The world of ‘Jubilee’ and its many cinematic parallels

Vikramaditya Motwane’s series on Amazon Prime, Jubilee, takes viewers to the golden era of Hindi cinema. The era that saw the rise and fall of superstars and filmmakers who changed the course of Hindi cinema. The legends who trailblazed in an era which did not have social media trends.

Set in the times of partition, Jubilee revolves around Roy Talkies, one of the biggest movie-production studios of its times and its founder couple, cinema mogul Srikant Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee) and superstar Sumitra Kumari (Aditi Rao Hydari). Adding flavour and complexity are various other characters — protagonists in their own right, with their own subplots, story and character arcs – Jay Khanna (Sidhant Gupta), Binod Das (Aparshakti Khurana), Jamshed Khan (Nandish Singh Sandhu), Nilofer Qureshi (Wamiqa Gabbi) and Shamsher Walia (Ram Kapoor).

While the form executed by Motwane and Pratik Shah, who is the director of photography (DOP), has cinephiles raving, one has to give equal weightage to the impressive script, which makes Jubilee endearing. Writer Atul Sabharwal's screenplay and dialogues aptly capture the era the story is situated in without making it heavy and complicated for the viewers.

This art is supported by the exceptional performances, set design, costumes which in turn make the cinematic parallels captivating.

The makers Motwane and Soumik Sen and Sabharwal have thrown in easter eggs here and there throughout this 10-episode series.

In the series, Jay Khanna, an aspiring filmmaker who is compelled to flee from Karachi to Bombay as the aftermath of the Partition, often recreates in his ‘on’ and ‘off-screen’ scenes Raj Kapoor’s chaplinesque act. In a particular episode, Jay Khanna narrates his script of Taxi Driver (a film starring Dev Anand as the protagonist of the same name was released in 1954), to the new face of Roy Talkies, superstar Madan Kumar, the script bears a striking resemblance to Shree 420 (Raj Kapoor, 1955).

And so do most of the songs. For instance, the visuals of ‘Na Koyi Mera’ bears resemblance to ‘Hum Aap Ki Ankhon Mein’ from Pyaasa (Guru Dutt, 1957). Madan Kumar’s audition monologue is based on the climax scene of Ashok Kumar starrer Sangram (Gyan Mukherjee, 1950).

The naming of the episodes, like in many series, is also interesting. All the 10 episodes of the series are named after a classic. Episode one is titled Aag – Raj Kapoor’s first film as a director and producer. And the eighth episode, for instance, is called Kismet – a film of the same name starring Ashok Kumar was the first blockbuster of Indian cinema, and the first Indian film to have an anti-hero.

Another thing that Jubilee does is bend fiction with reality. For instance, a plotline involving the Russians shows how film music was banned on the radio. All India Radio, in reality, banned film music as the then Information and Broadcasting minister BV Keskar believed that the film music was westernised.

Explaining the research that went into the series, Motwane, in an interaction with News18, said, "Most of the research actually is what me and Atul Sabharwal, my writer, have ourselves lived through."

Motwane said that stories that are told generation after generation were the genesis of the research. "Oral stories that have come down from the legends of our era — this is how they made that song, this is how they shot that scene. Most of the research has been listening to stories."

These oral accounts along with technical research of the era formed the basis of research that went into the film. These nuggets of information and stories are sprinkled throughout, sometimes fictionalised, sometimes weaved into fiction.

Its references scattered throughout the film that make it enticing for a Hindi cinema lover. Some conscious, some unconscious, as the makers say.