"Hum Bade Hue...Shahar Badal Gaye"... it's growing in a land of dreams with fluctuating fortunes and growing ambitions. Seven talents, seven hopes with "dreamz unlimited"... Bollywood's dream factories have produced entertainers that promised and conceived entertainment for decades. The glitz, glamour and silhouette of the film fraternity have been focused but not much has been explored on its poor cousin fraternity - "strugglers". The enthralling adventures of "rags to riches" celebrities have encouraged many but still there are an equal number of unheard and unsung talents waiting to be discovered. They dream big, work hard but laws of destiny deny them their future. Success brings glories, but there are hundreds and thousands who miss the bus and their rosy fairyland unravels through evil dungeons of misfortune and adversities.
Every week a new directorial talent has been witnessed and 'The Film' brings out debutante Junaid Memon this time. The journey from advertisement world to tinsel town has brought him closer to many undiscovered facades of the tinsel world. It's innovative, experimental and absorbing that Memon has visualized with a difference. Memon's tryst with the struggling cadre brings out different facades of filmmaking and the peoples involved in it. The infrastructure of the struggling professionals, including actors, actresses, directors, singers, writers and lyricists, has gone through the bondage of togetherness under one roof. The collage has been exhaustive, thoughtful and informative with a pinch of spine chilling fiction. Junaid Memon's world of struggling magnificent seven brings out seven dreams packed in one crown. So goodbye to dream land for a while and welcome to the land of aspiring seven who nurse ambition of BIG in Bollywood.
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Enter Sushmita (Mahima Chaudhry), a poignant scriptwriter with visions of promising tomorrow leading the bandwagon of aspiring seven. This experienced writer refuses to "compromise" with her miseries and accepts challenges as they come. Enter Vijay (Khaled Siddiqui), a young cherubic guy with dreams of metamorphosing his directorial excellence on silver screen. He works as an assistant director but hopes to direct his film one day and dreams big to cast his mates as his colleagues. Enter Nandini (Ananya Khare), a vocalist in the mould of "Indian Idol" with desires of singing melodies for the screen goddess. The small town girl works as chorus singer and struggles from studio to studio for opportunities. Enter Raman (Ravi Gosain), a melodic prodigy with intellect of creating magical music substance on screen. He imbibes the traits of his master's skills and struggles as musician and aspires to compose his tunes some day.
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Enter Irfan (Vivek Madan), an engrossing and absorbing intellectual with visions of composing enchantment with words in melodies. The creative genius works as an assistant to many lyricists and waits for his good time. Enter Aditya (Vaibhav Jhalani), a theatrical mania who dreams to conquer silver screen with his acting presence. He idolizes Khans, Bachchans and has a dream to hit big on silver screen. Enter Ankita (Chahat Khanna), an Aishwarya Rai wannabe glam doll with dreams of seducing camera with her charms and talents. The cute and adorable girl waits for stardom with dreams in her eyes.
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These seven aspirants survive under the mansion of Mrs Breganza (Sulabha Deshpande). She is benevolent towards them as her deceased son was also a Bollywood aspirant. The struggle becomes tiresome for all of them. They face the negligence and abhorrence of the film industry with evils like "casting couch". They live in an era where Bollywood is terrorized by underworld's extortion threats. The city is shocked with underworld don Shamim extorting money from the producers and the financers. Vijay experiences one extortionist's modus operandi and decides to con wealthy film financer Sharad Shah. Sushmita hatches plan to extort money by terrorizing in the name of Shamim and succeed in achieving it too. They are delighted but soon their world turns upside down as cop Javed Khan (Naseer Abdullah) traces them out. Meanwhile, six of them get eliminated. The climax is engrossing as the extortion plan happens to be con act of Sushmita.
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Last week it was Suparn Verma and this time it's Junaid Memon mastering the conceptual strength of con act on celluloid. Debutante Memon handles the first half brilliantly by depicting the state of wannabe starlets. He has been bold enough to single out blasphemous aspects like "casting couch" and "plagiarism". The "behind the scene" scenario shows the working infrastructure of the tinsel world. There is hardly any film that has nose-dived into the intricacy of the film world. RGV's 'Company' was the only film that depicted "Bollywood-underworld" nexus but 'The Film' shows that the film industry is living under its threats. Memon's characterizations of producers, financers and music composers have been inspirational lifts from the Bollywood fraternity. J.P Dutta, Bharat Shah, Bappi Lahiri's caricatures have been disguised in depicting them.
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The director's vision of contorting "feel good factor" to "gory" acts of underworld might create differences of opinion among the masses. Samidha Khalid's music works wonders at places with audible tracks like "Hum Bade Hue". Dialogues, script and screenplay have been gripping in the first half but they lose some tinge in the second half. Mahima's transformation from glam doll to a sensible actress deserves all the accolades. This one film wonder handles her act very well despite her fading stardom. The climax scenes show her strength and in this low hype she holds fort brilliantly. Khaled Siddiqui is a renowned model and justifies his role with modesty.
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Ananya Khare and Ravi Gosain have been experienced campaigners and look promising in their formidable acts. Debutante Chahat Khanna has an adorable face but her face language needs a lot. Vaibhav Jhalani looks more of a comedian than a hero and falters at many places. Vivek Madan impresses with his husky voice and delivers poetic dialogues very well. Naseer Abdullah becomes the laughing stock with faulty Hindi diction and unimpressive body language. Talented actor like Boman Irani should have been assigned the cop's role to make it more enthralling. Senior actors like Satyen Kappu and Sulabha Deshpande maintain their stature of dependable actors in supporting roles.
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Memon's 'The Film' suffers from low publicity and lack of attractive star cast. There have been instances when subject and content has attracted audiences despite low star values. The director's vision of epitomizing evil aspects of over ambitious human nature with its evil repercussions has novelty. It has been a new set of workmanship with some average to good performances. It will attract a small section of crowd and to expect anything generous looks difficult. The lack of "masala", publicity and lack of face value works negative for it. 'The Film' needs substantial good mouth publicity for its future prospects. It will add to the glossary of genuine attempts of experimentation in a phase of modern cinema and Junaid Memon deserves all the praise.
