Aditya Shrikrishna

HALLYU is all encompassing — so universal that there isn’t a generation for which it is alien, and not many cultural exports can boast of that. Across millennials, Gen Z, and every Greek alphabet in between, the Korean Wave cuts across age groups and class with equal ease, taking the form of films, K-Dramas, and K-Pop — be it BTS to Blackpink and beyond. It is therefore not surprising that the Korean influence itself becomes a key element in storytelling, for it is such a big part of the lives of anyone who has consumed the internet and media in the last decade. It also lends naturally to Tamil, which shares curious similarities with Korean — enough to have sparked both linguistic scholarship and colourful folklore about their shared origins.

There is an evolutionary completeness in Vijay Ranganathan’s debut feature Oh Butterfly. We see larvae, chrysalis and the whole butterfly lifecycle. We also see other insects and ants and as if to attract them, and us, there are breadcrumbs. They take the form of a book, a golf ball, a club, a glass and other objects. Ranganathan lays them out in the beginning like multiple Chekhov’s guns, objects that will eventually come into play. Not all of them wait till the third act to fulfil their destiny, some aid in dialing up the stakes midway amidst casual as well as torrid conversation, and some in fatalistic action. There is considerable therapising and some psychobabble, not all of it interesting but the drama remains compelling, not necessarily due to the writing (by Ranganathan and Harish Rajagopal) but mostly down to the direction.

A new dissenting voice emerges in Tamil cinema. R Gowtham’s debut Tamil feature, Members of the Problematic Family, premiered at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival last week in the Forum section. Everything about this film is distinct yet unfamiliar, beginning with its title. The Tamil title, Sikkalana Kudumbathin Uruppinargal, a literal translation, rolls off the tongue. For decades we’ve had the word kudumbam (family) in Tamil film titles that have often alluded to the spotless, divine status accorded to the unit. But here is a film that makes no such promise. It invites you not to witness a few days in the life of irascible characters but just human beings who, as fate would have it, need to function as a society sanctioned order.

IN Madhan’s directorial debut, With Love, Monisha (Anaswara Rajan) and Sathya (Abishan Jeevinth) meet on the arranged marriage circuit. Sathya is a designer, and Monisha is an influencer with over a million Instagram followers. If there is anything particularly modern about this film, it is that Monisha asks about his “boring” design job. While her job is indeed one with the times — monetising social media — design apparently is already boring. It is a harmless word, but, wonder what choicest descriptors she would have used for the more common arranged marriage qualifications in the Tamil family circuit: engineering. Not pretty, one imagines. Having said that, we don’t get films that skirt the arranged marriage route often in Tamil cinema, at least in recent times. While the practice would have been a more common fixture on screen four decades ago or so (think 1986’s Mouna Ragam), the more famous contemporary (using the word loosely) examples include Dum Dum Dum (2001), Parthiban Kanavu (2003) and a few more. All those films begin with conflict, either the couple actively hating each other or the idea itself abhorrent to one of them (usually the hero, the man).

If you possess above average knowledge of contemporary Tamil cinema, Semmalar Annam might be familiar. Maybe you cannot place the name, but you will recall the face, a face unfortunately stereotyped by Tamil filmmakers. She is an actor with such ferocious presence that if you give her half a decent role, she will single-handedly lift a film. Films like Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy and Jaikumar Sedhuraman’s Sennai are a testament to this talent, but my favourite Semmalar performance came in a short film, Arikarasudhan’s Ullangai Nellikkani, an adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The Woman Who Came at Six o’clock. She has also directed short films, and now her debut directorial feature, Mayilaa, premieres at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week in the Bright Future section. The 97-minute feature, produced by Newton Cinema and presented by Pa. Ranjith, is quite indicative of the promises in this section full of debutantes.

Nalan Kumaraswamy has been around Tamil cinema forever now. Yet the first winner of Naalaya Iyakkunar, the programme that gave us a handful of new-age filmmakers still working today, has only made three films. It’s surprising, considering the prolific output of his contemporaries and the value of the singular voice he brings to cinema. Thirteen years after his debut, his third film, Vaa Vaathiyaar, finally made it to theatres this week. The one quality that stands out in Nalan’s work is the postmodernism that permeates his characters and extends beyond mere window dressing in his frames. It is present in entirety of Soodhu Kavvum (2013) and very much central to his script contributions in Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Super Deluxe (2019). Funnily enough, his sophomore film Kadhalum Kadanthu Pogum (2016) is far from cynical and serves as one of the best romantic films from Tamil in the past two decades. Vaa Vaathiyaar is marketed as a masala or commercial fare from Nalan, and it is easy to see why.

In Parasakthi — the 2026 version, not the seminal 1952 Krishnan-Panju film written by M Karunanidhi — Sudha Kongara often films Sivakarthikeyan in silhouettes. We meet Chezhiyan (helpfully working as a Tamizh name as well as a call to a revolutionary like Che) in 1959, and what we first see is his outline amidst darkness as he holds an effigy (the language of Hindi anthropomorphised) and threatens to stop a train. It is an immersive entry for a hero in a film based on the anti-Hindi agitations of 1965 in the Madras state. We see him as a student leader, an activist and a revolutionary. And the silhouette gives him shape and form, but not characteristics. It centres the movement and students as its ultimate progenitors.

In Vipin Radhakrishnan’s Angammal, Geetha Kailasam anchors the tension between the old and the new. Based on Perumal Murugan’s short story Kodithuni, the Tamil film is due for theatrical release this week after premiering at prestigious film festivals last year. It is the beginning of the 1990s, and this very intriguing period is bookmarked by Singaravelan, Roja, Sami Potta Mudichu and more. Pavalam (Saran Sakthi) aka Pavala Muthu and Jasmine (Mullaiyarasi) have their dates in the movie theatre amidst modest snacks and seats as they watch the film less and indulge more either in each other (a bout of make out set to Tamizha Tamizha chorus is hilarious) or in familial matters like the impending visit of Jasmine’s parents to Pavalam’s house to discuss their marriage. Pavalam is the rare and, probably, first graduate from his village — and a doctor at that — and his experiences of the outside world cloud his foundation as he comes to see his mother’s style as an embarrassment.