2023, Episode 6: Modern Love Chennai, Amazon Prime, 7.9/10 IMDB, Directed by Thiyagarajan Kumararaja
Nianivo Oru Paravai, is ‘A tale of the ‘characters’ of a tale’. A delusional drama in the guise of an auto biography format, placed in a befitting Gen z’s ‘modern love’ premise. Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s overlapping technique of stroy telling, reveals an undefined situaionship, that blossoms ‘commitment‘, through sexual compatibility. But he maintains the ‘real Vs hallucination mystery’ in tact, as clues roll out, even in the end credit.
For those who were (are) trying to decode the Thiyagarajan Kumararaja’s world and his characters, the director chooses to decode his third venture himself in his own way, leaving random clue trails all over. His characters are not just full of life anymore, but they come alive, and the viewers are left to play spectators. But mind you, it is Kumararaja and he wants to keep the possibilities, multiplying. Hence, he has spun his non-linear fiction, with one too many co-relations, to distract and to be conceived differently by different viewers.
The director, masterminds by dwelling into the lives of fictional characters in a ‘hallucination’ backdrop, as the plot intertwines and schemes a pattern, to reflect an aspiring director’s auto biography. Kumararaja’s vociferous shot compositions, captures the true essence of ‘modern love’. The director redefines the term, ‘character arc’, as he constructs the traits of his lead characters K and Sam. The characters seem to have a life of their own inside and outside the scripts of both the lead male K’s and director Kumararaja’s. Ironically, the arc of his characters, never converges to any given axis.
I was constantly reminded of the ‘Black Mirror’ series. The crux, patterns a psychological drama, addressing the psyche of beings, who believe to experience the joy of love and the pain of separation. The episode superficially studies the consequences of separation, in a memory loss backdrop, but ‘when you look closely to SEE‘, the backdrop spells ‘hallucination’. What are happy and sad memories, worthy of, if the person with whom you shared the memory, doesn’t remember it? But this is just a cover for even more hard hitting story line- Sam is hallucinating in entirety.
The director’s aesthetic visualization, helps in the capture of emotional intensities at their best, be it, the height of comical moments or the orgasmic pleasures. The director ‘words‘, pains and pleasures, through his spontaneous dialogues, which otherwise are strictly intimate exchanges of a couple or mere giggly whispers of them, when in public.
The director’s endeavour in ‘visual expressionism‘ goes hand in hand with his attempts to be ‘vocal’ about the so called ‘sanctified love’. The very love that is bound by multiple ties, over the centuries, especially in our land. The film oscillates our thoughts between the two ends of the civilization spectrum – what ‘love’ might have meant in stone age, to its contemporary form, summing up the evolution of the ‘feeling‘ called love.
Kumararaja’s idiosyncrasies of unrefined colour textures, unrestrained intimacy and unexplored sensuousness- showers quite a few gratifying visuals. The director either re-evaluates the archetypal myths of love in vogue relationships or visualizes the inner longings of a woman, who regrets her breakup. Be it the insecurity that lurks in the mind of an independent woman in a relationship, or the biological trait of women, tending to prove that their love for their partner is always greater that the partner’s love for them, Kumararaja nails them all. The director, distinctively reiterates deep emotions, for instance, his characters are contemplating had they been of same gender, whose love would have been greater.
The director’s primary thoughts on characters having a life, even after the film ends, is something I could relate to. As a young girl, I myself had longed to meet the characters behind the screen, while walking out of the cinema hall. The world that a creator creates, need not end with an end card, the maker hints. Those characters would be aging just like us and they might end up in other movies such as the Singamperumal character played by Jackie shroff in ‘Aranyakandam’, lands on a wall poster, in the movie Super Deluxe. Similarly, it might land up in other people’s story too, just like it did in Lokesh’s Vikram.
But here the clues from the handwritten notes of the lead character, an aspiring director himself, in his typewritten script, throws a hallucination angle. The knots of the episode tighten there on, leaving the viewers pausing, to search for more evidences, to substantiate the visuals.
Sam’s delusional perspective after K’s accident and coma, might explain the psychiatrist’s nag to Sam, on not skipping her medications. Sam might as well be imagining herself to be the ‘rich girl’ character from K’s script, which is K’s biography. The surprise in the doctor’s tone in the end of the pen ultimate sequence, explains Sam’s desire to get back with K, is her imagination. The pills that remain unconsumed in her toilet, justifies this very theory.
As always Kumararaja incorporates psychological concepts of ‘Last Thursdayism‘ and Zhuangzi’s ‘Butterfly Dream‘ concept that quotes on K’s T-shirt. “Am I a man dreaming of being a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming of being a man”, which later is altered as ‘Wo‘man when Sam is seen wearing the same T-shirt. The typewritten script having motifs of cactus and twin-bird flying, might be clues to differentiate hallucinated sequences. The huge potted cactus in the walk way is seen changing colour and the twin-bird tattoo disappears on and off on Sam’s neck, in between her dialogue sequences. The 4 point notes including, hallucinations, continuity errors in the abruptly ending script, which relatively gives us a peek into the mind of ‘K’ alias Kumararaja.
A person’s understanding of an art work is directly proportional to his or her exposure. Suggestive of Kumararaja’s previous formats, the episode does leave us with ‘n’ number of possibilities as anticipated. Mine, naturally is bound to fall in line with that of a mother’s, for I am a mother of a daughter in her late twenties.
To me, the movie spoke from a perspective that, the ‘psychiatrist’ was a metaphor for either the ‘inner voice’ of Sam’s or her family’s. And the fortune teller’s words, seemed more like a ‘societal opinion’. It might also be a seen as a person’s ‘negative instinct’ that creeps when one is anxious. But in the hallucinative world of Sam, the fortune teller is another version of the psychiatrist, as she is echoing the psychiatrist’s words- ‘Sam and K can never get together’. It is because K is either dead or is in coma (the clue being, both characters are played by the same actor, meaning, the fortune teller is, Sam’s hallucination).
To me, ‘memory loss’ symbolized the way we heal with time, forgetting, either the ‘reason’ or the ‘intensity’ of our unpleasantries, say, break ups. ‘Memory loss’ synonymized ‘forget the unpleasant past’. Kumararaja details the ‘synchronization of emotions’ before and after the break-up, and it transpires onscreen ever so beautifully, for instance, the message on the hidden toilet roll, that surfaces the intensity of the duo’s love for each other.
Kumararaja’s precision in aesthetic detailing, travels parallel to the story and constantly reminds Bansali’s and Myskkin’s sensibilities. Sophisticated ‘cancer brand’ cigarette packs and a trip to the coffee shop, ends in ‘sin with us’ bar, the exhaustive capture of the acts of love making and the emotional outcomes, using props to imitate the rhythm of coupling, are classic Kumararaja expressionism, on his very own canvas.
Keeping aside the logical explanation of the entire narration being a delusional perspective of Sam’s, to me it translated positively. Led by her instincts, Sam, rehabilitates both her partner and their broken relationship. Led by his belief, the only person whom K’s memory didn’t dodge him off, after his accident and surgery, K gets back with Sam. Sheer magic when the characters of K’s first draft, experiences the ‘happily ever after moment’ for themselves, inside the story and out, reminding Director Partiben’s Kathai thiraikathai vasanam iyakkam (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld39TnjzU4s) and Kudaikul Mazhai (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudaikul_Mazhai) for some reasons.
The title of the episode, is the first line of a nostalgic landmark song from the Illayaraja musical the 1978’s Sigappu Rojakkal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeyWdplou6U) The maestro does a remarkable job of rekindling the memories of the 70’s boomers and at the same time enticing the Gen Z’s curiosity, nearly five decades later. Illayaraja’s scores, transcends and compliments Kumararaj’s flawless portrait like visuals. The symphony scores, used to kill random silences and as a cheat code, for the delusional theory, does spark the cupid within, making us fall in love with the maker, the music director and with our own selves.
Wamiqa Gabbi as Sam, leaves the audience spellbound with an array of emotional displays, both happy and sad. The outbursts of laughter, anger and pleasure of PB and Wamiqa, surprises the audience for their spontaneity. PB’s subtlety as K and Wamiqa’s loudness as Sam are in perfect harmony.
It’s an addictive experience, as the possibility of creating a new version of story, multiplies with each watch. With every watch we are one step closer to solving TK’s puzzle. As always this work of TK also demands collective watches, debates and discussions, -a superficial version for the movie lovers and an encrypted version for the movie fanatics.