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'Cinema Marte Dum Tak' review: Love is all around in show about Hindi cinema's pulp directors

In his introduction to Don’t Disturb The Dead, Shamya Dasgupta’s book about the Ramsay filmmaking clan, filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia had this to say about the wide-ranging influence of the horror maestros:

“… it was the second-rung film-makers who were inspired by the Ramsay brothers’ style and production methods that, in turn, inspired

Miss Lovely. These were the rougher, cheaper, wilder lot: directors like Mohan Bhakri, Vinod Talwar, Harinam Singh, Sheetal, Joginder and J. Neelam. In their time, all unhailed film-makers, making primal, anarchic films and extending the boundaries of the medium.”

Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely (2012), about a pair of brothers who make sex-laced horror films in the 1980s, was mistakenly thought to have been based on the Ramsay productions. In his introductory note, Ahluwalia cites his debut feature’s actual inspirations, including the siblings Kanti and Kishan Shah, “who shot nasty horror films in less than four days, often all at one location in Madh Island”.

Ahluwalia is careful in his descriptions of filmmakers dismissed as “C-grade” and “sleazy”. The attempt to shake off the pejorative tags and gain respectability are among the themes of the Amazon Prime Video show Cinema Marte Dum Tak.

The riveting documentary series meets four directors who made down and dirty Hindi movies between the early 1990s and the mid-2000s. J Neelam, Vinod...

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