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| Images courtesy of Google Play |
On the cusp of John Badham’s hit 1977 musical dance drama Saturday
Night Fever starring John Travolta which catapulted disco music to the
mainstream, a good number of like-minded film productions around the world over
quickly followed in its wake. From Can’t
Stop the Music to Thank God It’s Friday to Xanadu, the disco
musical quickly became ubiquitous and soon spread from America to Europe, culminating
in such fare as Cannon Films’ The Apple and today’s cult cinema entry
the 1982 Hindi language Bombay, India set blockbuster Disco Dancer. Co-written by Dr. Rahi Masoom Reza and Deepak
Balraj Vij, Disco Dancer doesn’t quite soar into outer space with The
Apple but comes pretty close in a myriad of ways.
A star vehicle for Mithun Chakraborty as slummy Bombay street
performer Anil who adopts the stage name Jimmy as he goes from rags-to-riches turned
filmi disco Bollywood megastar whose ascension with his elder mother keeps being
thwarted by violent gangsters before the rules start becoming more absurdist
and fantastical, the film was a major success in both India and even bigger in
Soviet Union yet few if any American filmgoers know of it. An underground cult classic waiting to be
rediscovered by fans of old as well as new Bollywood cinema, Vinegar Syndrome
acolytes of the batshit insane and musical melodrama aficionados keen on old
Vaudevillian ditties with the volume turned up louder, Disco Dancer is
that rarified beast that wants to be Saturday Night Fever if it were
invaded by Enter the Dragon.
Aided by a rocking Bollywood soundtrack by Bappi Lahirhi
with songs by Anjaan and Faruk Kaiser (aping Video Killed the Radio Star and
Jesus among other things), arrestingly choreographed cinematography by
Nadeem Khan and curious if not occasionally hyperkinetic editing by Mangesh
Chavan and Shyam Gupte, Disco Dancer is a deliriously entertaining action
musical with disparate connective elements hastily Frankenstein-ed
together towards a kind of berserk Maximalist psychedelic explosion. While starting out initially as Saturday
Night Fever by way of Purple Rain with many of the journeyed rags-to-riches
tropes playing out in full beat-by-beat predictability, anchored by an
electrified central performance from Mithun Chakraborty, there’s a point where
this thing jumps the rails contextually and technically. Though
it might lose us emotionally provoking unintentional laughter, we are
transfixed by the goofy overkill of it all.
Take, for instance, the subplot involving evil heavy P.N.
Oberoi (Om Shivpuri), arch-rival Italian disco champion Sam (Karan Razdan gleefully
overplaying the bit) and their kindred band of henchman including Bob Christo
as a Russian goon. Without batting an
eye or missing a step, the embittered feud turns steadily more ridiculously
violent including a murder attempt via an electrified guitar that results in a stroboscopic
multicolored light show that would make Gaspar Noe envious and later still a
large upbeat disco champion competition is interrupted by a flat-out massacre
since apparently disco music truly is a battle to the death. Then there’s Anil/Jimmy himself who is not
only a natural born disco champion but when need be a karate expert who himself
has to kill a lot of bad guys before picking up his guitar and dance shoes to
go back into music man mode. There’s no
lead in or segue into or out of the action sequences, they simply come and go
without warning or consequence.
That’s not to say this doesn’t have musical melodrama
virtues or its share of big screen spectacle.
Many of the disco dance set pieces with their flashy multicolored lights
clearly inspired by not only John Badham’s film are overwhelming to look at and
harken back to the heyday of Busby Berkeley sensory overload. The Krishna Dharti Pe Aaja Tu song and
the closing track for instance dial up the shiny flashing and dancing
choreography not just for Chakraborty but for the supporting cast as well. Parvati Khan as Kim the spoiled rich daughter
of Oberoi finds herself taking center stage in the famous track Jimmy Jimmy
Jimmy Aaja trying to coax newfound lover Jimmy out of a depression doesn’t
quite reach Chakraborty’s energy but gives it her best.
Despite the zaniness of the plot and paper cut-out archetypical
characters, the melodramatic playground for Mithun Chakrobarty’s dancing and
arena for Bappi Lahiri’s music and songs still proved to be a tractor beam draw
for moviegoers Indian and Russian in 1982.
With adjusted inflation the still smash hit blockbuster Indian film ever
made featuring a Platinum selling soundtrack in India and Gold Award in China,
the pop cultural phenomenon in spite of the silliness became a benchmark that
solidified Chakrobarty as a Eastern European household name. Designed to be an antidote of sorts to Bombay
underworld action films by working in a colorful dance musical into a crime
thriller, the subversion of both subgenres created something truly peculiar and
at times unintentionally hilarious. All
in all, from the film to the hit soundtrack to its leading singing and dancing
star, Disco Dancer is perhaps the quintessential Bollywood film.
Years later despite the film still flying under the radar
for American filmgoers, Disco Dancer did slowly creep its way into our
collective subconscious starting with the Devo track Disco Dancer followed
by numerous cover versions of the track Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja from
Russian electronic group Ruki Vverh to Tibetan artist Kelsang Metok. In fact music from the famous Jimmy track
even found a way into Adam Sandler’s comedy You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Speaking further still to the film’s enduring
popularity, Uzbekistan viral video sensation Baimurat Allaberiyev performed Jimmy
in a warehouse and later went on to star in the Russian comedy Six
Degrees of Celebration as a result.
Though still largely unavailable in America (save for Google
Play, YouTube and Sling TV streaming presently), it is perhaps the starting
point of the Bollywood action musical subgenre that pushes absurd elements that
shouldn’t go together into something truly outlandish. No Disco Dancer isn’t representative
of Bollywood cinema at its finest but man is it hard to take your eyes off of
this mad dose of near reckless cinematic abandon where the sky is the limit and
anything can and likely will happen before the camera. Ridiculous fun of a kind rarely ever seen
anymore except in perhaps the Oscar winning RRR.
--Andrew Kotwicki
