Cinema Marte Dum Tak review: An ode to the world of sleaze and spook

The series picks four directors — J Neelam, Vinod Talwar, Dilip Gulati and Kishan Shah — who helmed several such successful projects of the 90s to recreate their magic. They are asked to make short movies using their tried-and-tested signature techniques. They are allotted a low budget to don the director’s hat once again, rebuild their crew and cast to make a film that they believe in.

The series has roped in Ashim Ahluwalia as creative consultant. His much-acclaimed feature film, Miss Lovely (2012), took a deep dive into the exploitative and fascinating world of C-grade films. Miss Lovely, which competed in Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival 2012, in spite of the acclaim it received mainly reached a niche audience. The series, however, might find a wider audience.

As the show follows these four directors, who return to filmmaking after a gap of over two decades, it takes the viewers back to the 90s. The four directors, their collaborators and industry observers reminisce about how they made movies with a budget as low as Rs 2 lakh within a week. Interspersed with these interviews are clips of these movies.

Making these movies demanded expertise of a different kind. Sapna Sappu, who debuted in Gunda (1998) at 16, is praised by Shah as the best actor he knows. Sappu, a veteran of 300 movies, understands the demands of the job. This single mother’s profession helped her raise her son. Yet, she can’t name a single assignment that moved her. There was a stigma attached to these movies. Hemant Birje, who debuted with Tarzan (1985), believes his career suffered a setback after he acted in low-budget horror movies.

Stigma aside, this business provided an opportunity to those who dreamt of a career in movies but couldn’t get into the highly-competitive mainstream filmmaking. In fact, the industry’s per-day cash payment was a draw for many known names. Dharmendra acted in a number of movies on a per-day basis. Mithun and Govinda too appeared in several such movies. The presence of big names added to their appeal.

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Though the makers of these movies in the late 80s and early 90s followed the formula of featuring around “five bold scenes”, they were careful about not having pornographic elements. The downfall of this business was precipitated by the practice of using “bits” or “extra portions” (euphemism for porn) during the screenings. These scenes were inserted in the films randomly to ensure a good box-office return even though it led to police raids and legal trouble in later years.

The docu-series is an earnest attempt to document the cinema that has existed on the margins. It captures its unique craft and spirit which provided guilty pleasure and cheap thrills to its audience. However, the points the show is trying to make, at times, become repetitive. Even though it tries to address the issue of misogyny and objectification of women on screen, it does not come up with a satisfying answer.

Cinema Marte Dum Tak creator: Vasan Bala
Cinema Marte Dum Tak co-directors: Disha Rindani, Xulfee and Kulish Kant Thakur
Cinema Marte Dum Tak is streaming on Amazon Prime Video