Youve got to be in the mood for the mad to love Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota a movie about the movies
Abhimanyu Dassani in Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota, which is an incredible action-comedy, with top-notch performers up for the game
For a film that takes itself less and less seriously with every scene, one has to be a little careful about probing its supposed sub-text; let alone sticking neck out to postulate, and sound all-serious, film-critic type.
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Be that as it may, as its name suggests, Vasan Balan's Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota (MKDNH), that hits theatres this Friday, is about the leading child/boy/man, who feels no physical pain. This is deemed a 'bimaari' (disease), making him vulnerable-as against an aspect of bravado-laden masculinity, that we have all been conditioned to celebrate, and therefore films forever have.
In fact, the film borrows its title from the famous dialogue in Manmohan Desai's super kitschy Amitabh Bachchan starrer Mard (1985; remade as Maveeran with Rajinikanth), whose iconic (so bad, it's great) moment might well be the word 'Mard' (in Hindi) etched with a sharp object on an infant's bleeding chest. That inscription/wound remains in place, at the same spot, in the same form, as the baby grows up to become Bachchan!
The 1985 Bachchan movie that the little boy in MKDNH grows up on though, watching it repeatedly on VHS, is Geraftaar (which also starred Rajini, and Kamal Haasan). He's an '80/'90s kid, and his story, like a typical picture from that decade, starts off with a detailed prologue, where we learn of his ailment, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, that we are rightly told to Google and learn more about in our own time.
Which I did, and so well, it isn't a filmy disease, and indeed those born with this disorder have very low chances of a long life, being susceptible to health issues, the symptoms of which can't be felt by someone who can't sense pain in the first place. The boy's father keeps him locked, aware that his strength is actually a weakness, while his grandfather (brilliant Mahesh Manjrekar) encourages him to play to his potential.
As a premise, this is actually a great starting point for a full-on character like Superman-the rare super-hero who's born with his powers, is totally aware of it, hides it from others, pretending to be human; unlike Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, etc, whose alter-egos turn into superheroes, once they don the suit.
I probably say this, given what superheroes have done for the might of Hollywood, with characters that the world has grown up on, and so they can continue to live off franchises forever. India's superheroes on the other hand have mainly remained within the pantheon of its robust mythology.
But, no, this ain't no full-scale super-hero pic. Can't be. Doesn't aspire to be. It is very much an "indie", or to be more specific, a 'Versova indie': a sub-set of incredibly novel, diverse, relatively low-budget films from Mumbai-outside of the eco-system of songs, plus stars-that have dominated movie-buff mind-space, entered the top film-festival scene, ever since filmmaker Anurag Kashyap pretty much birthed a movement of sorts, drawing in filmmaking talents from various fields (sales, marketing, engineering, banking, etc) to fearlessly wade into the waters in/around Aaram Nagar few years ago.
Bala's first feature Peddlers premiered at Cannes in 2012, the same year that Kashyap's Gangs Of Wasseypur played in the Director's Fortnight section. Besides, Bala wrote Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016), co-wrote Bombay Velvet (2015). MKDNH is his first theatrical release, and was the Indian film at the 'Midnight Madness' section at Toronto film festival this year, where it picked up people's choice prize.
What unites a lot of Mumbai "indie" voices (in various filmmaking departments), you notice, besides their vintage, or rather because of it, is their love for Quentin Tarantino, who actually made film-buffery of all sorts, and almost academic-level pop-culture homage a thing of global, mainstream cool.
Which, as a movie genre, is a tough nut to crack, given the thin line that separates self-indulgence-spoofing what's already a spoof-from self-referencing, or going back to being the kid that got you hooked to the movies to begin with-ideas of romance, bonds, good/evil, hero/villain, prologue/epilogue…
Or, as in this case, irrepressible excitement over American/Hong Kong martial arts, the love for which in the '90s I distinctly remember, spilled over from the movies (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan; Enter The Dragon, 36 Chambers Of Shaolin, etc), on to the neighbourhood streets, with kids from every building, housing colony, in white uniforms, lining up in the evenings for Karate classes. Don't see that anymore!
But yeah, even more energising then to immerse yourself in this incredible action-comedy, with top-notch performers (Gulshan Devaiah, Abhimanyu Dassani, Radhika Madan) up for the game, with solid blocks, drops, and kicks, and punches flying all over. As Roger Ebert said for Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express (1996), "You enjoy it because of what you know about film, not because of what it knows about life."
Either way, cinephilia is also a legit bimaari, without a cure, for sure. But drugs such as these that strangely make you feel better!
Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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