Fantasy Films and the Indian Imagination: Recommendations and Ranting

Written by Hina Siddiqui, Queer Neurodivergent Storyteller exploring Transmedia, Gaming, working with Education, Experience-creation and Community-building

It all started with a billboard.

It was a dark and stormy… afternoon.

Maybe. Well, it was August, so it’s very likely.

I was on my way to meet Ragini and for reasons of logic known only to rickshawalas across the universe, I was being driven to our designated meeting spot (I know I make it sound clandestine, but it was only Flour Works - great balsamic salad by the way!) through a circuitous route that just happened to hit every traffic conundrum known to humankind.

Point is. It was raining. I was stuck in traffic. Ragini was waiting for me.

That’s when I chanced upon a billboard with the announcement for Sony SAB’s Ali Baba - Dastaan-e-Kabul. I quickly clicked a pic (you can imagine how still the rickshaw was at this point) and sent it to Ragini. Ragini, like the good ol’ sport she is, joined me in heartily appreciating all the fantasy tropes we could find within this one image:

`Promotional Poster for Ali Baba Dastaan-e-Kabul, a new television series on Sony SAB.`
`Image Source: Sony SAB`

Woman looking haughtily over her shoulder while dressed in period costume ✅
Man standing centre of frame, exposing chest for *reasons* ✅
Evil villain with red eyes, crackling skin and a vizier’s headgear ✅✅
Evil army horde (that the bare-chested hero will presumably vanquish in an exciting action sequence) ✅
The Moon with VFX that I cannot immediately explain but that has me intrigued ✅

It was upon seeing this great work of art while bored out of my wits (note: my old phone did not have Instagram) that I toyed with the idea of writing about fantasy as a genre in the Indian context.

Fantasy was my OG special interest. I was unfortunately part of the generation that started reading with Harry Potter (yeah, no one knows more than us about the fall of a hero). And since then I have read every fantasy series I could get my hand on. In fact, it was for the very purpose of getting my hands on fantasy books that I became one of the earliest adopters of Flipkart’s online book-buying service. But this is not about the fantasy books I have read (though you are free to write in and have me rant about that as an extra special treat.)

No, this article is about FANTASY FILMS. I literally had to type that to keep myself on track.

Then a few days ago, I was at my parents’ home. One of the key features of the place, other than the dog, the voices talking over each other and the beautifully-cooked meals (thanks, mum!) is the TELEVISION. And this time round, I was treated to the trailers of upcoming Hindi movies. It was either that or cringe while my dad watched the riot scenes from Laal Singh Chaddha. And I noticed that there are a lot of fantasy movies coming up. Here’s a playlist of trailers from a few that I sampled: Bhediya, Ram Setu, Thank God and Adipurush.

`I suppose it’s a joke you get if you’ve seen the film?`

And then of course, there was this… thing… that the people with big pockets in Bollywood released recently, Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva.

Since I haven’t seen the movie, I asked Ragini to give me a review. Here’s what she had to say:

I suppose it’s a joke you get if you’ve seen the film?

Probably Relevant Side Note: I was going to watch this movie, I promise I was. I mean I watched Bahubali, didn’t I? But when MensXP - India’s largest MEN’s Magazine says: “Alia Bhatt has been reduced to a decorative vase in the mansion that is Brahmastra,” I kinda-sorta have to pause. I mean, even Baahubali had strong female characters (even though they never spoke to each other and thus the film failed the Bechdel-Wallace Test). I replay the bit where Sivagami (played by Ramya) ruthlessly murders the revolting minister with a baby in one hand whenever I feel my self-esteem flagging. The sheer badassery of it! If you’d like to join me on watching this scene on repeat, here’s the YouTube Link.

Now, back at my parent’s house, I off-handedly comment on how they are making such big-budget films (Brahmāstra reportedly had a Rs 410 crore budget whereas Adipurush crosses 500 crores) based on or inspired by the Indian epics. This predictably launched my father into a tirade about brown-nosing, right-wing jingoism and pandering to the current regime. You know, the usual.

But this time I had to stop and examine that sentiment.

Are all these films being made as appeasement to the powers that be or is the Indian imagination limited to that of the worlds, characters and plots created within the Ramayana, Mahabharata and broader Vedic Mythology?

Probably Relevant Side Note: In the list of upcoming fantasy film releases, only Bhediya does not conform to the Indian epic mythological genre, from what I can see. The teaser’s Bhediya Theme has been voiced by K4 Kekho, a rap artist from Arunachal Pradesh. So that’s already pretty awesome.

And then, it’s ostensibly a werewolf film that gives me vibes of Catherine Hardwicke’s 2011 film Red Riding Hood. Check this video to see what I mean and then play the song at your Halloween party.

I have a great memory for film. I can’t remember whether I have 4 children or 5, but I clearly remember the blink-and-miss reference to Waiting for Godot in the Game of Thrones. So I remember watching several Indian fantasy films growing up that left an indelible imprint on my mind. They had great-ish visuals, well-told stories and hey, the female characters in them were way more than interior decoration! And all of these films drew inspiration from various sources including the Arabian Nights, Nordic and Indic folklore and even American horror.

Probably Relevant Side Note: India’s first talkie - Alam Ara, made in 1931 - was a fantasy. It was adapted for screen from a play of the same name written by Joseph David. It has very Shakespearean vibes, with soothsayers, resurrection, royal intrigue and coincidence as a plot device. Also, Alam Ara is the name of the female protagonist.

No one talks about these movies when the topic of fantasy comes up. No one mentions that some of them were pretty big hits in their time. No one talks about fantasy as a genre with several time-tested, respectable tropes and a language of its own. And that realization annoyed me enough to write this article. Also to blame was the fact that one of our other writers flaked on timelines, but let’s ignore that for now, shall we?

For the purpose of this article, I have stuck to fantasy as a genre. Plain and simple, these films use magic as the core of storytelling.

Which means that brilliant horror films like Stree and Tumbbad do not make my list. Neither do superb works like Makdee (rural story where the belief in witchcraft is central to the narrative, but no real magic actually exists in the film’s universe) or Eega (surrealistic revenge fiction loosely inspired by Kafka). I have also only included films that I have personally seen. Which of course means this is not an extensive list by any means!

So without further raving and ranting, here’s Hina’s list of Top 5 Indian Fantasy Films you could watch instead of Brahmāstra or before you diss the entire idea of Indian Fantasy Films.

Suryavanshi (1992)

You got an archaeological dig, you got a cursed village, you got rebirth and you got a Salman Khan before he became things I cannot print in this article for fear of libel but after his MPK phase where he had all the personality of a soggy noodle. But most of all, you have Amrita Singh. Yes Amrita Singh of Chameli ki Shaadi and Aaina fame, who as the wandering spirit of Princess Surayalekha is just a Queen who wants her boo and is willing to destroy generations of lives in poor ol’ Sangramgadh to get him.

The film starts with the female protagonist - Sonia - agreeing to an open marriage with a philanderer and ends with her saving the day by discovering a key piece of the supernatural puzzle. And juxtaposed to Sonia, you have Suryalekha as “the veritable castrating nemesis” in one lifetime and “a vengeful spirit with a controlling gaze” in the other. Critics will point to how these are perhaps regressive tropes for women in films. A chaste and soft woman as the virtuous ideal and the powerful woman with a sexual appetite as the threat to society. Who wins the man in the end, is anyone’s guess.

But the point is, this is still a narrative of two strong women who choose their own way of dealing with what life throws at them. The dude in the story, Vicky or Vikram based on which birth is being referred to, is essentially the plot device. He is the one who uses sex to try and control both women and fails to do so in both lifetimes. Also, he dresses up like Conan the Barbarian while engaging in gladiatorial combat to woo the princess. Top-notch feminism in action that!

The film didn’t so too well at the box office and is considered a pretty forgettable moment in Indian cinema. But if you liked the first Mummy movie, which is essentially the same story, set in Egypt, with the genders reversed, made 9 years later, you’ll wanna take a gander at Suryavanshi.

Junoon (1992)

If anyone remembers **Rahul Roy**, it’s probably for his portrayal of maudlin, jealousy-ridden singer Rahul in the original *Aashiqui* that made the under-the-jacket kiss a cultural phenomenon.

But it was for *Junoon* that he actually got a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor (even though he wasn’t the “hero” of the film).

Junoon was path-breaking in so many ways. It was the first (and I think only) movie in the horror-fantasy genre that Mahesh Bhatt directed. It cast a fully-established romantic lead as the primary antagonist. Our ashique apparently sat for gruelling make-up sessions that lasted eighteen hours to get his tiger groove on and also shot the morphing scenes in the nude. And this movie was the first time morphing tech was used for visual effects in Indian cinema. According to journalist, critic and film historian R. S. Prakash, each scene using morphing cost about Rs 60 lakh to make.

The film was inspired/adapted from the 1981 cult classic An American Werewolf in London, that was a path-breaking film in its own way. It laid the formula for the horror-comedy genre and literally made the Academy invent the Best Make-up Category so it could bag an Oscar in it. But whereas An American Werewolf in London was big on witty, over-the-top dialogues and situations, Junoon drew from tribal folklore, horror as well as crime thrillers to deliver a plot full of nuance and character.

And of course, it had Pooja Bhatt, who plays Dr Nita Chauhan (what was Alia’s profession in Brahmāstra again?) who plays a pretty balanced role of career-woman, woman-in-love and woman-who-kicks-tiger-ashique’s butt.

3. Hatim Tai - 1990

Okay, Hatim Tai was one popular dude. There have been no fewer than 10 movies made about him, going back to 1929. These include sequel style movies like Hatimtai ki Beti (1955) and Son of Hatimtai (1965). I initially thought that Hatim Tai was just one of the tales from the Arabian Nights. But Hatim Tai was an actual historical figure, Hatim al Tai (Hatim of the Tayy tribe) who was a prince, a poet and a model of generosity. He died in 578 CE and his tomb can be found in Ha’il in modern day Saudi Arabia. The source material for all these Indian films and indeed several other films, plays, television series made in various languages across Asia are the seven chapters of the Araish Mehfil Ba Tasveeraat (Qissa Hatim Tai) written in 1854, attributed to Urdu writer Sayad Haider Bakhsh Haidri.

For the purpose of this article I will be talking about the 1990 film starring Jitendra, whose imagery I vividly remember.

Probably Relevant Side Note: In case you missed it, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that a high-budget Jitendra film was made 2 years before the Salman Khan one on this list. That’s how old Salman Khan is. Just saying.

Haatim Tai has very Arabian aesthetics - a profusion of niquabs and kaffiyeh, harem pants, shezadas, paris and one very precariously placed chandelier. And it has the perfect plotline - a generous hero out to save a fairy who has turned to stone by answering seven riddles. Seven answers, seven worlds, seven quests. This is literally the perfect plot for a video game and I’m actually surprised no one has used Hatim Tai as material for one yet.

I’d like to believe they have used him as inspiration for the Persian character Ah Tai in the Chinese light novel and manhua Tian Bao Fuyao Lu (Legend of Exorcism) by Fei Tian Ye Xiang which has also been adapted to a donghua of the same name (Season 1 is available on Netflix) and look how that turned out.

Ah Tai is the blonde dude on the extreme right of this image. The rest of them have been retained for aesthetic value.

4. Aladin - 2009

All the reviews I read for this movie were really mean. Well, I guess it’s easy to be mean to anything starring Riteish Deshmukh. But that doesn’t make it fair.

Aladin (that’s a single ‘d’ by design, so lay off Mx Autocorrect!) is an absurdist fantasy with, what I’d like to believe, are intentionally caricatured characters. It is a narrative of normalcy trying to shine against the backdrop of incomprehensible powers. It’s got cute moments, a fully digitally constructed metropolis (years before Baahubali came along and made it a norm) and a random woman in a neutral mask who legit gave me nightmares for a few days. And it manages to stay true to the source material while still being an original story.

We all know the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp. Most of us have seen the Robin Williams version of the Genie and some of us may have seen the Will Smith one too. But Amitabh Bacchan brings a certain angry-young-man-who-is-now-past-his-prime-but-can-still-whoop-ass je ne se quois to the role. Contrary to popular belief, the story of Aladdin is not part of the original Tales of One Thousand and One Nights or the Arabian Nights. It’s a Syrian tale attributed to the storyteller Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab, who is also credited with creating the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

And yes, coming back to the movie, I will agree that the female protagonist serves mainly as curtain dressing in the film. Her primary role is to fall in love with Aladin then fall out of love with him and then be kidnapped. Not a terrific heroine’s journey by any means.

So here’s the next entry to make up for that.

4. Nagina - 1986

This last one was a toss-up between the Reena Roy version Nagin (1976) and the Sridevi-starrer Nagina (which also had a legit sequel called Nigahen (1989) that we won’t be getting into. Both films were the highest-grossing movies of their respective years. Both films broke convention by being female-centric narratives in the age of Übermensch toxic masculinity. And I have seen both of them. The decision essentially came down to 2 factors:

I was born in 1986
Sridevi

Before we get into the merits of Nagina, let’s talk a little bit about the concept of the icchadhari naagin. I wasn’t really able to find a legitimate historic or academic source for the legend of shapeshifting snakes. Not that I looked very hard, mind you. But the general idea is that snakes that live past the age of a hundred (the average lifespan of a king cobra being about twenty years) gain the ability to shapeshift. There is an element of tapasya - or penance attached to this, dedicated to the deity most associated with serpentine beings - Shiva.

There seems to be a conflation of various folkloric, historic and mythological stories here - from the legend of the Nāga who are a race of half-human, half-snake beings depicted in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism to the mentions of Visha Kanya - a term for young women trained as assassins through the use of poison mentioned in the Arthashashtra, written by Chanakya.

It seems to be that one of the few ways in which the Indian imagination can cope with strong women is to give them supernatural powers in lieu of exacting revenge for those they have lost. And to that is added a thread of folk belief about not disturbing animals during mating season.

The film itself presents an interesting view of caste/class politics. Sridevi’s character Rajni, the icchadhari naagin in question is poor. Rajiv’s parents initially oppose her marriage to their foreign-return son and even after they do get married, it is woefully easy to convince them that this poor girl inveigled Rajiv into the whole thing through the use of jaadu-tona and her naagin hypnosis. Rishi Kapoor who played Rajiv would once again revisit the hapless husband trope in 1993’s Damini, which was a more one-the-nose commentary on caste/class politics in India. There is also this view of the patriarchy trying to control and exploit women through Amrish Puri’s character Bhairon Nath and his pungi - because if that isn’t a phallic symbol, I don’t know what is. And these nuances are not coincidental. The script was originally written by Dr Achala Nagar, who is known for writing films like Nikaah (1982) and Baghban (2003) that examine social issues.

But if nothing else, watch Nagina for Sridevi’s iconic moves and coloured lenses in Main teri Dushman, Dushman tu Mera.

Honourable Mention: Mr India - 1987

Technically, Mr India is not a fantasy film. It’s a slightly dystopian superhero sci-fi story. But I could not, in good fate, leave it out of this list, because I honestly feel that there has never been a movie so poignant, heart-warming and just so much absolute fun as Mr India.

Mr India has everything that makes a good film, in my humble opinion. It was directed by Shekhar Kapur and it was the last time Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar collaborated on a film script. The film was and remains novelle in so many ways. With a male protagonist, Anil Kapoor as Arun who nurtures children and a female protagonist Seema (Sridevi, my love again!), who literally puts food on the table through her career as an undercover investigative journalist! Moreover, the hero is invisible through all his heroics. It is narrative design working suspension of disbelief in the best way possible. In fact, it’s been reported that the prospect of being “invisible” in the most impactful action sequences was the reason Amitabh Bachchan refused to play the role. The film took nearly a year to shoot and almost all the visual effects were achieved through physical mechanisms, trick photography and stop-motion techniques. The storytelling is also very reminiscent of the Cold War Comics era, especially in the crafting of the antagonist Mogambo with his minions and missiles.
And of course, there were the songs and the dialogues. From the parody song featuring a football to Kate nahi Kat te to Hawa Hawai! And from Calendar khana do to the iconic Mogambo khush hua!

Every second of this film dripped entertainment.

And that’s the whole point of this article. That it is possible to make entertaining fantasy films without succumbing to mythological stereotypes, without turning female leads into to empty vessels that occupy no space within the story and without relying on spectacular special effects to dazzle Marvel-crazed audiences. That is it possible to tell good stories that have magic in them in the Land of the Indus, Ganga, Godavari and Tungbhadra.
We’ve done it before. And we can do it again.

Probably Relevant Side-Note: If anyone is looking for someone to write a good fantasy film script in India, I am right here. Please consider this article as my sample. 🙏🤗🙏