First things first: to all the Doubting Thomases out there, Reema Kagti’s does give due credit to , Faiza Khan’s much-loved documentary on the spoof film industry of and the making of its homegrown Having got that out of the way, one also can’t ignore the fact that the 2008 film is an inescapable cross for Kagti to bear. Correlations, comparisons, associations, say what you may, are bound to be made between the two works. Nonetheless, Kagti’s film is significant for being an affectionate eulogy from Hindi cinema to the quirky film fanatics in the power loom town of Maharashtra, devotees of Salman Khan as well as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Bruce Lee.
It is also a warm-hearted celebration of their signature Bollywood spin-offs as distinctive filmmaking of its own. One of world’s largest film industries doffing its hat to the chutzpah of a precariously small subaltern one and according to it a rightful place in Indian film history. In a rousing moment and one of the most moving lines (written by Varun Grover, dialogues by Grover and Shoaib Zulfi Nazeer), Vineet Kumar Singh as Farogh Jafri, the writer of films, tells its creator Nasir Shaikh, played by Adarsh Gourav, “Tu kamaal hai.
Tune deewano ko tareekh mein naam diya (You are incredible. You etched the names of a bunch of oddballs in history.)” It’s an exploration of these fellowships and solidarities, the reciprocity and admiration that went into the making of cinema, that give the film its emotional heft.
How one man’s idea got nurtured by an entire community. Varun also does well in dwelling on the clash of egos and grudges, bitterness and jealousy that later led to an internal breakdown and combustion, as often happens in creative spaces. This human dynamic of a ragtag bunch of loom workers, dates sellers, videographers, writers—the Nasirs, Faroghs, Shafiques, Akrams—is the best part about the film.
The most persuasive aspect is the contrary personalities of Farogh and Nasir that Varun captures well in his writing, and Vineet and Adarsh do a great job of bringing their flawed personalities to life on screen. The practicality of Nasir as opposed to the idealism of Farogh, the needless cussedness of one against the ready malleability of the other and that terrific assertion by Farogh—“Writer baap hota hai”—that is bound to bring the house down. Varun and Shoaib use the “fatehaal risaale ka diljala adeeb” (the cynical scholar of a down and out publication) aka Farogh as an ally in furthering the cause of the disregarded writers in the film industry.
I wish there was more of all of this. As also some context about the political and communal issues and violence (beyond the economic rot and social cheerlessness and drudgery that do get referred to) that have been plaguing the town against which the spoofs took shape and grew almost like an act of creative liberation and deliverance. It’s the making of the spoofs within the film—the one in the beginning and the homegrown Superman in the end—that don’t quite work the magic.
The references and the audition sequences are ho-hum. It’s here that the déjà vu for Faiza’s film also hits the strongest. Many parts seem a straight recreation from the documentary—the tantrums of “demanding” heroine Trupti, her catchphrase “disgusting” or Nasir’s camera falling in the pond.
What’s more these sequences feel too tidy, drained of the passion, energy, madness, audacity and joy of the ingenious and resourceful filmmaking that we saw firsthand in the documentary. When the reality itself is so dramatic, a fictionalised version of it is a tough act to follow. There are creative liberties that appear to have been taken on this road to fictionalisation.
Like the romance between loom worker Shafique (an earnest Shashank Arora) who plays Superman and his heroine Trupti and the Superman spoof shown to have been mounted as the last hurrah for a dying Shafique which wasn’t quite the case in Faiza’s documentary where his wedding celebrations bring the shoot of the film to a four-day halt much to Nasir’s annoyance. In Kagti’s film Shafique’s cancer (with dibs to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand) becomes a contrivance, not only to touch the audience’s sentimental chord but also offer a chance of redemption to Nasir for having taken his bestie for granted in furthering his own self-interest. And, most of all, an occasion to have the band of brothers regroup to take a joint flight of fantasy yet again and have their collective imagination soar.
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