Posts tagged ‘jugaad’

June 27, 2012

Supermen of Malegaon (2008)

Malegaon is a struggling town about 300 km northeast of Mumbai, where the local industry is mostly powerloom weaving, poverty is rampant, and communal tension between Hindus and Muslims is constant. Like most places in India, the townspeople are crazy for cinema; but in this one some of them on the Muslim side of the river have taken that obsession a step further. A former video-parlor owner named Nasir Sheikh decided to make a parody of Sholay ten years ago called Malegaon Ke Sholay, armed only with a hand-held video camera, two VCR players for editing, and his considerable imagination. Gabbar Singh became Rubber Singh, and Basanti, Basmati. The famous train scene from that movie was changed to dacoits on bicycles trying to rob a bus. His friends and neighbors pitched in, and the film ran to appreciative audiences for weeks. The team went on to make localized spoofs of other hit films (Malegaon Ki Lagaan, Malegaon Ke Karan Arjun, Malegaon Ka Rangeela, etc.), and in 2007 decided to spread their wings and take on Hollywood—and Superman.

Mumbai-based director Faiza Ahmad Khan took a crew to film these entrepreneurs making their Malegaon Ka Superman and this absolutely delightful (and film festival award-winning) documentary is the result.

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October 25, 2010

Spy In Rome (1968)

I watched two films this weekend with plots completely lacking in any sense or logic. One of them was a mainstream film (Akeli Mat Jaiyo) starring Meena Kumari and Rajendra Kumar and I am not going to write about it because, frankly, it was dull and stupid and Dusted Off has already said all that needs to be said about it. The other was Spy In Rome; and despite its very thin shoestring budget, nothing of which was spent on a writer, it managed to keep me pretty entertained. It firmly occupies a seat at that rotating bar where people with seemingly no aptitude for filmmaking—and no money for it either—down a lot of imagination-fueling substances and then stagger off to make their dream projects.

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February 22, 2010

Surakksha (1979)

Despite my near-certainty that I should know better, I once again succumbed to the lure of the Mithun-Ravi Nagaich combo. Feeling that I needed something *fun* to do, I watched Gun Master G-9 battle the unnecessarily complicated maneuverings of Evil with equally needlessly elaborate gadgets and code names—all the while still failing to convince me that his lacklustre activities in various nightclubs could really be classified as “dancing.” Ahem.

The beauty of Surakksha lies in the triumph of imagination over economics. I pretty much have to love and respect a filmmaker who spends most of his spy-movie budget on wallpaper and furnishings. This lacks the yellow plastic locusts of its sequel Wardat, sadly, but compensates by making said locusts appear positively high-tech in comparison to what GMG-9 encounters here. And the cinematography, courtesy of director-producer Nagaich in a triple threat, is really interesting. Crazy angles, migraine-inducing lighting…it’s all there. This writeup is even more screenshot-heavy than usual, due to the spectacular visuals which have to be seen to be believed. No real attempt to link plot points together is made: the story consists mostly of random (stolen from Bond) events which serve as an excuse for plenty of action and accessories which are a cracktastic tribute to the Indian spirit of jugaad.

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December 29, 2009

Adventures of Robinhood and Bandits (1965)

As inured as I am to the crimes against humanity (and cinema) perpetrated by Indian vcd/dvd manufacturers, this left me gasping when it abruptly showed up smack in the middle of a climactic scene about an hour and a half in:

A burning problem indeed! Since I didn’t actually buy this (thanks Shalini! *mwah*!) I don’t have any idea whether Priya’s packaging warned the consumer to expect an abrupt cessation of events. I’m guessing not, though, and they fill in the last half hour with ads in case you are inclined to demand your paisa vasool, which I at least did not have to worry about.

The situation does beg this question: am I glad I saw what I did of the film, even if I had no idea what was going on (no subtitles) and never did find out how it ended (burning problem)? The answer is a qualified yes: I am grateful for what is there, garish as it is, especially the songs by GS Kohli. They are fabulous. But I am also painfully aware that there will likely be no opportunity for me to ever see it as originally intended, all the way through. It is a sad loss indeed.

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