At its surface, Reema Kagti's latest feature, Superboys of Malegaon (2024), is the story behind the story of a motley group of film enthusiasts from the eponymous city, who made low-budget parodies of famed Bollywood and Hollywood films. To subject Kagti's film to a surface-level reading, however, is a disservice to not just one of India's most intelligent storytellers but also to the industry which, with every passing film, dissolves into a decadent and dramatically stagnant being. A nation where any existence of artistic intelligence is strangled by moneymaking goons masquerading as film producers, who continue to push lacklustre universes of IP-driven dross where nothing that glitters is actually gold.
"Writer Baap Hota Hai"
Kagti's film, albeit set in a place some 270 km and 25 years in the past from today's Bollywood, offers considerate commentary, for anyone willing to listen, on the times we live in. “Writer baap hota hai,” screams Farogh Jafri (Vineet Kumar Singh), an underappreciated writer from Malegaon, when his original stories are repeatedly rejected by Nasir Shaikh (Adarsh Gourav), the leader of their ragtag film crew, in favour of more parodies. While this dialogue, penned by Varun Grover, exists within the time-space continuum populated by this specific group from Malegaon, it evokes an emotion that transcends all borders, tangible or intangible. A similar emotion was evoked some 400 years ago by the ‘baap' of all writers, William Shakespeare, when he penned down his sonnet, Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments, stating as fearlessly as Jafri, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments, Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” Nothing supersedes a good writer. And if Shakespeare and Grover said it, then it must be true.
It is quite remarkable then that this simple thought that has defied artistic evolution from its very inception remains incomprehensible for filmmakers and producers in India. Underpaid screenwriters underscore the reality of every film set, successful or unsuccessful, large or small. Ours is an industry that has not merely normalised this disparity but has also vigorously facilitated the culture of hero worship, which further curtails writers' wages in favour of a bigger paycheck for an actor who would be fundamentally unemployed, if not for the writer.
Nasir Understands A Complex Truth About Identity
The parodies with an accentuated Malegaon accent in the film emphasise another important idea in this vein—the importance of socially and culturally cognisant writers and filmmakers. The granular motivation for these superboys of Malegaon was to create a cinema that cements their identity on the big screen in a manner that is not offered to people of their economic and social belonging by the system. It is but Bombay's cruelty that it teaches you to dream. Nevertheless, a replication of Bombay's glamourous filmmaking remains incredibly important as films, above all else, are entertainment, especially in Malegaon.
It is not lost on Nasir that his films are meant to be seen by loom workers and farmhands who work too hard for too little in a place where nothing ever happens. To infuse Malegaon's desperation with the dynamism of Mumbai thus becomes his primary goal. What this requires, however, is an acute understanding of both lands—Malegaon and Mumbai. A familiarity with the texts and lives of both their source material and their reference material. A realisation that would save Bollywood bigwigs crores of rupees.
Same Old, Same Old Bollywood
Bollywood's is a rich history of self-referential, self-aware cinema. However, of late, there has been an increase in the need to refer sans innovation. An attitude that extends itself from major plot points to throwaway one-liners. We no longer have jokes; we have reminders of comedies released a decade ago. Humour manifests itself through arduous meta-textual and pop culture references as we laugh at feeble echoes of the same punchline perpetually reverberating across the hollow industry.
Cutting decisively through the sparkling exterior, Superboys also magnifies the physical, emotional, and financial stresses that burden filmmakers. Observing the Malegaon filmmakers toil tirelessly amidst societal and economic restrictions to deliver films with heart and soul puts into perspective exactly how detrimental it is when Bollywood churns out movies worth hundreds of crores with no ambition. Filmmaking is a privilege, as professed by Kagti's picture, and it is evident that not just the filmmakers of Malegaon but the filmmakers in Malegaon recognised and responded to the duties that accompany this privilege. Unfortunately, this maturity eludes most of Bollywood.
Superboys Is Filmmaking Free Of Constraint
While the film's ideas are eloquently expressed through Varun Grover's deliberate dialogues, there is a lot that is to be understood from the film's silences as well. Faiza Ahmad Khan's Supermen of Malegaon (2008), the documentary film that in many ways inspired Kagti's fictional account, addressed the communal differences between Malegaon's population and how the build-up of a majority Muslim and a minority Hindu population impacts the access to and attitudes towards cinema. Superboys of Malegaon, however, decides not to address this side of Malegaon's history, which doesn't come as much of a surprise in today's Bollywood, where extremist groups exercise undue but immense influence across the industry; one does understand the weight that this decision carries. The permanence of celluloid also means that this silence will ring loud forevermore.
At its core, however, Superboys is a story of liberated filmmaking. Free from all conventions of form, style, and substance, and in pursuit of euphoria. You feel it in the characters' motivations, and you read it on their faces. When they laugh, you laugh with them. When they cry, you shed a tear as well. It is honest filmmaking by a filmmaker who has remained demonstrably diligent towards her craft, about filmmakers who were nothing short of being dedicatedly determined towards theirs. And in that sense, Superboys of Malegaon is a joyous film that celebrates everyone who has ever made a film. It applauds all filmmakers who are unable to or unwilling to break through Bombay's hardened exterior. It is a film about everyone who is not a Bollywood bigwig, but quite poetically, it is also a must for everyone who is. A wake-up call for a fraternity that has only ever learnt to flatter itself.
(Nidhil Vohra is a writer, filmmaker, and film studies student at the University of Toronto.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author