Delayed but deluxe

Thiagarajan Kumararaja is constantly waiting. Ask him about recent Tamil films, and he says he has not caught up. "I'm waiting especially," he says. "I have to finish the editing, I'm waiting … The dubbing has to stop, I'm waiting … I'm waiting for the shoot .. I'm waiting for the shoot.When you wait, your mind will not come is not relaxed enough to watch a movie. "Of course, he manages to watch a movie or two in between, but he will only be in that space when the work on his second film- Super Deluxe- is finished.

Super Deluxe – his trailer betrays nothing except that it's a return to a neo-black decor – comes eight years after his first film, Aaranya Kaandam, be screened. If the 2011 film did not have much success at the box office, it has developed a cult status. The new film also has big names in the writing department – with Thiagarajan, there is Nalan Kumarasamy ( Soodhu Kavvum ), Mysskin ( Pisaasu ), Yuddham Sei . and Neelan K. Sekar ( Alibhabha ).

Will he have time to see his long-awaited film arrive on the screens this week? He says it will take longer. He is also a producer, there are collections, there are answers to give. Relief will only be visible in May.

Thiagarajan is virtually anonymous on Twitter. He does not remember why he called his name "itisthatis". His name is written in small letters, almost afterwards, his account has not been verified and he follows an badortment of fans, parodic accounts, meme creators and former bloggers. he is rather an observer.

A 2016 interview in The Hindu claimed that the director of Aaranya Kaandam traveled by bicycle. Thiagarajan had arrived at this interview with his two-wheeled vehicle. "I like being in this space, the same middle-clbad man, otherwise you are completely detached from reality," he says. He thinks the stars pay a huge price when they lose their privacy and that tends to affect their perception. "Do not minimize them," he says. This reminds him of the Sunset Boulevard (before remembering the title, he prefixed it to "our man's movie", in reference to Billy Wilder). He has sympathy for Norma Desmond, the silent and faded film star of Wilder's film, who has the illusion of believing its current relevance, and describes these circumstances as dangerous.

So, did he consciously avoid that? He laughs: "I'm not so famous that it does not require any effort!"

His Neo-Black Gangster Film Aaranya Kaandam is one of the most sought after films of Tamil cinema lately, a precious memory of modern Indian cinephilia. His new film boasts of a galaxy of southern stars – Vijay Sethupathi, Fahadh Faasil, Samantha Akkineni and Ramya Krishnan. The hype is real. But, he says, "I think that a small group of us think that there is hype." "He thinks it is an echo chamber." As only a handful of us looked Aaranya Kaandam ? He agreed: "Yes, exactly! That's right, I think we can count the number of people who watched Aaranya Kaandam The same group of us. "

How does he imagine this? relief in May? What will be different from the period after Aaranya Kaandam ? He's confident. "The movie is going to be okay," he says. "But I do not think it would require a lifestyle change or anything like that."

Would he have exchanged the worship behavior of Aaranya Kaandam against a box office success ? "I & # 39; We never thought about it. We all make movies to be hits. That would have been a good thing. The producer would have got his money. He would not have been naughty. "

Some shots in Super Deluxe reminds you of the 2011 film. High-powered electric pole images of a moving car, for example. Even the colors seem to be a comeback in Thiagarajan agrees, films were shot in Ennore, north of Chennai, do they share a universe, a character from Oram Po (2007), the first attempt of Thiagarajan as a dialogist, makes an ephemeral appearance in Aaranya Kaandam .

He thinks it's the scourge of having made a single film before. S & P, there were 10 films in his work, these points of discussion would not be addressed. "But there is only one film for reference, so people keep coming back to it." It's too early in the career to talk of themes or universes shared. "

Thiagarajan Super Deluxe was the itre what he wanted. What about the title announced at the beginning of the shoot, "Aneethi Kathaigal (Unfair Tales)"? "At first, I wanted the title to be" Non-Fables. "I told myself that I had to be grammatically incorrect or invent a word. "But he did not care about" tales "and" fables "because they come with predefined notions. He wanted something as harmless and glamorous as "Ramesh-Suresh". According to him, the public should not badume that the film is an anthology. That's why, even though three other directors wrote parts of Super Deluxe it will not tell you who wrote what part.

To the question of whether Netflix and OTT platforms are a boon to filmmakers like him, he says that he will always make movies for the big screen. Not for the scale but for the community. Thiagarajan is imbued with the Tamil way of consuming cinema. "If you laugh with even 10 other people, it's more satisfying, it's better." He enjoys the Southern charm of watching movies, whistles and comments that accompany a bad moment. In the early 1980s, he saw The Women of a Theater Go into Trance during a devotional film.

"It is a film that will elicit immediate reactions, better watched by a crowd." He accepts that the 1980s have strongly influenced him.His favorites are those of dramatic myth and kinds of folk tales Sivakavi by Bhoologa Rambai or by Aayiram Thalai Vaangi Apoorva Chinthamani "Born in the mid-1970s, we reached adulthood at a time when Doordarshan was It did not matter what they showed, we absorbed like a sponge. "

" I'm so happy with the actors I got for this movie. " Vijay Sethupathi will not happen … Once Vijay has accepted, I know that Fahadh will be there. "Samantha was a surprise." About the cast of a cisgender man in a transgender woman role, especially after films like Peranbu and Aruvi, who have had transgender women in the role of transbadual women, Thiagarajan says, "I do not do it. Know that I did not expect this debate to come back. I thought it was all part of the cinema, that's what I understood. "

What about his festival aspirations for Super Deluxe ?" We are looking for festivals for two reasons: either to create buzz is a small film or to find unexplored markets outside of India. Maybe he will find an audience in the Czech Republic or in Poland. I had this idea, but after four years of realization, if I ask a festival before the release in theaters, I finally, we do not need it. We make movies with Ajith and Vijay. This film is our festival, an event. "