KUSELAN FILM REVIEW
WITH great enthusiasm we made it a family affair to watch Kuselan over the weekend and luckily we had enough popcorns and bites to sustain us through the waiting game. Forty-five minutes into the movie, there was no sound or sign of Rajni and the pomp was definitely missing. I then knew this was not the typical Rajni movie I had anticipated it to be.
It was a frustrating wait for Rajni, who makes a rather delayed but definite grand entry as himself, the Superstar. At this point, I wait with bated breath not knowing what to expect and worse still there is still no villain, confirming my worse fear.
For fans of Rajni, please take note that Kuselan is more about the impoverished Barber Balu ( Pasupaty ), eking our a meager living in Maraiyur. Balu values ethics more than anything else and his humble wife Sri Devi ( Meena) complements his character quite well by giving all and asking nothing in return.
The small town of Maraiyur is turned abuzz overnight with the arrival of the shooting crew and with this entourage Rajni arrives, as Superstar Ashok Kumar. It appears to me, Kuselan is an autobiography of sort for Rajni as we get a good glimpse of Rajni, the person, completely dressed-down from fame and prominence.
The town is launched into frenzy to meet Rajni and the people arrive in droves to meet him but for security reasons they are kept out of view. The Superstar’s desire to meet all his fans is often thwarted by the middlemen, the security officers and the police. We get a good sense of the kind of hero-worship people generally have for film stars in this flick.
Balu’s claim that he and superstar were school mates creates ripples in an otherwise calm life of his and the rest of the story revolves around how he and his family members get into awkward situations from this revelation.
The village people start offering favours to Balu in return for some kind of face-to-face chance with the Superstar. But Balu is apprehensive and rightly so as he is unsure if the Superstar who is now a celebrity would want to associate himself with a downtrodden barber’s.
We see Vadiveloo, Balu’s business competitor filling the humour quotient but Livingstone , the self-proclaimed rich man of the village and his bunch of followers turn out to be chief irritants in the movie. Their unruly behaviour and language were disturbing to say the least.
Nayanthara is herself in Kuselan , part of the shooting crew and her role gives her a good platform to publicise her trim and slim figure she now wears.
We see outstanding costumes and impressive settings during the shooting scenes but the songs do not really sink in memory. Kuselan is really an ode to friendship and it provides Rajni an opportunity to communicate to the world all that he really is as a person, beyond and behind the Superstar image he has earned.
Balu’s failed attempts to meet the superstar shows the wall that is created by not the Superstar himself but are put in place by various authorities in the name of security.
Will Balu meet his childhood friend before the latter leaves the village at the end of the shooting period? Watch the movie for the answer, and believe me, the last twenty minutes of the movie leaves you tearing.
Let us give producer K. Balachander and director P Vasu a break. Kuselan is made for a larger purpose and with a deeper message to coincide with the World Friendship Day on 3 August.
Some comments from my family members; the seven year old found the movie tolerable after Rajni’s delayed appearance, the teenagers found it quite a bore with Rajni’s fights missing, while the senior citizens thought they should have stayed at home for the TV serials. And I missed Rajni’s as a Superstar in Kuselan.
