In RJ Balaji’s Karuppu, Suriya’s Saravanan isn’t all that different from a typical Tamil action film hero. He thrashes the bad guys (not to mention in a tightly choreographed interval block to peppy music), takes the law into his own hands, discerns right from wrong, and sometimes even cuts cars into two on command. But he’s not just playing the deity of the masses that audiences have come to worship on screens. For Saravanan is not a mere mortal with a god complex... but an actual God.
Karuppu’s success has been incremental. The film has grossed over ₹300 crore at the worldwide box office, given Suriya the biggest film of his recent career, and registered over one crore footfalls in Tamil Nadu theatres. Its success points perhaps towards a larger shift in viewership pattern — one away from violent gangster dramas to self-aware action comedies. But in many other ways, it could also be looked at as a form of homecoming for films from the south that have long-held a connection to devotional films. Karuppu is essentially a saamy padam (translates to ‘God film’ in Tamil).
Director RJ Balaji looks at this genre as the perfect vehicle for mass cinema. “It gives me license to do anything on screen,” the filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter India.” I’d feel slightly embarrassed to show a normal hero cutting a car in half. But here I can get away saying, "It is God.” That’s the idea behind going for a 'God' film.”
For the uninitiated, the saamy padam is a genre of devotional films that holds deep roots in Tamil cinema, and among most industries in the south. The phenomenon that began with mythological hits such as Sivaji Ganesan’s Thiruvilaiyadal (1965) and Kandhan Karunai (1967) in Tamil, NT Rama Rao’s Mayabazar and Sri Venkateswara Mahatyam in Telugu, and Dr Rajkumar’s Babruvahana and Bhakta Prahlada in Kannada, has gone on to spawn various devotional films for several eras.
Senior journalist Kavitha Muralidharan thinks cinema has been involved in every phase of Tamil life. “Tamil cinema is intertwined in every phase of life, like politics, society, devotion. In politics, you hear film songs. And Tamil songs are hugely famous in devotional spaces. Musician T.M. Soundararajan sang more than 10,000 songs in Tamil. I think the two films that he acted in were devotional in nature, including the 1964 film Arunagirinathar,” she says.
While Thiruvilayadal might have kicked off the tradition in the 60s, she reflects the depiction took a life of its own through the ‘Amman’ movies in the 90s and the 2000s, a genre of films in Tamil and Telugu that revolved around the village goddess, as actor Ramya Krishnan quickly became a face of the films in Tamil.
Producer Dhananjayan feels the genre never died down despite the advancement of life. “That is the power of devotional subjects. Recent hits like Mookuthi Amman, Aranmani 4, and Kanchana 3 are clear examples. But this isn’t just restricted to Tamil.”
Similar success was earlier minted through films such as Rishab Shetty’s Kantara movies in Kannada, Prasanth Varma’s Hanu-Man in Telugu and Unni Mukundan’s Malikkapuram in Malayalam recently.
Anirudh Mahesh, who co-wrote Kantara and the recent prequel, Kantara: Chapter 1, with Shetty, says the daiva (local deity) was worked into the larger story organically. While the film depicts Tulu deities, it is still encased in a relatable human-nature conflict. “The film that we wanted to make was not actually on Daiva,” says Mahesh. “It was about the issues happening in forest borders, with respect to encroachment and co-existence.” The 2022 film started off by tracing a conflict between the forest department and the locals of coastal Karnataka, gradually revealing them to be on the same side — one with nature.
“The forest department is all about conserving nature. And these people who are living in adjacent areas are also worshipping an energy in nature. We had to balance those two and come up with a good screenplay. The story itself was not to celebrate the Daiva or anything like that, but meant to be a part of it all.” Mahesh attributes his knowledge of the Bhoota Kola culture to growing up seeing the Kola year after year in his native town Moodubidire. “Every time it fascinates us because every year, even though you see the same thing, you experience a new element in it.”
Abhilash Pillai, who wrote the box-office hit Malikkapuram, Unni Mukundan’s Malayalam film about a young Ayyapan devotee, emphasises the heavy emotional beats of such scripts. Pillai, a long-time Ayyapan devotee, admits he has always dreamed of making a film about the deity. “Emotions are everything. At the time, a lot of people told us that this kind of a saamy padam might not work. We made it on a small budget, but it became a hit. Karuppu's success tells us that there is a lot of scope for these films.”
Retelling such films with modern storytelling is important, notes Mahesh. "I mean there is one name, there is one God which we have shown in the film. But the emotion is true in every corner of the country with different Gods. I'm sure this is why people connect to it in their own way."
These titles also give audiences something to celebrate in theatres as a unit. And for this, they need to be commercial in nature. Muralidharan feels Karuppanaswamy, the guardian deity that is at the centre of Karuppu, lends himself well to film, in keeping with the unique nature of devotion people share with the God.
“I have been to Karuppanaswamy Temple in Madurai, and people emotionally invest in that God. Maybe that translates into a collective communal experience in theatres,” she says, noting that the films in Tamil often stay away from propagandist devotion, an increasing criticism of the genre. “I don't think Tamil cinema has had propagandist devotional films in the past. Whether that is going to happen is something I really would want to wait and watch.”
RJ Balaji asserts that the idea was never to make agenda-driven films. “The god [Karuppanaswamy] belongs to the village, despite his devotee's religion. I see a lot of North Indian films which people call agenda-driven films. My idea is to not be part of that bandwagon.”
But the filmmaker does call these films the newest flavour of the industry and he might not be wrong. The modern devotional film will soon be seeing an upswing with various films including Sivakarthikeyan's Seyon, Ravi Teja's Irumudi, and Rishab Shetty's Jai Hanuman, waiting to be released in the south. Pillai admits that his directorial debut too might have a divine element. It's all in the lap of the Gods after all.