Supermen of
Malegaon is a 2012 Hindi documentary film, written and Directed by Faiza Ahmad
Khan. Superman of Malegaon was intended to be released for a Singapore TV
Channel.
Malegaon is
a small town in Maharashtra, surviving on power looms and is fraught with
poverty, communal tensions and hardships. This movie traces the existence of
the parallel film industry thriving in this small town, which we are not even
aware about.
It follows
the story of a certain “director” who is making a spoof of the Hollywood series
of Superman and captures the trials and tribulations, the ups and downs in his
ambitious project. “Ambitious” is the key word here because the most striking aspect
about the story is how he succeeds in following his dream in spite of limited
resources.
The theme
and the plot of film is simple, but what is striking is the fact that these are
real people, with real dreams and aspirations of making it big that we are made
to experience during the course of the movie. The film is not sermonizing yet
strikes a chord somewhere. There’s a part in the movie which has a beautiful,
tragic poem about the poverty and strife in Malegaon, with striking images of a
child smoking bidi, however, it immediately snaps out of it to the project at
hand- the making of “Supermen of
Malegaon”.
What stayed
with me after watching the film besides the fact that it was downright
hilarious, is the sheer zest and love for movies which the characters display
and one cannot undermine the small but significant contribution to the
entertainment industry which “Mollywood” has been making.
