Kuthiraivaal

Kuthiraivaal also spelt as Kuthirai Vaal (transl. Horse's tail) is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language psychological thriller drama film written by G. Rajesh and co-directed by Manoj Leonel Jahson and Shyam Sunder on their directorial debuts.^{[citation needed]} The film stars Kalaiyarasan, Anjali Patil, , Anand Sami and Chetan in the lead roles.^[1] The film consists of magical realism elements such as man with a horse tail, horse without a tail and a sky with both sun and moon appearing simultaneously at the same time.^[2][3] The film is deemed as one of only few Tamil films to have used the concept of magical realism besides Aalavandhan.^[4] It became the first Indian film to have been nominated for international premiere at the Berlin critics film festival.^[5] The film is loosely inspired from Franz Kafka's novel The Metamorphosis.^[6]

Plot[]

Saravanan (Kalaiyarasan) who calls himself as Freud works as a cashier in a bank, also consume alcohol and on one day he wakes up after having a dream where he sees a horse without a tail and sky with both sun and moon at the same time. He soon realizes that he has a horse's tail attached to his buttock mysteriously after waking up.

Cast[]

• Kalaiyarasan as Saravanan aka Freud
• Anjali Patil
• Chetan

Production[]

It was revealed that the writer of the film G. Rajesh came on board voluntarily approached both Shyam and Manoj and narrated the script to them. The filmmakers felt impressed with the script after listening to it and began to work on the film production.^[7] It took over a year and a half for both Shyam and Manoj to find the right producer for the film. Prior to this film project, both Shyam and Manoj attempted to make a feature film in 2015 but it was shelved due to financial issues.^[7]

Director Pa. Ranjith came on board as producer of the film and bankrolled under his production banner Neelam Productions.^[8] Vignesh came on board as co-producer of the film.^[9] According to few sources, it was initially reported that the film would be made as an anthology with 5 stories and it was also speculated that Pa. Ranjith would direct one of the 5 stories in the film.^[10] However, in 2019, Pa. Ranjith refuted the speculations and clarified that Kuthiraivaal would be one of the five films that he decided to produce under his production banner Neelam Productions.^[11][12][13]

The principal photography of the film began in 2018 and the post-production works began in 2019 mainly focusing on the computer graphics.^[7] The tail which was used in the film was created by combining both prosthetics and visual effects.^[5]

Premiere[]

The filmmakers initially planned to screen the film in festival circuits before theatrical release. However, the plans were affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The filmmakers opted not to release the film via virtual online film festivals due to piracy concerns and instead opted for physical film festival premieres. It was officially selected to be premiered as one of the films under India Story section for the 2020 MAMI (Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image) Mumbai Film Festival.^[14][15][16] The festival was pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[17]

It was also selected for premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala on 12 February 2021 and opened to positive reviews from critics.^{[11][18][19][20]} The film was also screened at the Berlin critics week on 27 February 2021.^[5][6]

Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote "Kuthiraivaal works best when it relies on the sound (Anthony Ruban) and score (Maarten Visser and Pradeep Kumar), which distort and amplify these strange happenings."^[21]

References[]

External links[]

• Kuthiraivaal at IMDb