Debutant filmmaker Agneya Singh spoke to GANITA about M Cream, a quirky road movie with a serious social message
The narration of India’s first stoner film begins with a roving camera capturing a rave party set in a sprawling lawn of a South Delhi mansion. But the happy party comes to an end due to a lack of supplies. So the four protagonists, desperate for their kick, travel all the way to Dharamshala to get their dose of Malana Cream. And it is in the course of their journey that they discover the larger purpose of their lives, albeit with dashes of humour and satire.
Director Agneya Singh’s maiden venture, M-cream, is conceptually an interesting road-cum-coming of age film. “I grew up in Delhi and I had heard about the struggle that people go through in search of hash. I thought why not connect it to the inherent spirit of youth rebellion. On the road of life, the radical-thinking young people come face-to-face with some harsh truths and social realities that change their perspectives forever. Instead of running away in the name of seeking solace, they realise their calling in life,” he told us.
The film stars Imaad Shah as Figs, Ira Dubey as Jay, Auritra Ghosh as Maggie and Raghav Channana as Niz, all final year students of Delhi university. Figs is the typical cynic, ambling in the lawns with uncertainty. It is only when he realises his parents are charting his life on a conventional mode that he gives them a slip and escapes on a road trip with his friends. Imaad slips into a slacker role completely and gels well with the rest of the crew. Says Auritra, “I am lucky to have started out as an actor in an independent film. The entire crew was from New York University and their way of working was very different from what I had seen here back at home. The road trip was in a way our collective self-discovery too. It was like a bunch of friends finding our way around. Of course, there was a lot of hard work.”
The script is an impassive, meandering narrative with verbose expositions that discuss freedom, revolution, faith and so on. The youngsters are seen quoting Rabindranath Tagore, Jimmy Hendrix and Vikram Seth in the same breath. According to a lot of film critics, the highly pretentious dialogues certainly inject unintended humour into what is an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to make grandiose statements about politics, the state of the nation, the meaning of existence and revolution. Asked about this, the director said, “I definitely don’t think that the dialogues are pretentious. Yes, they have some adages. Our youngsters today use a lot of these quotes and are not stupid for sure. They actually are very aware of history, literature and poetry. The journey and the script may seem a bit surreal but perhaps it is magical realism to some extent.”
Asked about the niche appeal of the film, the director said, “Cinema is an art form which is vast and where there is space for everyone’s story. Why can’t we have a choice to make a film where the plot appeals to a minorityIJ A lot of people in the urban areas will identify with the story. I agree that the film is not for the masses but if all of us are only making films for the majority, then everybody would be making the same kind of films everyday. And that doesn’t make any sense to me as a filmmaker. That’s not something I would like to subscribe to.”
Advocating diversity of formats, he said, “If you look at literature, music and other forms of art, they have various genres. Why not the same for filmsIJ Why can’t we experimentIJ The whole point I feel is the guts to take risk. In experimental cinema, there is a willingness to take a risk and that’s what the younger generation believes in.”