Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s second feature film Super Deluxe is a hyper narrative dark comedy cum drama but to be honest you really can’t fit the film into genre(s). I don’t want to go into this so called ‘decoding of the film’ thing but what I want to talk about here is the larger picture of what the film is really about and the impeccable film making of it which makes the film to really stand out. The very first time I saw Super Deluxe, I was so focussed on getting the little details and the plot but in doing so I missed the bigger picture. In spite of that ,the film still spoke to me and I was so eager to watch the film again and I’m glad I did. That’s the thing about revisiting a film,isn’t it ?, you keep finding new meanings and little nuances each time.Super Deluxe on a surface level may look like a way too ambitious attempt to pack everything starting from how a life is created (i.e) sex to the infinity (i.e) the very meaning of existence of Universe but what the film really aims at is how certain things that are believed to be impious and profane or moral and immoral actually happens ,is it because of coincidence or is it because of one’s faith in God or is that something beyond explainable ?[1]. Now,whenever a writer(i’m talking about writers with a clear vision here lol) plans to write a screenplay the first thing that comes to his/her mind is the idea or thesis as Dir.Ram calls it and the story n characters are just tools that he/she creates for transforming the thesis into an interesting narrative. The same way Thiagarajan Kumararaja uses four subplots to explore sanity,sex,morality,religion,profanity and by doing so eventually answers the above question[1].
Now,the film takes place on two days,the day when Shilpa played by the brilliant Vijay Sethupathi returns from Bombay and the day after it.The interesting thing about this subplot is it’s slightly different to other three subplots.The reason I say this is there’s no such thing that u can call as either coincidence or godly happens in Shilpa’s life but you can’t say the same thing about her actions as it affects others lives, I will come to this later[2]. Having said that, Is it not inexplicable that how Shilpa felt the way she felt about her sexuality ? May be yes or may be no, little confusing right ?. Now, this is how exactly Kumararaja treats the entire film, he treats it with duality. There are many instances in the film where the duality is constantly thrown into the narrative like 1) how a man who cares so much for a centipede happens to an evil sex predator, 2) the contrasting colors of blue and reddish orange used throughout the film, 3) how come a man who speaks so right about the hypocritical nature of casteism and seems to have contemporary thoughts suddenly goes “iva periya pathini currenta vaanu sonna vandhurathuku” (“as if she’s a sacred virgin for the electricity to come when she asks for it”) when he is in the crisis/trouble and 4) how can a world judge a woman when she has acted both in a ‘Amman’ (‘Goddess’) movie and in a softcore porn film. But one striking and on the nose instance of duality is when the Alien(of course,I will come back to this alien thing later), played by Mirnalini clones/splits the Gaji character into two. Now, this is the direct reference to the famous Schrödinger’s cat theory [fig:2]. To put it in layman’s terms Schrödinger’s through his thought experiment says that “a particle can remain in a dual state at a same time”. Also see how Kumararaja frames the scene of the cloning here[fig:1],Gaji stands in front of the mirror facing the Alien and you see the mirror image of him just when he’s about to be get cloned, again indicating daulity. Now, the most talked about thing in this film, an Alien and I was so surprised by it because there’s so much to talk about and they chose a fucking Alien. I don’t get it when people say that everything is fine about the film expect the invasion of Alien out of nowhere. First of all you can’t say that it came out of nowhere when we clearly get audio and visual clues about the alien throughout the film. But what does is it actually mean/signify?
There are two ways I look at this thing, one from the thematic POV. Let me explain – the name Alien literally means unfamiliar,right ?. We don’t know what that creature is so we named Alien.The same way we always treat something that we don’t understand at that moment just like how the whole world at one point of time considered homosexuality , a criminal offence and now it’s almost legal everywhere.The creature that appears in the film,a weird figure i must say may become a normal thing after who knows how many years but the thing is you never know what will happen in the future. Also,there are dialogues in the film to support this claim. For instance the RamyaKrishnan character says “10,000 varusathuku munnadi yaaravadhu thuni pottagalanu theriyadhu 100 varusathuku aprum yaaravathu poguvaggalanum theriyadhu,ippa vaaldra makkal athu seri ithu thappunu solluvagga aprum avagga vasathikku yetha mari avaggale mathippagga” (“we don’t know people wore anything before 10,000 years n we also don’t know if people will wear anything after 100 years. the people who are living now will say that is right and this is wrong but they also change them to their comfort” ), just to put it in nutshell, what is considered to be right now may be considered wrong in the future or vice versa and the Alien is just a metaphor for all those things that are considered by many as a taboo now. The most interesting aspect of viewing the whole Alien thing this way is that how it provides a direct metaphorical connect to the story of Shilpa n how the society treats her.. It’s so fucking amazing how the film connects the subplots via subtext without even making the characters meet, it’s just brilliant writing..
The second way of seeing it is from the narrative POV – there are two extraordinary contradictions in the film one being the dialogue from the Arputham character played extraordinarily by Mysskin after that superb tunnel scene (i will come to this scene later) that goes like “Kaasu venumnu andavar kitta ketta onnume kadaikula andavare illanu selaya odaicha vairama kottuchi..avara odachathunala tha kadaichatha,ithanala andavar illandratha illa avarukkullarundhe kadaichathanala andavar irukuranu soldratha” (“i asked for money to god and nothing happened but when i said there is no god and broke the statue it poured diamonds. Now, what should i make out of this ?. Should I assume that i got diamonds because i said there’s god ? or should i assume that God is real because i got the diamonds from him (god statue)?” ) and the other one being the contradiction between morality and coincidence drawn from the fact of how the lives of Shilpa and Berlin end up in the movie. Let me put this way – the fact that Berlin ends up dead, is it because Shilpa has cursed him or is it just an coincidence ?.These two contradictions are direct influences from the Paul Thomas Anderson’s third film Magnolia. In Magnolia, just like in Super Deluxe the characters are caught up in extraordinary situations and an extraordinary event happens (i.e) a frog rain occurs (just like the Alien here) now just before the frog rain two characters decide to commit suicide but because of this rain one’s life is saved n although the character doesn’t die at the end she did not get saved because of this frog rain but its an another coincidence altogether. I don’t want to go deep into Magnolia here that’s for an another day but you can get both the duality and contradiction here,right ?. In Magnolia P.T.A leaves it to the audience to figure out this contradiction and duality but Kumararaja in Super Deluxe chooses to take sides, he says it’s all coincidence.
Now, how can you say this to the audience 1) a voice over, 2) intervention from a mysterious character, just like in Coen brothers The Big Lebowski and 3) breaking the fourth wall, like in Bong joon-ho’s Memories of Murder and Kumararaja chose the second option here and it’s just that the ‘mysterious character’ here is an Alien and that is it, it’s as simple as that. Coming back to the tunnel scene look how the scene starts off [fig: 3],Shilpa sitting in absolute darkness as if she was completely lost and don’t know what to do next and look where Mysskin is framed [fig: 4], at the end of the tunnel as if he’s the light for Shilpa’s problems but what’s so interesting about this scene is that how the characters transform and the same way lightning changes too (i.e) after Mysskin comes to know that he is not the only one who got saved from Tsunami by holding onto the stone(a Jesus statue) look how the lighting was done here [fig:5] now, Mysskin is in darkness and [fig: 6] shilpa walks towards the end of the tunnel where the light is (a help in the form of a constable to find her son). It’s just pure visual storytelling..
Another thing about revisiting the film is you catch visual comedy a lot more. The same here with Super Deluxe too. For instance [fig: 7] you see a steam cooker just after the title card. I don’t want to a write a paragraph connecting steam coming out of a cooker and a sex scene that happens after it lol. I know you people will get it.
Also the name of the Video Store where the boys buy a porn CD, of all the name in the world it’s named ‘ANNAI VIDEOS‘ and also when the lady takes out the porn cd which is inside a drawer,we see a CD of 1979 k.Vijayan’s film called Thirisoolam.The thing about visual comedy in Super Deluxe is how these little details does not end up being only comedy but also adds to the overall vision of the film,what I mean here is you only associate words like ‘Annai’ and ‘Thirisoolam’ only with that of sacred,right.But look where Kumararaja uses them, in a fucking video store that sells porn disks.Apart from these, the most wtf moment for me is the ‘Request Card’ [fig:8] from the man (moodman78@hotmail.com) who made the porn compilations.
Now , is Super Deluxe an original film,hell no. There are lot of influences starting off with the biggest influence for the film being P.T.A’s Magnolia, Coen Brother’s No Country For Old Men and the style n some aspects of writing were very similar to Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, David Fincher Alejandro González Iñárritu and many more. Is it a perfect film,this again a no too.Acting in some places seems off and the certain dialogues could have been better.But what is it then about Super Deluxe by TRK made me to write this. The braveness that was put into writing by this guy and he’s being producer too,look it’s not at all easy to make these kind of films and I’m not talking about the difficulties involved in filmmaking here but the actual content of the film and to execute in a way he did, this exactly what made me to write a piece on it’s one year anniversary. Kamal Haasan when speaking to The Statesman once quoted “It’s almost like when you find a director on your own and then he/she becomes a great director, you become very parental towards the person. You feel proud to see your son grow, however old he/she can be, it doesn’t matter” and my feelings for Thiagarajan Kumararaja is exactly the same. Super Deluxe is a special film from a special filmmaker that I will cherish for a long time and I got this feeling that we are yet to see his full potential and i’m sure there’s lot more to come. So until his next film (who knows how many fucking years), May the Force be with him.
Thanks for reading this thing lol. Cheers.
CiNeMA ReTroSpecT 