"This is not Bollywood" should be a warning sign on this film in the same way they always pop up a "smoking is injurious to your health" message whenever anyone on the screen lights up. And this being an Indian film that is much of the time. From the small blurb I read about this film I was expecting something entirely different. Something more akin to Boogie Nights except set in the Indian C film industry of the 1980's horror and flesh movies. A loving homage to the Ramsay Brothers and their low budget inventive films. The Ramsay Brothers certainly didn't think so and were furious with this film. No, there is nothing loving about this film. It is a fetid journey to the bottom of humanity where everything is squalid and corrupt. Colors are muted, so is morality, relationships are poisonous and everything is so grungy looking that you would be afraid to touch anything. I felt oddly pulled into this film though - and it sort of hangs over me a day later like a swarm of flies over a rotting dog left out in the sun.


The film thrusts the audience right into the world of making low grade sleazy films of monsters and quivering flesh. The two Duggal brothers produce these films on the quick and dirty. Vicky is the big brother who just grinds out these films as he does his sordid life. His brother Sonu finds the women for the films but wants something more out of his life. He wants to make a romance. The entire system is corrupt - from the filmmakers to the producers to the distributors to the gaze of the male customers in the broken down theaters - to the cops who are paid off to look the other way. Many scenes are shot in a claustrophobic studio with low florescent lighting and men watching the action on the bed with eyes that hold no compassion. The women who are willing to appear in these films look to have died a long time ago - used and abused for lifetimes - jiggling their flesh and moaning on cue. A beaten down director who looks like he is unraveling like a cheap coat. It's a living.



But things begin to take a turn for the worse when Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui - who has been in many Bollywood films) spots a girl on a train looking as innocent as a freshly baked pie. He runs into her again later when she is an extra on a film. She is his Miss Lovely, the film he wants to make. He is in love. She wants to be an actress and assents - but everything that is touched in this world is corrupt, there is no innocence and the world begins to come crashing down on these two brothers.



Apparently, the story is that the director Ashim Ahluwalia wanted to make a documentary about the C film industry but no one would talk about it to him on camera - so he decided to make this film instead. It played a number of festivals and won a few awards. It feels like a film more to be admired than liked. Beautifully shot and designed with an eye for the grunge and despair - is there a wall in which the paint isn't peeling and smoke is not filling the air - a location that doesn't look empty of humanity. It is very artistic and yet so dark and scroungy that it repels you. And with no character to really hang on to. Sonu is the main protagonist but he isn't very smart and has no clue that he is helpless. Vicky (Anil George) is the hard one but is a nasty piece of work. It is good to see films like this being made in India though the director has barely worked since. At the same time, I feel the need to watch a brightly lit Bollywood film to wash this out of my system.