Super Deluxe: Why every cinephile should watch it?

There are some movies which come as a breath of fresh air. Let’s be honest here. A majority of the films released in India appease only their target audience (Diehard fans). These movies make everyone happy. The director has a false sense of self that he/she is the next Scorsese or Nolan. The producers and distributors have raked in huge profits. Fans flock into the theatres more than twice to catch a glimpse of their favorite star smashing the villain while the ear-piercing score is running in the background.

There are very few films which make you talk about the cinematography, art direction and the 22 other crafts involved in the making of a film.

Super Deluxe, a Tamil film released in 2019, makes you talk about not just the 24 crafts but also micro-analyse each and every actor’s performance and laud their emoting abilities.

Let’s talk about the opening shot of the film. The film goes from Vaembu’s house and pans into a TV set of the next house where we get the title card of the film. As the film progresses, we can understand the importance of a TV set.

Mohan, one of the teenagers, breaks the TV set at his friend’s house in a fit of rage after seeing his mother in a porn film. The interval (one of the many high points in the film) also involves a television. We are foreshadowed about aliens with the help of a television. We can easily conclude why Thiagarajan Kumararaja showed us the title card on a TV set.

There’s a lot going on in the film that you might just miss a detail if you try to check the notifications on your phone. This film is an ode to black comedy and to watch this film is a no-brainer if you love noir.

Physics is also inter-twined in this film. When this character called Gaaji is confronted by the alien, she pulls out another Gaaji from the already existing Gaaji. She goes on to explain the concept of Superposition from Quantum Mechanics in layman’s terms. Some people thought the concept of bringing an alien was very alien to the story. A little patience and they’d have known that it was very much needed as there needed to be someone greater than humans to make them understand Vaazhvin Ragasiyam (The secret of life).

You start to think about the movie even after you leave the theatre. Arputham, played by Mysskin, is a faithful devotee of a rock he held on to prevent himself from the tsunami. He worships that god (rock in the shape of Jesus) and swears that it can cure any type of disease. He doesn’t admit his son, who has injured himself because of a screwdriver pierced in his chest, to the hospital but takes him to his worshipping centre to ‘cure’ him.

When he loses faith in god because of his son’s mishap, he breaks the idol and discovers diamonds wrapped in a silk cloth revealing itself as the idol is finally broken. Arputham is in a fix now. He got the diamonds because of his ‘god’ but he got them when he finally lost trust in god. We have the same dilemma and start questioning our own belief in god.

Sex is an underlying element which is common for all four anthologies in the film. The teenagers get into troubles because of a porn film. Leela, played by Ramya Krishnan, is a former porn actress. Shilpa, erstwhile Manickam, chooses to change her sexuality and seeks acceptance in the society. Vaembu has sex outside her marriage.

As sex unites both the genders, it is highly plausible that the director wanted it to be the common theme connecting the four stories.

This movie was all about diversity and inclusion. It explains secularism without even taking the name of a single religion/faith. It teaches us to not be judgemental too. The cheating wife, the former pornstar, the transgender, the teenage boys are all the same. The alien has this beautiful dialogue towards the end of the film- The cells in our body think they are unique without realising that together they form a person.

Super Deluxe isn’t bad. Super Deluxe isn’t good either.

It’s a masterpiece to be celebrated!

-Nitin Murali.