[Initial post]
My primary issue with Aaranya Kaandam, Kumararaja's much celebrated first film, was that its stab at depicting a hip worldview was rather facile. I enjoyed watching it but its reflective turns weren't compelling or especially thoughtful. The film was a triumph in style but its allure lied in consciously departing from mainstream Tamil/Indian cinema and thoroughly inheriting the storytelling approach of interlocked pulpy stories. Ultimately, I found it more than a little derivative of a very specific genre of arthouse crime films that had come into vogue in international film circuit.
So, with Super Deluxe, I was keen to see if Kumararaja is going to do another round of chic in much the same way. While I didn't have doubts about Kumararaja's hip standing apart in the context of Tamil cinema, I was also wondering if it was genuinely more difficult to pull off "too cool for school" now than then (2011).
In that respect, Kumararaja has thoroughly upped the ante in treatment, the deliberate arthouse/formalist treatment is far more purposeful here than Aaranya Kaandam. The film is 'messy' in the sense that it's all over the place and only some parts work. But it must be said the film demands a certain level of investment throughout from the viewers.
But as it goes for greater meaning, not only do the seams begin to show, I felt the film doesn't strike the notes of pure 'pleasure of the text' either. There is quite a bit of meandering (I for one didn't quite get in what sense the disparate strands are connected at all...) and doesn't hit the entertainment mark of the aloof kind as much as it wants - I especially didn't like the element of Tarantino-ness on display here via the character of Berlin. (By which I also mean to say I don't like Tarantino in the first place when he does those torturous segments from a distance.) The philosophical ideas explored/sketched here too are quite glib (similar to Aaranya Kaandam) but they also don't really cohere.
In summary, there's a stronger auteurist turn here than a standard genre exercise. I was compelled to take much of it seriously (will likely see it again if I get the time) but things just didn't add up.
Also, sincere question to those who have seen the movie: was the abrupt intrusion of TV into one of the narratives a captivating moment for you? It worked at some level as a cool way to connect 2 of the stories, but pretty much knowing something had to happen, it just seemed par for the course. I heard one comment about the newness in letting the following action happen a while later (in the film's timeline) in another story. I must confess it didn't seem strikingly inventive to me. Doesn't this sort of stuff happen all the time in a Guy Ritchie universe which multiple Tamil films (Aaranya Kaandam included) have drawn inspiration from in last 10 years or so? But then I tried to think of an actual example and couldn't spot any. So, FWIW, it does seem unique in a purely formal sense.
As in a scene will have ripple effects which we don't necessarily see? Isn't this interconnectedness itself often an exaggerated storytelling device than something that's actually true to life? BR talked about how this is a commentary on random coincidences and not a karmic intervention, which I didn't quite understand. How is this different from a deus ex machina? But to be fair (noted in follow-up tweet), it does look like there hasn't been a similar moment in Tamil cinema.
And I'd also reiterate that I'm not complaining about the deus ex machina. Indeed I'd have thought there'll be more of those to tie the strands together. Just this one instance in fact came off as less than what would pass as normal in these stories!
No comments:
Post a Comment