Their incredible true story has been in the public domain for well over a decade and a half but the deeds of the moviemakers of Malegaon have never ceased to fascinate. Inherent in the tale is the drama of improbable dreams of nondescript individuals clashing with daunting societal and economic constraints and, in the bargain, engendering phenomenal acts of self-belief. Director Reema Kagti captures it all in Superboys of Malegaon , a matter-of-fact fictionalized retelling.
Her film is a classic rollercoaster in which dizzying and sobering, flighty and probing, roll into and out of each other. Superboys of Malegaon , produced by Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, is about unremarkable lives made noteworthy by trajectories less ordinary. But, operating firmly within the realms of the real and the relatable, the film steers well clear of the cliches of the genre.
It does well not to cast the Malegaon men in the mould of oddballs in a rags-to-riches tale. It portrays them as who they were—flesh-and-blood individuals navigating the ups and downs of ambition, friendship, and love lost and found in the face of the inevitable transience of fame and the insubstantiality of success. But more than anything else, it celebrates the hurly-burly of filmmaking and delves into the dynamics of an economically liberalized society grappling with conflicting impulses.
The location and the characters are drawn from Faiza Ahmad Khan's hour long documentary Supermen of Malegaon , made in 2008 an.
