asks his wife to give blowjob to a stranger.
VJS’s wife is eagerly waiting for her husband one moment, immediately, she is confused whether she should be happy for his return. So, moralities, right and wrong, changes almost instantaneously. But we are obsessed with how society views us. This is portrayed by the strangers are entering Fahadh’s house.
Both Samantha and VJS are pathinis as per the story. When Fahadh says, “periya pathini, power vaa nu sonna varradhuku”, and power comes. Similarly, Bugs says, “En pondati pathini, ava saabam vittae palikkala, iva vittaa palikka poagudhu”, and her saabam palichufies in the end. (These are not divine interventions, i see them as director’s way of telling us that the rules of society for pathini are wrong)
Also, for the plastic bags, my explanation is the alien is practising Mytosis with the covers, and the sofas, before implementing on Kaji.
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hari
May 30, 2019
Does anyone know who is the online streaming partner for this movie? Went to see the movie but couldn’t sit through the whole movie (was tough sitting through and had left kid with in-laws who were having tough time), left 30 minutes earlier. But now want to watch to see if the movie gets better at the end or not. Do suggest. Thanks
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Isai
May 30, 2019
AFAIK, Netflix is the streaming partner. But, not sure if they have released it for streaming.
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hari
May 30, 2019
Thanks Isai, so far I don’t think they have released in Netflix. Will keep an eye.
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Devarsi Ghosh
June 12, 2019
Just watched.
Can’t stop smiling.
Head is spinning.
Reminded me of films like Magnolia and Love Exposure.
But this is its own beast.
Probably the best Indian film I have seen this year.
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Devarsi Ghosh
June 12, 2019
You mentioned Magnolia too!
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Ganesan Kandasamy
July 9, 2019
I really enjoyed this movie. I hope it makes enough money so that the filmmakers can keep making these types of movies without having to wait another 8 years. I do feel there were some scenes which were kinda far-fetched such as disposing a TV off the roof-top – I mean, who does that?! When that scene happened, it was a foregone conclusion as to where it was going to land and when 😝 I thought having Bugs play a rapist who swings THREE ways to be excellent – I don’t think I have ever seen a character in Tamil cinema who openly displays their lust for MEN, women AND transgender in such an unapologetic fashion. I truly wish the director had gone full on Pulp Fiction by having Bugs violate the husband instead of the wife. I’m sure the audience in the cinema would be stunned by that. Men do get raped in real life by other men. I guess Tamil cinema audience – especially the men in the audience! – are just not ready for that kinda stuff.
And for what it’s worth I do hope Aaranya Kaandam gets released on the streaming platforms uncut. It was quite a joy to watch Super Deluxe on Netflix with the English subtitles on 😊
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Anu Warrier
July 18, 2019
Saw the film, loved the black humour, hated the exposition. I don’t need to be hit over the head with the reason vs. God. And like Anuja, hated that the women’s punishments were only all too real, while the ‘punishers’ ‘ punishment was a farce.
The Berlin character was over the top; Arputham got on my nerves, and I wish the film had been about an hour less. The director just lost his hold on the second half.
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brownstudyworks
July 26, 2019
Read and learn.
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krishikari
August 14, 2019
I finally got around to watching this Super Long movie on Netflix and absolutely loved every minute of it. I had to adjust the screen for colour saturation after the first 2 minutes and then could enjoy the roller coaster ride. This direction in Tamil cinema is so exhilarating, like Aruvi or Peranbu, it goes in daring magical and absurd directions, just trusting the audience to abandon themselves to the experience. A little more trust would have made for less exposition but even that was done in a fun way.
The comments above on this excellent review are almost as amazing and brilliant as the movie itself. The timeline nitpicking aside; that part sort of just fell into place for me. So many new insights.
Ashwanth Ashokkumar as Rasukutty, the little boy was the star of the show, so innocent and heartbreaking. His mother got the least characterisation and felt really conventionally written, so I wonder why so much praise for her acting, she is just looking on from the sidelines.
I do agree that the other women’s punishments felt all too real but that is what really happens, right? It did not upset the tonal balance for me. The alien appearance did not bother me either, but by then I was just into total acceptance of everything being thrown on the screen. I remember with the alien appearance in Spielberg ‘s AI (another super long one, filled with similar themes) throwing my hands up saying wtf but now a couple decades later I’m just okay cool, aliens are people too.
Have to make time to watch again, really looking forward to it.
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Honest Raj
August 14, 2019
The story of the four boys is easily the most interesting segment of the film – in a way it reminds me of Azhiyatha Kolangal. As for the “messagey” stuff, the following line (by Gaaji) aptly sums up the intent behind the movie:
“Indha padathula oru doctor, modhalla konja neram vazhkaiya pathi thathuvama pesittu kadaisila vazhakaiyila mukkiyamana vishayamae matter dhanu pointukku vandhruvan machi”.
“Aneethi Kathaigal” would’ve been a great (poetically speaking :P) title.
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krishikari
August 14, 2019
@Honest Raj “The story of the four boys is easily the most interesting swegment of the film -”
Agreed, because men can write boys lives very convincingly. And thats also why we have so many coming of age type films centered around boys. In this film their scenes were also the most interestingly imagined and staged.
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Marsant Gerephio
May 29, 2020
What is the period of this film? The boys’ story started off on a flawed premise, nobody (I mean, any rung of the society) goes to CD shops anymore, especially after the digital penetration (no pun intended), for all the film’s progressive talks this seems to be completely outdated.
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(Ex-?) Voldemort
July 25, 2020
I was watching Money Heist lately and noticed the Berlin character there and the thought that immediately struck my mind was the similarity with the Berlin from Super Deluxe. Both Berlins have feelings of grandiose-ness about themselves, try to creepily preach to others, have a twisted sense of right and wrong and are basically assholes. And the way they both talk, in a somewhat draggy fashion with a smug smile led me to wondering if anyone else felt the same way or I was reading too much on two characters with just a common name.
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satishkvasan
November 25, 2022
Movie scene happens in real life
https://m.timesofindia.com/city/bengaluru/bengalur-lover-dies-woman-stuffs-his-body-in-bags-dumps-it-on-road/amp_articleshow/95725099.cms&ved=2ahUKEwjdy9zarsj7AhVL3jgGHS8CBWUQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Rt9rb99IETqp2ZfBzD6Al
Well well .
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