Vasan Bala's Cinema Marte Dak is an intriguing, imperative take on Hindi cinema’s much celebrated and cacophonous genre

If not for social media or YouTube, Kanti Shah’s Gunda would be a name long forgotten. It’s a film designed purposefully to illicit a reaction, extreme reaction. The dialogues, the tone, the performances, all are unforgettably OTT (obviously not the streaming platforms). It has acquired cult status for being a film so outrageously bad, it’s good. The trashiness on display has long morphed into goldmine of hidden gems still being unearthed. There are many more classics, sarcastically or even in true sense that filmmaker Vasan Bala pays homage to, or maybe brings attention to, in his new offering Cinema Marte Dam Tak.

The 80s is considered to be the worst phase of Hindi Cinema. We are said to have improved post the 1991 liberalization. The music, the costumes, the NRI romances, the westernization, the decade gave us all. But for every Lamhe, we had a Gunda; for every DDLJ in our households, we had a Daku Ganga Jamuna knocking on our doors. The unapologetic and unabashed gaudiness of the 80s spilled over to the 90s too. Bala picks four filmmakers from that era- J Neelam, Vinod Talwar, Dilip Gulati and Kishan Shah, and all of them narrate riveting stories about the making of their movies.

Whatever the aftermath may have been, or the crudity of history, there was immense passion and conviction in the filmmakers’ vision. Along with the aforementioned filmmakers, we also get seasoned actors like Harish Patel, Mukesh Rishi, Kiran Kumar, and the evergreen Raza Murad (who Sanjay Leela Bhansali has to cast in a full-fledged role soon) do the talking about their participation in some very gleefully entertaining outings. The lack of coherence in the narrative of their films doesn’t matter after a point, what matters is Bala’s commendable idea of bringing these largely forgotten filmmakers and unsung heroes, and give them their share of spotlight.

But what made such movies B movies? If the hideous quality of the script was the sole reason, some of the top stars of our country acted in many of them. Remember Anil Kapoor’s pelvic thrusts in Andaz or Naseeruddin Shah’s embarrassingly theatrical triple role in Himmat? Even the breakout star of that time, Shah Rukh Khan, fresh off the blockbuster success of Baazigar, Darr, and DDLJ, burned his hands and many eyes with the alarmingly loud Ram Jaane.

Was it the lack of budgets that led to such films being categorized as B movies? In an interview back in 2021, when Rajkummar Rao was asked about the division of films as parallel or commercial, he replied, “All films are commercial films, even the parallel films are made from money.” Well, why can’t we apply the same logic while mercilessly dismissing the likes of films made by Neelam, Kanti, or even the Ramsay Brothers?

Cinema Marte Dum Tak is an important watch for everyone who loves movies, grade notwithstanding. It not only entertains and bursts with nostalgic doses but also reminds that all movies are made out of passion and perseverance, even if they are dismissed as B movies. To remind them, even Bollywood begins with B.

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