Sexy Durga (Changed into S Durga for Indian release) is a 2017 Indian Malayalam-language indiehorror film directed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan.[2] The film is about the religious divide in the society of Kerala and its effect on marriage between two people from two different religious backgrounds.
Durga, a North Indian migrant and a Keralite youth named Kabeer are running away at midnight. They are waiting for transportation to the nearest railway station to catch a train to a distant place. Two small time gangsters, transporting arms, offer assistance to the couple. The hapless "Durga" encounters a cross section of the society through the rest of the night.
Parallel to the journey of Durga, another mysterious event intercuts in the film. In a Kerala village, devotees perform 'Garudan Thookkam', a ritual art form submitted as a reward for the problems solved in the abode of Goddess Kali, who represents Goddess Durga's personified wrath & embodied fury.[5]
Since the first screening as a work in progress film in the NFDC film Bazaar in Goa, the film has received good reviews from the viewers. Critic Gautaman Bhaskaran wrote in Hindustan Times "that was arguably one of the finest movies that this writer saw here".[6]Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote:
"Sasidharan likes games. In S Durga, the games are metaphorical, about the way we “toy” with others. In both films, these games start out as “fun” (though not for everyone), and end up revealing the ugliness inside the players, who are but a microcosm of a patriarchal society. These are, essentially, power games, with the strong preying on the weak. The strength comes from privilege (caste, class, gender, religious majoritarianism). The weakness rises from these very factors, but from the other end of the spectrum."[7]
