Kuthiraivaal also spelt as Kuthirai Vaal (transl. Horse's tail) is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language psychological drama film written by G. Rajesh and co-directed by Manoj Leonel Jahson and Shyam Sunder on their directorial debuts.^{[citation needed]} The film's background score has been composed by Martin Visser and the songs composed by Pradeep Kumar. The film stars Kalaiyarasan, Anjali Patil, Sowmya Jaganmurthy, 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] The film was scheduled to be released in theatres on 4 March 2022,but got postponed to 18 March 2022.[7] The film received mixed reviews from critics and audience.

Kuthiraivaal
Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Manoj Leonel Jahson Shyam Sunder
Written by	G. Rajesh
Produced by	Pa. Ranjith Vignesh Sundaresan
Starring	Kalaiyarasan Anjali Patil
Cinematography	Karthik Muthukumar
Edited by	Gridaran MKP
Music by	Songs: Pradeep Kumar Score: Martian Visser
Production companies	Neelam Productions Yaazhi Films
Distributed by	Neelam Productions
Release dates	12 February 2021 (2021-02-12) (IFFK) 18 March 2022 (2022-03-18) (India)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil
Budget	5 Crores

Plot

Saravanan (Kalaiyarasan) who calls himself as Freud works as a cashier in a bank. One day he wakes up after having a dream where he sees a horse without a tail, and a sky with both the sun and moon at the same time. He soon realizes that he has grown a horse's tail mysteriously after waking up. His quest to find the meaning behind this mysterious tail forms the rest of the film.

Cast

• Kalaiyarasan as Saravanan aka Freud
• Anjali Patil as Vaanavil aka Van Gogh
• Chetan as Babu
• Anandsami as Ramu’s Grandfather

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.[8] 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.[8]

Director Pa. Ranjith came on board as producer of the film and bankrolled under his production banner Neelam Productions.[9] Vignesh came on board as co-producer of the film.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12][13][14]

The principal photography of the film began in 2018 and the post-production works began in 2019 mainly focusing on the computer graphics.[8] The tail which was used in the film was created by combining both prosthetics and visual effects.[5]

Soundtrack

The songs were composed by Pradeep Kumar and Martin Visser while the latter did the film score.

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.[15][16][17] The festival was pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[18]

It was also selected for premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala on 12 February 2021 and opened to positive reviews from critics.[12][19][20][21] The film was also screened at the Berlin critics week on 27 February 2021.[5][6]

Baradwaj Rangan wrote for Film Companion South, "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."[22]

References

External links

• Kuthiraivaal at IMDb