The 2022 Tamil series Suzhal: The Vortex dexterously wove together crime, folk traditions and secular values. The Prime Video show created and written by the filmmaking couple Pushkar-Gayatri is returning for a new season.
Once again, a crime is set against the backdrop of a religious festival. Out on February 28 on Prime Video, Suzhal 2 revolves around an activist lawyer’s murder that takes place during the Ashtakaali festival. Eight young women each claim to be behind the killing.
Two principal characters from season one are back. Police inspector Sakkarai (Kathir) attempts to unearth the truth behind the slaying of advocate Chellappa (Lal). Sakkarai’s friend Nandini (Aishwarya Rajesh), who killed her abuser in the previous season, is in prison.
Suzhal 2 promises to continue its predecessor’s complex, multi-layered plotting that touches upon several social realities. Directed by Bramma and Sarjun, the heart of the show is what Pushkar called the “micro-festival” that is a common feature in Tamil Nadu.
Such events, where a local deity – usually a goddess – is celebrated, are not only sensory experiences but also indications of a diverse, unorthodox approach towards faith, the filmmakers told Scroll during a recent visit to Mumbai.
In season one, the Mayan Kollai festival supplied the motif of a goddess who excavates a demon residing in a graveyard. Kathir’s investigation leads him to Nandini, who has severely repressed the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.
“The manifestation of the feminine divine was something in which we were interested,” Pushkar said. “We looked at this from a cultural, anthropological view rather than from a faith-based perspective. The digging in the graveyard was a metaphor for the digging into memories.”
In the new season, the plot is driven by the local tradition of villu paatu, or storytelling through music. “There was a lot of back and forth in terms of the writing – we had a plot but we wanted the myths to run parallel and work with the crime,” Gayatri said. “Season one too had the story alone, but the zing was missing. When the festival came in, that sealed it for us.”
Among the differences this time round is that Sakarrai is conducting an investigation in a town that isn’t his own. “The perspectives of Sakkarai and Nandini are even more starkly different in season two,” Pushkar said. “Sakkarai is slowly developing from a wide-eyed cop who thought he knew everything. Nandini is going through personal turmoil. What does she learn from it, and how is it going to change her as a person?”
While Sakkarai and Nandini drive the plot, there are several new characters. “We have a bunch of suspects who are not exactly from that place and nobody knows them – they are mystery characters,” Gayatri said. What hasn’t changed is the festival’s significance for its characters and the crime itself. “A beauty, a sublimeness came into the ending, which is what the festival stands for,” Gayatri added. “That is a nice message especially in contemporary times, where there is lots of conflict and nobody likes anybody else’s opinion.”
A great deal of care went into staging festivals that resemble the actual events. The effort involved handling thousands of extras, keeping a close eye on detailing, and being as close to reality as possible, the filmmakers said.
“You can have 2,000 or 3,000 people on the set,” Pushkar said. The show’s makers spent time at the Ashtakaali festival, which takes place twice a year. “The directors Bramma and Sarjun were specifically looking at the smaller moments, at what people actually do, to create a lived-in feel,” Pushkar said. “Bramma especially got the details about the specific clothes worn by, say, a person who is observing a penance, or what his or her family members will wear. Those kind of details are from the actual festival, and we then try to meticulously recreate them.”
When the shoot began, residents of the nearby villages streamed in “fully dressed up” as though they were attending the actual event. A woman walked up to the crew members in the middle of the shoot, asking about her missing husband. “So in the middle of calling out ‘action’ and ‘cut’, the director had to make an announcement for the lady’s husband,” Gayatri recalled.
Suzhal marked the first foray into long-form storytelling for Pushkar and Gayatri. The couple have collaborated on all their projects, starting from their first Tamil movie Oram Po, in 2007. Their most well-regarded film, Vikram Vedha (2017), was remade in Hindi with the same title in 2022.
In an interview with Scroll after the release of Suzhal in 2022, Pushkar-Gayatri had described themselves as “not disciplined writers”, who were “a little slow and a bit lazy” in harnessing their talent. Suzhal 2 was a lot easier to write.
“After we started filming [Suzhal season one], the lockdown happened, and at that time itself Amazon told us, why don’t you guys start working on season two,” Gayatri said. “We are getting a tad bit faster,” Pushkar added. “We actually wrote the new season at a faster clip.”
The popularity of Suzhal among non-Tamil Prime Video subscribers is among the reasons for its return – even though they may be wrongly pronouncing the retroflex consonant “zh” in the title.
Pushkar-Gayatri have met numerous fans of “Soozal”, which is available in Tamil and other languages. Viewership data for season one suggests that people preferred to watch the show with English subtitles rather than in the other available languages. “That’s extremely heartening because it is a very deeply rooted cultural show,” Gayatri said. “The plot or how the story unravels seems to be working.”
Pushkar added, “Suzhal or Soozal – we’ve stopped trying to get people to pronounce it right. If you watch the show, that’s more important.”
The focus on streaming for Pushkar-Gayatri includes producing Andrew Louis’s Vadhandhi: The Fable of Velonie (2022) for Prime Video. However, the filmmakers haven’t abandoned films, with a couple of projects in the pipeline.
Although their Hindi remake of Vikram Vedha underperformed at the box office, they are open to working in Bollywood again, if the story demands it.
“Rather than the language in which you want to make something, the primary question is where you want to set the story,” Pushkar said. “We’re looking at one story that feels like it has to be set in Tamil Nadu, but there’s another story that needs to be in a large metropolis, which could be Bombay or Delhi. The definition of the geography will dictate the language and the story.”
Also read:
‘Suzhal – The Vortex’ review: A nail-biting thriller about secrets and deception
Why we’re going to be seeing much more of web series ‘Suzhal’ creators Pushkar-Gayatri
