Scattered Notes on Super Deluxe: Follow-up Exchanges Part 2

[Exchange with @alokranj]

@equanimus: To clarify, my remark about the film's glibness was not related to the jokey/tongue-in-cheek treatment (which as @alokranj says is there only in the initial scenes; well, even here, one can see the Mysskin-written portion stands apart!) but about the glibness in the philosophical ideas explored. I do otherwise think the films aims for something higher (than tongue-in-cheek/ironic distance style) in general and esp as it progresses, like I noted in my 1st post (a very hurried and haphazard note, I might add). I do think the film is far more ambitious than and purposeful than Aaranya Kaandam, which surprised me. But I had serious reservations about how it plays out, which I thought was muddled up. That's kinda the point I was trying to make in that post. Resumed my conversation with @complicateur with a couple of more posts above which are even more unwieldy and go into various questions in a dull way.

@alokranj: on glib philosophizing: if you boil everything down to the final monologue/voice-over narration you could argue that it is glib or unearned though even there I would protest otherwise. To me this idea that despite all the randomness, chaos, amorality, senselessness and suffering, we must still hold back the final judgment on Life, it is not glib at all because the stories actually make you think about it without insisting on it one way or the another.

I saw this film as a very sincere and thoughtful aesthetic engagement with amorality and nihilism. That is why I said that comparing it with Tarantino/Pulp Fiction (talk about glibness!) is doing it a disservice. You could actually argue this about his earlier work Aaranya Kandam, but even that now acquires a lot of weight and contextual meaning in the context of "Super Deluxe" if you think of the earlier film as another episode in a bigger narrative.

@equanimus: Yes, my arguments are:

one, it's simply unearned considering how things play out in the stories. The only story that touches upon randomness is actually the most flippant (and in my view, the most effective) one: the story of the boys. The other stories don't dwell enough on senseless in what comes off as stories with plotty beats, and very comforting ones at that. There isn't a portrait of "what life can give to people after all the suffering" per se.

Two, the ideas explored don't actually cohere. Mysskin's questions about the meaning of life and god stand on the one hand while the film spends much of its time exploring how people grapple with sexuality in a very prosaic, day-to-day sense. What can we make of Mugil-Vaembu story for instance? They get along after some "he says, she says" exchange that goes along the lines of "that's all there's to life, isn't it? it's that simple etc."

Three (maybe kinda tied to the previous two), I thought the idea that "Life itself is that mystery/joy" was itself glib in the way it was rendered - considering how base and manufactured some of the suffering is (should I say "causal"? :-)), I thought it more or less degenerates (inadvertently or otherwise) just asking people to look at the big picture and take it easy. This is where I think the film inadvertently follows the commonplace line of just surrendering yourself to god.

Having said all this, I agree with you about the boldness of the film's ending and how captivating it is. I do recall feeling it was a thrilling way to end the film.

@alokranj: In the boys' narrative, what did you think of the "alien"? Were you thrown off by it? Kumararaja and the writers take a huge risk there and lot depends whether you allow yourself to remain in the story after that episode.

@equanimus: Oh that worked for me completely, the story also had a bit of broader dreamlike treatment prior to the twist too. I agree it was a risk but then it works precisely because the film brings the alien as if to 'enlighten' the boys as opposed to bring about some abrupt resolution.

I even wonder if many people are hung up on the meaning of the alien simply because they think it ought to have done more! (Not condescending but I think the larger Tamil audiences aren't used to a deliberate surreal style unless done with a sleight of hand leading them to it.)

@alokranj: That's good to know. I also thought if the film stressed a dream-like, surreal treatment a little more, if it cranked up "Lynchian" aspect of a day gone really weird trope through lighting, set design etc, it would have worked even better

@equanimus: True. Like I said, I found the boys' story to be the most effective for this reason. Maybe even the other stories are meant to be like that but at least I didn't receive them that way.

@alokranj: In my 20s I thought surrendering yourself to God was easy and commonplace thing to do. Now in my 30s I think that surrendering yourself to nihilism is the easier option to take ;) May be in my 40s I will finally regain my lost faith ;)

@equanimus: :-) But seriously, I'm sure you'd agree it's not a binary "this or that." And my point of "considering how base and manufactured some of the suffering is" would apply to surrendering in general, whether to god or nihilism. :-) I'd also seriously question if the aloof cool of Kumararaja (let's just say, in his previous film Aaranya Kaandam for us to have a somewhat common ground :-)) has to be accounted for as nihilism proper. There's a great deal of "everyone's liberty to have fun, etc." in the overall stance against moralism as well. I get how you read the film's question about the meaning of life, God in Arputham's story but just clarifying that, in my view, he doesn't come off as either seriously nihilistic or wrestling with nihilism. :-)

@alokranj: On "Super Deluxe" I wrote a blog about some thought pointers. Too lazy to write a proper essay or a review https://t.co/VOL6DpO4ws

@equanimus: Thanks for sharing your Super Deluxe blog-post, skimmed through some parts a while back. Will read fully. One thing I'd reiterate as my impression about the film is that it is intent on being more meaningful/purposeful as a whole and eschews immediate visceral effects of a tight narrative (a distinction Baradwaj R also made in his review comparing this to Kumararaja's previous film). It is unusual even in the best of Tamil films (while we are at Maanagaram). It's a very offbeat/arthouse cinema sort of move on Kumararaja's part but I didn't think the film succeeded at all venturing into this. Nalan Kumarasamy, one of the co-writers, spoke highly of the level of game Kumararaja is playing and so on. After seeing the film and wondering how exactly the story of the falling man VJS tells in the film's trailer fit into the film's scheme, I recalled how Nalan Kumarasamy's 1st film Soodhu Kavvum in fact has a really thoughtful portrait of 'a man unfazed.' I even toyed with the idea of writing down something arguing Nalan Kumarasamy is in fact the one who played that game exceedingly well in his 1st film. :D

@equanimus: Just finished reading it. I agree with pretty much everything you've said here in terms of how one ought to approach art. Not to belabour my case - but where I differ is, I think the film has only a few tantalizing bits that encourages reflection on life, suffering, sexuality.

@alokranj: I wrote about some of our differences (I think) on "Super Deluxe" in the third section of the blog post. If something is said in an ironic way, or within a jokey or tongue in cheek context, it doesn't necessary undervalue its seriousness.

@equanimus: Oh my issue was not at all about serious stuff said in a jokey or tongue-in-cheek context. But that the ideas don't really cohere. The very reason I was compelled to look for serious meaning in a film that is anything but solemn was because I took all the jokes seriously!

@alokranj: That monologue in the trailer is actually a very good example. It can be a joke, it can also be a serious idea about how to live life facing certain death. Both of these meanings can co-exist fine with each other, one doesn't undermine the other.

@equanimus: Indeed, I don't think I've questioned that at all. The very film exists on the idea that it can coexist on entirely different planes (and that much was clear even from the trailer), right? My earlire point was about how it resonates well only with the story of the boys. And about the portrait of unfazed, the point was, at a personal level (i.e. not so much an artistic assessment; but then at a deeper level, it is that too, isn't? :-)), I relate far more to a (different) strain of philosophy manifest in Soodhu Kavvum (which btw is as jokey as it gets!).

@alokranj: on incoherence, one clue is in the title itself. like a super deluxe bus or a hotel room it is packed with a little too much knick knack. Not everything will fit or cohere together :)

@equanimus: :-) Well, for me, at least 2 of the stories didn't work on that plane at all, and it also seemed like (don't mean it literally) the film dwelt on them the most. In the 3rd story, Arputham's conundrum itself seemed to occur in the margins while it primarily comes off as a father and a son unable to come to terms with a facet of Leela's sexuality. What happens in these stories make us reflect on the story of the boys who're just trying to watch porn one fine day. This strand worked for me as I mentioned earlier. The doctor's monologue serves to sign off with this reflection. (Just stating all these things as a single train of thought to clarify I'm with you on all this.) But this is where the ideas - let's also add the alien's pronouncements that we are all one, to the mix now! - don't really cohere in any meaningful way with what emerge from the other strands. What's the suffering that makes us reflect on life in the 2 stories that involve Berlin? Except in the sense of good and bad coexisting as Yin and Yang (which I suppose won't qualify as a thought-provoking perspective). Arputham's question on faith in the face of adversity also seems short-changed in a very prosaic kind of closure. Now that I have said so much, I'll also go out on a limb and say that, the disparate ideas aside, I believe the overarching view the film put forth is how the world is/we are all one, even the bad-good distinctions we make are but different manifestations of the 'whole us', we are all amid the unending chain of life, sexuality is an essential part of it, and so on. (Trying my best to give a fair articulation. :D)

And by all this, I also mean to say that I don't see the question and affirmation of "why should we carry forward life despite suffering?" that you see in the film. What I see is an affirmation that "life is a super deluxe bus that has all these disparate things and while they're in and of themselves or as one thing giving way to another, mere occurrences devoid of any larger meaning. But life-at-large itself is the perennial mystery/joy/meaning that drives us."