Super Deluxe (2019)

[**** stars/*****]

What is it to confront unfaithfulness, death and the absence of love in a marriage? 

Does it take a child's innocence to unconditionally accept a transformed father? 

Why does a lone tsunami survivor believe god can cure any person through him? 

Once in a decade a movie comes along to steal you away from conventions, spring you into surprises and culminate with a soothing message you will never see coming.

Super Deluxe is that once-in-a-decade uplifting Tamil drama. 

Super Deluxe story 
A married couple, Vaembu (Samantha) and Mugil (Fahadh Faasil) have to face the nightmarish consequences of an unexpected death in the hands of corrupt, sadistic cop Berlin (Bagavathi Perumal). 

Three boys gather to see a porn film, where events lead to one of the friends desperately needing money to replace a shattered TV before his father gets to know. 

Leela (Ramya Krishnan), a soft porn actress, is devastated when her son Soori (Naveen) discovers her profession and gets seriously injured in an angry outburst.

Leela's preacher husband Arputham (Mysskin) adamantly believes that his son will recover by religious healing.

A demure wife, Jyothi (Gayathrie) and her cheerful 7-year-old son Rasakutty (Ashwanth Ashokkumar), along with the extended family eagerly await the return of Manickam (Vijay Sethupathi) to the household. 

A shock awaits them.

Outlandish entertainer 
Out-of-the-blue funny, game-changing, quietly rebellious, harrowing and entertaining...if you ain't seen Super Deluxe yet, you ain't seen anything.

Director Thiagarajan Kumararaja's follow up to his astonishing 2011 action thriller debut Aaranya Kaandam (featuring an excellent Jackie Shroff) is unprecedented and heart-warming in a zillion unexpected ways. 

Among the amazing ensemble cast, Vijay Sethupathi is notably stunning in a challenging role, child artist Ashwanth Ashokkumar is a gleeful natural.

Kumararaja directs with an assured crystal clear voice, showcasing an intense dance of human emotions in full flow - love, anger, frustration, pity, lust, faith, laughter and more in four colourful subplots. 

It is only appropriate to repeat - if you ain't seen Super Deluxe yet, you ain't seen anything.   

Searching (2018)

[***1/2 stars / *****]

Peter: You don’t think she’s involved 
with anything serious?

David Kim: I know my daughter.

Do we really know our near and dear ones? How much of social media interaction is a excuse to cover up who we really are? Are we projecting a person we are not, on social media, to gain acceptance and popularity?  

Searching is a highly recommended mystery drama, a single father's relentless, race-against-time search for his missing teenage daughter, playing to the audience through every available online medium - FaceTime chats, Skype conversations, YouTube videos, Google searches, Instagram videos, etc. 

The effect is both unique and arresting, grabbing on our attraction to bright screens and social media platforms. 

Searching story 
Widower David Kim (John Cho) lost his wife Pamela early and now his daughter Margot (Michelle La) is the love of his life. Everything seems happy and ordinary as usual when Margot leaves for a group study to her friend's house. 

David is seen asleep when Margot tries calling him three times at night. In the morning David assumes that his daughter left early for school and it is only later that day, through some stunning revelations that David realizes that Margot is missing and calls the police.

Even as the investigation and search intensifies, David tries to reach out to Margot's contacts, and it becomes evident to him that he never really knew his daughter. 

Searching review 

The Aneesh Chaganty-directed contemporary suspense drama keeps the audience guessing.The makers keep the mystery angle going, without overdoing how people have let technology create distances in relationships.  

Written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, the climax is quite superb and believable, bringing the story to a satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps the ending is a bit too appeasing, but most of us will take it. 

The 'screens only' treatment takes some bite off an impressive thriller. Shots of computer screes, logos, buttons and icons establish familiarity, some 'off-screen' shots may have rendered Searching as a deeper cinematic experience.      

Searching is an achievement in the contemporary suspense drama genre and a must-watch for the urban cell phone magnet generation. 

Kaagaz Ki Kashti: Jagjit Singh Come Alive (2017)

[*** stars / *****] 

Kaagaz Ki Kashti: Jagjit Singh Come Alive is a lively chronicle of the late legendary ghazal singer's life. 

The documentary is a compilation of interviews with Jagjit's relatives, collaborators, poets and friends, and a treasure house of archival material featuring the singer. 

It is in the archival material, showcasing Jagjit's exuberant, humourous personality that the documentary truly comes alive. 

I once again relived the silken voice and the immortal songs, the sheer mastery and uncanny audience connect. Jagjit's death in 2012 ended the ghazal's reign in popular Indian culture. 

A life of passion
Kaagaz Ki Kashti: Jagjit Singh Come Alive is a celebratory, loosely chronological account. 

It starts from the great singer's early years in his home town Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, his astonishing first ghazal composition at the age of 13, a youth festival star, his move to Mumbai, struggle, defying staunch traditions to do away with his turban and beard, success, love, stardom, committing to 70 concerts a year as part of his 70th birthday celebrations and his demise. 

Ghazal fans will love everything about this intimately-made documentary, right down to the funny end credits. 

Conventional flow
I watched the documentary with a fanboy exuberance couple of years ago. On revisiting it recently, I found that there is a home video turn to it, instead of been a fascinating study of an enigmatic, cheerful musical genius.

This is also a conventional take, not a keen, objective, in-depth look into Singh's life.  

Aspects like Singh's addictive smoking habit that he finally gave up after 40 years, his rumoured lifetime love for alcohol, needed more screen-time. 

His singing technique is only mentioned in passing, needed more on how he coped with a heart-wrenching loss, more on his chemistry and interactions with other famous artists, friends and poets. 

Clearly, the legendary singer's life is calling out for a documentary sequel. 

Celebrating a life in songs
Despite its partisan view, Kaagaz Ki Kashti: Jagjit Singh Come Alive is absolute nostalgia gold, a lovingly pieced together life story of a man who in his own merry way, followed his heart. 

(First version - Dec 19, 2018)

(Second version - May 24, 2020)

Gantumoote (2019)

[**** stars / *****]

I haven't seen a movie lately as charming and delicately affecting as Gantumoote, a splendidly-written coming-of-age Kannada romantic drama.   

Rarely is a love affair told intimately from a girl or woman's point of view in Indian cinema, her thoughts and desires bared open to the audience. Even in movies with female protagonists, a third person narrative is usually used.

Writer and director Roopa Rao's Gantumoote (Baggage) has a teenage girl's tender observant narrative at its heart.  

Movies versus reality 
Meera (Teju Belawadi, superb) is a 16-year-old growing up in the nineties. 

Meera's tryst with her first love Madhu (Nischith Korodi, good act) leads her to the discovery - the idea of love portrayed in popular movies she saw growing up are in extreme contrast to her experiences. 

In fact she initially falls for Madhu because he looks like her crush - the Hindi film star Salman Khan.

The quiet, uncomplicated charm of growing up in the nineties, first sparks of adolescent love and sexual attraction, trauma inflicted by a jealous admirer, breaking away from school friends to college, heartbreak, agony, is captured with sure-footed sincerity and heart-touching sensitivity.

Sensitive screenplay 
Gantumoote is Roopa Rao's beautiful ode to teenage love, with sensitive takes on worldly pressures, social conventions and a girl's fragile coming-of-age story.

If you thought south Indian regional movie makers rarely attempt anything remotely cinematic, Gantumoote should delightfully prove you wrong. 

Afterword 
A couple of well-made Hindi film narratives centering on a female lead include the lovely affirming drama Queen (2014) and the tense, humane spy thriller Raazi (2018). 

 As seen on Amazon Prime (India)

                                                                                                                                 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

[**** stars / *****] 

"He says the sun came out last night. 

He says it sang to him."

Would Steven Spielberg movies feel as awesome minus the John Williams score? 

The Close Encounters of the Third Kind introductory buildup scene is classic Williams, a pitch black screen lights up to suspenseful nervy music, revealing a present day Mexican desert. 

We see officials running excitedly in disbelief to discover World War II airplanes in pristine condition, since their mysterious disappearance 30 years ago at the Bermuda Triangle.     

More strange events occur over the following days. Two commercial planes brush past an unidentified flying object (UFO), even as air traffic control center personnel listen intently. 

Then somewhere in Indiana, USA, three-year-old Barry wakes up in his room to see his toys moving about in the middle of the night. When his mother Jillian chases a wonder-struck Barry down the road, an astonishing event unfolds, changing the world as we know it. 

Sci-fi cinema magic 
Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut (acclaimed French director in a rare English film role) and Melinda Dillon are among the ensemble cast who invest us in this mystical sci-fi drama like no other.  

Even the outdated special effects doesn't take the sheen away from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, that's the kind of encompassing effect it invokes.  

One of a kind
The best movies take you on a journey. As the story unfolded, was relentlessly fascinated by - what happens next? 

The audio-visual, despite the make-believe, transcended, became a part of me. 

There is yet an alien movie to match what Spielberg has achieved here, the eternal wonder, unexpected culminating calm of discovering we are not alone. 

Though Spielberg did follow it up with the bewitching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Close Encounters of the Third Kind is an sci-fi alien drama like no other. 

Alluring, enigmatic, and strangely fulfilling. 

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

[**** stars / *****] 

The Adventures of Robin Hood radiates with the flourish of daring adventure and courage that we identify with every Robin Hood tale we know. 

Ageless trendsetter
This is how a Robin Hood movie should be, light, sunny and free-flowing in its telling, conversationally funny, without any dark, psychotic grimness in its villainy. 

It's hard to imagine another Robin Hood movie in any other space, after watching this version. 

For instance, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010) -  though impressive in parts, the dark realistic treatment doesn't go with the Robin Hood's heroic, elevated persona, the origin-tale takes its time to engage. 

This is a fable and legend that needs celebrating and directors Michael Curtiz and William Keighley ensure it is so.

The best Robin Hood movie yet 
Breathless sword fighting, breezy romance, good-hearted hero vs villain duels, perky background music, crisp dialogues and good performances, The Adventures of Robin Hood is Hollywood at its classic best.

The lead Errol Flynn performance is still cinema magic, it's like Flynn was born to play Robin Hood. 

Olivia di Havilland is alluring as Lady Marian, the rest of the cast are in reasonable form, though Flynn charms his way through them all.

There are few movies of the adventure drama genre that lights up with such Technicolor radiance. 

The infectious cheerfulness of The Adventures of Robin Hood hasn't aged a day.