Murattukalai Tamil Movie
I initially intended to watch the original Murattu Kaalai starring Rajinikanth before paying this a visit. But I couldn't get my hands on it. Now that I've seen the remake, some part of me is glad for not having been able to see the original. I might have had to endure twice the ordeal.
There's a milkman named Kaalaiyan (Sundar C). He lives in a village with three brothers, two of whom are young enough to be his sons. His sexual appeal gets to a woman who witnesses him wining a bullock cart race held in the village. She is very unlike the usual sexually-repressed-docile-feminine-villager character that Kollywood resurrects for every film that's set in rural milieu. She lusts after him and is quick at making her move. When she sees him approaching, she gets a brilliant idea. She takes a thorn and pokes two tiny holes in her stomach. Then she runs towards him screaming to be saved from a snake bite. He sees the bite in her stomach and sucks the blood from it, hoping to relieve her from any danger. We see her head slowly tilt backwards and we know she's having an orgasm. Is all this stuff there in the original film as well? I hope not. Later she relives the experience when she narrates it with descriptive eloquence to a transwoman Saroja (Vivek). The entire premise is sickening. But the worst is yet to come. I don't recommend the film; heck, I don't even recommend you read any further.
What makes Vivek choose these retarded and undignified roles? Is he a woman trapped in a man's body? There's not a single line delivered that's funny. His very presence here grinds the senses. Oh wait, speaking of sexual identity crisis... there's a scene where the heroine, Bhuvana (Sneha) gets into Kaalaiyan's clothes and channelizes him. Would she have rather been a man? Or is this Selvabharathy extending support to Freud's theory of the woman being green with penis envy?
Mating calls are sent between Kaalaiyan and Bhuvana in the form of clacking noises; not to attract each other but to drive away Kaalaiyan's brothers sleeping in between them so that they can have sex. It just keeps getting worse doesn't it? Wait till you hear about the subplot involving a stereotypical nerd who falls in love with Saroja. He's so horny he challenges her to walk across stagnant water without wetting her Sari so that he'd get a glimpse of her legs when she lifts up her Sari. He sees way more hair than expected and guess what? It breaks his heart.
There were little children in the theatre along with their parents and they were all having a ball just before the weekend. Censor board, before forcing yourselves on well-intentioned films such as Aaranya Kaandam or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, do a re-evaluation of your procedure. How the heck does such crude vulgarity get across to naive, impressionable kids? It's not even funny. It's crass.
Sundar C has serpentine eyes, a Tamilian signature moustache, furrowing brows and jagged teeth. A perfect Murattu Kaalai. But, what's the use? Director Selvabharathy prefers to expend his energy by taking cheap shots at social outcasts.
