The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagaman

The greatest superpower of cinema is the ability to make us believe again. Jackie Shroff’s little summer adventure, The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman doesn’t just ask us to believe in flying grandfathers or marauding aliens, it invites us to believe in something far more radical in these times of attention and trust deficit. The film tells us that a wrinkled, mischievous Dadaji can still be the mightiest hero in a child’s universe, and that childhood imagination isn’t childish — it’s the original superpower. Intelligent, imaginative, but lonely, young Dipu (Mihir Godbole is pitch-perfect) fabricates grand stories to win over new friends in new schools and new towns where his father gets transferred. In his script, his grandfather (Jackie Shroff) is a superhero who fights aliens. The tone is secretive, and Dipu limits the age group to under-18 because he perhaps knows his adventure will not pass the adult scrutiny.

There’s a scene in The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman where Jagdish alias Dadaji (Jackie Shroff) narrates what must be a superhero origin story. Dipu (Mihir Godbole), his grandson, is visibly appalled that the tale, however preposterous it may sound, contains no bombs, explosions, or gunfire. Of all things, it has orange candy. How ridiculous is that, asks the sharp kid, staring at his grandfather like a man completely out of touch with the times. The moment is amusing, but it also defines the spirit of Manish Saini’s film. In an era where children’s cinema has almost disappeared from theatres, replaced either by loud spectacle or violent and jingoistic content, The Great Grand Superhero arrives like a relic from another time. And yet, to call it “small” would be inaccurate.

The Great Grand Superhero has one of the most charming setups in recent memory. The first half is funny, poignant, satirical and very inventive. It also has the best child actors since Stanley Ka Dabba, a film it shares an editor (Deepa Bhatia) and narrative spirit with. There’s a new mid-term admission in a small-town school; his name is Deepu (a pitch-perfect Mihir Godbole). Deepu is a clever student; he knows all the answers to all the teachers’ toughest questions. The other kids envy him and find him strange. He confesses to one of them that he’s “different” because his grandfather (Jackie Shroff) is — suspenseful drum beat — a superhero. It’s a secret, he says, that only kids below the age of 18 can know, otherwise the grand old man will lose his superpowers.

एक छोटे-से शहर के स्कूल की छठी क्लास में नया आया दीपू अपनी धमक बनाने के लिए गप्प उड़ा देता है कि उसके दादा सुपर हीरो हैं और एलियन्स के साथ उनका मिलना-भिड़ना चलता रहता है। अधिकांश बच्चे उसकी बात मान लेते हैं तो कुछ बच्चे सत्य की खोज में सवाल भी उठाते हैं कि सुपर हीरो हैं तो पॉवर दिखाएं। दीपू सभी को यह कह कर बरगलाता है कि जब एलियन्स आएंगे तो दादा में पॉवर आएगी। और एक दिन ‘एलियन्स’ सचमुच आ जाते हैं और फिर…! अभी तक चार गुजराती फीचर फिल्में और एक हिन्दी शॉर्ट फिल्म बना कर तीन राष्ट्रीय पुरस्कार पा चुके फिल्मकार मनीष सैनी की इस पहली हिन्दी फीचर फिल्म ‘द ग्रेट ग्रैंड सुपर हीरो-एलियन्स का आगमन’ (The Great Grand Superhero: Aliens Ka Aagman) की कहानी का पूरा प्लॉट ही दिलचस्प है। एक संवाद देखिए-‘जब रात को एलियन बच्चे सोते नहीं हैं न, तो उनकी मां उनसे कहती है कि बेटा सो जा, नहीं तो ग्रेट ग्रैंड सुपर हीरो आ जाएगा।’