Super Deluxe Movie Review by Praveena | Vijay Sethupathi | Samantha | Super Deluxe Review
Super Deluxe Movie Review by Praveena
| Vijay Sethupathi | Samantha | Super Deluxe Review
#superdeluxereview #SuperDeluxe
#VijaySethupathi #Samantha
The opening credits of Super Deluxe
are reminiscent of Kumararaja’s earlier work Aaranya Kaandam, and are played
over Senthamizh Paadum from Vaira Nenjam, if I remember correctly. The opening
scene, too, reminds one of how Subbu was introduced in Aaranya Kaandam. There,
the woman was treated like a piece of meat. Here, the woman feels pleasure. You
hear the squeaky sounds of the bed. The camera slowly pans to establish every
minute details of the room. All this happens over ‘I’m A Disco Dancer’ song,
and the title card appears in a Kumararaja-esque style.
In more than one way, Super Deluxe can
be seen as a spiritual successor to Aaranya Kaandam. If the latter was about
male impotency, Super Deluxe embraces the idea of sexual fantasies; Kumararaja
delves deeper into the darker side of human mind, without being least
judgemental about his characters. If Aaranya Kaandam tried answering what
dharma is, Kumararaja takes it a notch higher in Super Deluxe and questions the
concept of morality, and how humans derive their own boundaries, in a more
exploitative way. It makes a comment about chaos theory and how meaningless
life is. The film, in many ways, is the result of a confluence of four
different world views (written by Kumararaja, Mysskin, Nalan Kumarasamy and
Neelan K Sekar). And it’s amusing how Kumararaja connects interrelated themes
and subjects within the confines of his milieu. He seems to rejoice the
genre-hopping; the film begins as a black comedy and ends like a dramedy on life,
sex and spirituality. And that's the least spoiler-free review one could write
about a film that is overly layered.
At its heart, Super Deluxe is about
four stories that are interwoven together, making it hard to guess who wrote
what. Mugil (Fahadh Faasil) and Vaembu (Samantha Akkineni in a remarkable
performance) are in a marriage of convenience. Something terrible yet
insanely-funny incident happens to them and that triggers a series of
unwarranted events. Their conflicting-yet-affectionate nature makes you wonder
as to what would have happened to Chappai and Subbu (from Aaranya Kaandam) had
they lived together. Elsewhere, a motley group of sex-deprived teenagers visit
a CD shop to satisfy their quest for bittu padam. For some strange reasons, I
kept thinking about Chittu and his gang from Aaranya Kaandam, and what if it
was their coming-of-age story, before they discovered the art of seducing older
women? Kumararaja never really explored the warring relationship between
Kodukapuli and Kalaiyan, and brushed it off with a powerful “avaru en appa”.
But he does in Super Deluxe, which comes in the form of Shilpa (Vijay
Sethupathi) and Rasukutty. Shilpa is the most honest portrayal of a transgender
in a long time. She’s humanised; we see why she’s rejected by society. We
empathise with her when she says this about sexuality: Serupa maathi podra
mathiri. We sense her helplessness when she’s assaulted at a police station. It
helps that Vijay Sethupathi was chosen to play this complicated, dark
character. He brings a certain vulnerability, especially when Shilpa meets
Arputham (Mysskin). Which brings us to the shockingly-delightful story about
Arputham and Leela (Ramya Krishnan in her boldest role yet).
Super Deluxe draws humour from the
most unlikeliest places. When Shilpa demonstrates how eunuchs earn money with a
sharp clap, Rasukutty says, “Ae...super pa nee.” The film, in fact, makes a
self-reverential joke about Aaranya Kaandam, when a gangster prods an important
question: kadaisiya enna padam paatha? Remember the Kamal-Rajini banter? A
deeply religious person turns blind eye to an important piece of information.
His whole life has been a lie. And when he breaks open the sacred sculpture, he
finds diamonds in it. It's a brilliant touch. Another filmmaker would have
explained the why. Kumararaja doesn't.
No other filmmaker has probably
romanticised the Tamil cinema universe with pop culture references as much as
Kumararaja. Consider the scene where a character croons Vanithamani from Vikram
before watching porn, or the one where a character drapes saree over the Maasi
maasam song (It isn’t a coincidence that a doctor is named after MS
Viswanathan). If Subbu went through a Baasha-like transformation in Aaranya
Kaandam, a character here (ironically named Manickam) undergoes a similar
transformation. There are inside jokes too. Arputham invents his own bible
called Anjathey Nambu. Rings a bell? And these bits aren't added just to make
them look cool.
In one of the earliest stretch, a
character says, “Dai rascal! Enna maranthutiya?” For a moment, it felt as
though Kumararaja was asking this question to us: it’s been eight years since
he made a film. If Super Deluxe is what you get from a filmmaker who was in
exile, then you don't mind waiting a few years from now till he comes up with
his next eccentric film.
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