I love movies about the making of movies and about the magic of movies in the lives of ordinary people. Give me a Chhello Show, or a Halal Love Story, or a Harishchandrachi Factory and I’m happy. Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon is another delightful addition to this list. Set in three time periods (1997, 2004, 2010), the film follows the occasionally uneasy friendships of Malegaon’s film superheroes.
Varun Grover’s script is based on the documentary Supermen of Malegaon directed by Faiza Ahmad Khan, which was an incredibly heartfelt and sincere look at Malegaon, with its communal tensions and poverty, and most of all, with its group of cinema enthusiasts determined to make their own versions, their own parodies of Bollywood movies in order to give people an escape from their everyday lives. The documentary celebrated both the struggles and the ultimate joy of the process – people who are so mad for movies that they need to make their own.
Movies are an escape for the people of Malegaon. Their daily lives often consist of struggles, of work that puts food on the table but doesn’t necessarily feed the soul. “There’s too much sadness in Malegaon,” says Nasir (Adarsh Gourav). What a place like Malegaon needs is lightness, laughter, and comedy — and that’s what they set out to make, with a parody of the classic Bollywood film Sholay, but set in Malegaon, with actors from Malegaon: “Malegaon Ka Sholay” (Malegaon’s Sholay). In this version, Gabbar Singh becomes Rubber Singh, and Thakur dances and has blades in his shoes.
One of the definite charms of this film is how it shows us (as did the documentary) the creativity and ingenuity of these filmmakers, and how they try to make magic with the limited technology of the time (and of their very limited budget). Nasir learns how to edit film by using a process he gleans from a local video cassette seller. They use a bicycle as a camera dolly. And mostly, they just have the determination it takes to make the film they want to. And it’s successful – people in Malegaon love this home-grown version of Sholay.
The documentary highlighted the passion of the people in it. The fictional film tries to connect us to the people behind this passion, to their lives, to their loves. To their passion, yes, but it’s telling a different story – and that, actually, is great. Supermen of Malegaon and Superboys of Malegaon are like two sides of a coin, each complementing the other, each with their own strengths. Can one exist without the other? Yes. But together they form a loving portrait of these film fanatics: Nasir, who wants to make his own films and make the family video parlour successful; Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh), who longs for respect as a writer, and wants to see his own stories on screen, instead of focusing on parody films; and finally, Shafique (Shashank Arora), the sometimes hapless friend in this trio, who gets overlooked, overshadowed, and sidelined. In this quest for laughter and lightness, Shafique is often excluded, and Arora does an incredible job of drawing our attention to this character always left to the corners, nurturing a respect and tenderness for this man, and breaking our hearts when he finally has the chance to take centre stage, in a totally Malegaon story written by Farogh. And thus, “Malegaon Ka Superman” is born. Nasir takes Farogh’s original story about a loom boy fighting the ultimate villain, the Tobacco King, who wants everyone to get addicted to it, and convinces him that the loom boy is really Superman, sent down to Malagaon to live in a poor household. In the end, Shafique remains as Malegaon’s Superman.
“Happiness is always worth chasing,” Nasir tells his brother in the film’s opening. These are the moments when the film shines – when it captures the absolute joy, the creativity, the friendship and yes, the lovely madness of the real-life Superboys of Malegaon.
I was worried that Kagti’s film would eclipse Supermen of Malegaon, but I needn’t have been – instead, she creates a loving tribute both to the documentary, and to the people it chronicles. In the end, I was left with the same warm, fuzzy feeling, and the same wide grin on my face. Mainstream cinema industries dominate Indian film history, but the stubborn, movie-mad filmmakers of Malegon, and of so many other small communities across India, always find a way to tell their own stories, always find a way to weave their own dreams, and I’m grateful for films like Superboys of Malegaon for reminding me that sometimes the greatest filmy joys are found in the smallest of corners.
Superboys of Malegaon opens in theatres across North America on February 28th.