Victim or participant?

Queen (Web series, S1, E1-11, Tamil; 2019)
MX Player

It is no secret. Even though there is a declaration at the beginning of each episode that its story is a work of fiction and that any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental, it is as plain as day. There is no doubt that this web series is a fictionalised version of the former Chief Minister's life and times and a one-time highest-grossing actress in the Southern cinema, J Jayalalitha.

The give away signs are the characteristic vermilion pottu with a vertical extension, the similarity in the protagonist's familial and educational backgrounds, the fact that the 'Queen' aka Shakthi Sheshadri was a state top scorer like Jayalalitha and that both were of Brahmin ancestry. It does not take much imagination to realise that GM Ravichandran (GMR) is a plagiarisation of MG Ramachandran (MGR). The story is told as flashbacks from an interview which is reminiscent of the classic bare-it-all interaction between the former First Lady of Tamil Nadu and host Simi Garewal.

'Rendezvous with Simi Garewal'

Besides being a googling session to differentiate between fact and fiction, the programme also delves into the philosophical outlook of problems of poverty, single motherhood, the man-eat-man world of acting, the dog-eat-dog world of politics, the patriarchal control of society, the manipulative nature of politicians, mental illness, women empowerment and many more.

The actress who needs no introduction in the Tamil cinema, Ramya Krishnan (or Neelampuri of Padayappa fame), assumes the iconic leader's role. 

Parents try to impose and restrict for wanting to provide the best and avert mistakes that they had encountered and wish had known better. The free-spirited children look at it as clipping the wings, restricting the freedom to explore their full potential. The parents look at their kids as the guidance-seeking that toddlers that they once were. In the children's eyes, the parents are forever that 35-year old who is out to destroy their 'fun'. 

 We have often heard that it is a man's world and how, despite all the works by the bra-burning feminists since the 60s, the fairer sex is still trampled upon.  On the other hand, many females play the victim card and charm to participate and springboard up the ladder using the same system they refer to as toxic, masculine toxicity.

An engaging web series with good nostalgia feel, a good guessing game and profound thoughts on life.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All with the same trajectory, the atoms and the Universe

Super Deluxe (2019)
Story and Direction: Thiagarajan Kumaraja

Gone are the days when Tamil movie stories were rather two-dimensional. It used to be that there was a bright, distinct demarcation between characters. Everything was black or white; they were either good people or bad. And poetic justice would prevail at the end of the film, proving once again that the dharmic principles of life would be upheld.

If you are one of those who is looking for a break from making daily-altering life questions to see gyrating bodies to soothing melodies nowadays, look elsewhere. I just happened to bump into this movie by chance as I was scrolling down the Netflix menu and saw one of my favourite actors, Ramya Krishnan in a leading role.

I got hooked from the first scene itself. A young wife calls her ex-boyfriend college mate over for some hokey-pokey for old times' sake as her husband out on errands. Soon after passionate lovemaking, the lady discovers her lover stiff hard, out cold and dead. Then starts the panic as her husband walks in with some unwelcomed guests. 

This story is told in concurrent with another two (or maybe three) other tales which somehow gets intertwined as we will see later in the movie. In another scene, a young boy, a tween, is waiting patiently for his estranged father to return home after years of leaving home. A taxi stops in front of the house as the excited extended family members wait in anticipation. An overdressed lady walks out. Hold behold, the father is now a transgender person. Then come the discrimination, the ridicule and the humiliation of the 'father' and the family members. 

In another related storyline, five teenage boys play truant to watch porn. After craftily getting a copy of an X-rated DVD, they watch the show in one of the boy's home. One of them gets a shock when the lead lady is actually his mother! In anger, he throws the beer bottle on the TV screen, shattering it. He runs home in rage to confront his mother, Leela (Ramya Krishnan). As he runs with a kitchen knife to harm his mother, the boy accidentally trips and stabs himself instead, critically. Hence, starts a commotion; getting emergency medical treatment, contacting the boy's father who has left home to be an evangelical pastor. The boy's father, a tsunami survivor, feels that he is chosen by God to help people as he was the only one in his circle who survived the catastrophe as he held on to a rock statue of Jesus.

Vijay Sethupathi - excellent as transgender.

Also opened the bag of worms why the role should be played

by a male and not a transgender actor. They assert that being 
transgender is not mere wearing of a wig and applying make-up.

The rest of the boys, on the other hand, desperate to replace the broken TV get into a comedy of errors to get the money towards this end. If this is not confusing enough, wait for alien visitation and corrupt police force to completely knock you bonkers. Just when you think it is getting all draggy and how all these things are going to be tied together, it then hits you. Only then it dawns upon you that every scene and story is detailed to precision to make this offering simply a masterpiece. It leaves a trail of philosophy and questions about human behaviours that yearn to be answered. 

We are responsible for our actions, whether the scriptures tell us or not. The two-timing wife has to face the music when it is discovered. She is responsible for her activity as it has repercussions on people around her, like her parents, husband and in-laws. If her lover dies in her hands, she has to face the consequences.

Doing what seems to be the right things may not always be a pleasant thing to do.  Like the transgender lady (Manikam @ Shilpa, played beautifully by Vijay Sethupathi)) realises, even though it is her right to express her inner desires, her action may affect the people around her. It is not always about oneself but of people around her.

Being naked in public is frown upon by modern society. It is all in context. Being half-naked is the norm at the beach but not at a philharmonic orchestra performance. It might have been alright to be undressed in prehistoric times or perhaps even in generations to come, but now we have laws to govern these.

Society likes to see what it wants to see. It creates a storm when an actress acts in a porn movie but fails to credit her in a positive role, as a Goddess role. It chides the pedlars of porn but not its consumers.

A person who has done not so virtuous things also cares for his family. He also wants to do the right thing. A seemingly righteous person will do a 'sinful' things if circumstances dictate.

Apparently, just as the pastor who was enlightened during the tsunami, so was the transgender character. She also held her life on to a rock. After the ordeal, she just disposed of the rock and did her thing. The pastor, however, saw the rock statue that he held was that of Jesus and was a sign from God to save mankind. To one, it was just a piece of rock. To another, it was a message from the Maker. Interesting.

We make rules by association. We put two and two together to come to conclusions about things around us. We see the sun in the morning, and we see the moon at night, and we draw a conclusion that one appears mutually exclusive of the other. We get confused when we see both of them together. This knowledge is used by the philandering wife and her husband to confuse the police when they dispose of the body. 

Ramya Krishnan

The Universe seems to have a prototype for all of its inventions. The electrons and the tiny charged particles which are seen at a microscopic level or the intergalactic celestial bodies which are spread over many million light-years away, they are governed by a single law.

Everything holds its purpose for its existence. Like a single cell on the elephant that makes an elephant an elephant, every individual on this planet has his purpose. He exerts his influence in one way or the other - in the present time or the future. Just like historical events affect the present. The question is whether your existence is merely to fulfil your primal needs or for the betterment of the human race on the whole.

The alien character encourages us to view the human race objectively and re-evaluate the human race and laugh at our follies.

It appears like every scene, every dialogue, and every character is crafted with a purpose. No clip is introduced for the sake of filling the gap. Each has a back story. There are plenty of hidden messages in the background - like a silhouette of a flying plane to denote the timeline of the story. The cinematography is avantgarde at best, following the path of master filmmakers like Ray, Kurosawa, De Sica and Hitchcock. In many scenes, much is left to the imagination. Sometimes, sounds and dialogue have more impact. A partly obscured view adds more drama to our visual experience. 

A clear 4.8/5 that makes you want to view it again.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.