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  1. Swayam
    June 9, 2017 @ 10:53 am

    This is a very excellent review of one of the most favorite movies from the early years of my life, through a western eye. The movie “Disco Dancer”, even after 35 years still brings out a myriad of emotions and that it is still remembered all the way from South-East Asia to Central Asia (ex-Soviet Union) to Africa. One can still go though the hundreds of comments left by people from different nationalities and ethnicity, fondly remembering the time when they saw this movie (not once but multiple times) and the nostalgia it evokes of a time long gone.

    This is a movie that has people who love it passionately and then there is a group, who dislikes this movie with equal amount of passion but fortunately that group is in minority. Now for anyone who is introduced to this movie in 21st century, the chances are it will be dismissed as a crappy, low budget flick, fit to be put back in that dusty corner of the archive room and best forgotten. While, one cannot blame them, because they have already missed the bus by over three decades. I am glad that you were able to see beyond the gaudy costumes, some over the top hamming, cheesiness into the core of the, which you say is signified by the song “Na Goron Ki Na Kaalon Ki” song.

    Disco Dancer was never meant to be a film that aimed for the highest adulation and awards. It was a low budget experimental movie, where makers wanted to see the reaction of the Indian moviegoers to Disco songs, which by then had already gained popularity via “Aaap Jaisa Koi” (Qurbani, 1980) and a pop album called Disco Deewane, featuring Nazia Hassan Zoheb Hassan, a Pakistani brother-sister duo) both of which were composed by Indian musician Biddu of “The Biddu Orchestra” and who worked with singers, giving them hits like Tina Charles (Dance Little Lady Dance) and Carl Douglas (Kung Fu Fighting). The reason it resonated so well with the audience back then was because, it is a movie that shows an underdog, a man from an unprivileged background and no wealth to speak of and his fight against the social stigma falsely stamped on him and poverty and his mother being the only support he has in his life. I have read some western critics writing that they find it “creepy” to see a grown man eating off his mother’s hand but I guess this was shown only to depict the strong bond that exists between him and his mother, no matter what age, he is still her child. Though I do not see it likewise, he should have learnt to eat by himself. IN the end, it is a movie that was made with all honesty and from the heart by the makers without a hint of pretentiousness. The trio of Mithun Chakraborty, Bappi Lahiri and B. Subhash went onto make other Disco songs based movies like Kasam Paida Karnewale Ki (1985) Dance Dance (1987) but Disco Dancer has almost stood alone to the tests of the time.

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