By Steve Erikson

Amar Singh Chamkila doesn’t hit the compelling heights of Highway and Tanasha, but the director Imtiaz Ali successfully infuses — within the limits of the musical biopic — a buoyant, rebellious spirit.

Amar Singh Chamkila, directed by Imtiaz Ali. Streaming on Netflix

(l to r) Diljit Dosanjh as Amar Singh Chamkila and Parineeti Chopra as Amarjot Kaur in Amar Singh Chamkila. Photo: Netflix

Sometimes, culture can hide in plain sight. In 2022, Indian director S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR became a minor hit in the US, grossing $14,500,000 in theaters and undoubtedly reaching a much larger audience on Netflix. Although India produces more films than any other country except Nigeria, they have rarely crossed over to either mainstream or arthouse audiences in the US. Still, the American Indian diaspora audience is large enough to ensure that popular Indian cinema receives wide distribution in US multiplexes, often even placing in the box office top 10. But, rather than opening up a wider interest in Indian film, as Jackie Chan and John Woo’s films did for Hong Kong, RRR turned out to be nothing more than a novelty. Critic Jhon Hernandez observed that “Indian cinema lives on US screens, but it does so secretly, without promotion, reviews, etc.” Despite this, streaming has enabled Americans to see films that haven’t pleased the appetites of the gatekeepers who program for our mainstream or arthouse film culture. While I’m hardly an expert on the subject, Netflix’s Indian section is surprisingly extensive, with work by major directors like Mani Ratnam,  Lijo Jose Pellisserry, and Imtiaz Ali. Ironically, it also dips into the past much more comprehensively than the streamer’s selection of American films.

While Ali’s films have flirted with rom-com tropes, their breezy beginnings move toward a deeper exploration of what it really means to live with desire for years. This interest in depth comes through strongest in his 2015 film Tamasha. There, Ali peeled away the skin of romantic fantasy — a man and woman engage in roleplay while falling for each other on vacation in France — to reveal the loneliness of its male protagonist once he returns to the reality of his banal life, where he no longer sings, dances, or pretends to be an Interpol agent. Often running away from commitment, Ali’s characters conceal depression behind a blithe, frivolous façade. Made the year before Tanasha, Highway goes further than any of the director’s other efforts by eliminating all aspects of comedy. The plot conceit of a woman embracing life with her kidnapper is potentially dodgy, but in this case, Bhatt Ali’s performance conveys a frighteningly intense, childlike neediness that renders her character’s actions believable.

Ali’s latest film, Amar Singh Chakmila, puts the subject of love on the back burner, without setting it aside. A biopic of the titular singer, the storyline does not avoid the genre’s inevitable formulas: a rise-and-fall narrative and preoccupation with early death. (Chakmila even belongs to the 27 club.) Yet it strays from the structure of such movies by incorporating A.R. Rahman’s original songs, which take us out of Chakmila’s perspective. Imagine that a film about John Lennon contained a musical number set on December  9, 1980, in which his fans and detractors alike are given opportunities to sing about what he meant to him.

The film begins with the assassination of the singer (Diljit Dosanjh) and his wife Amarjot (Parineeti Chopra), who performed together as a duo, just before they took the stage in 1988. It then immediately jumps to an investigation of the murder, which remains unsolved, which leads into a retelling of Chakmila’s life story. He came from an ordinary family and when his music career took off in 1977 he quit his factory job. His songs’ raunchy lyrics contributed to Chakmila’s success, but they drew the ire of critics. The film’s response to accusations that Chamkila’s lyrics were sexist is a tune performed by women expressing their own desires for sexual pleasure. (The contrast with the chasteness of Ali’s images is odd.) The actors perform Chamkila’s songs themselves, but Rahman’s music is weaved in.

As dramatized by Amar Singh Chamkila, the performer’s life was a nonstop series of encounters with would-be censors who were offended by his risqué lyrics. At least at this point in time, his songs come off as rather innocuous, consisting of good-natured double entendres. Compared to ’80s Prince songs like “Head,” “Erotic City,” and “Horny Toad,” they’re quite tame.

Still, the film defines Chamkila by the puritanical storm kicked up by his tunes. Stardom offered only partial protection. While the performer never makes any explicitly political statements — in fact, he is criticized by some for singing “frivolous” music — he’s seen as a populist symbol of the Punjab region. The film emphasizes how much Chamkila meant to the community he came from. His reluctance to bow to censorship becomes an admired act of  defiance. (It’s hard to miss the parallels to the PMRC in America.) Late in the film, the singer is forced to undergo an insincere religious conversion, but his loyal fans can tell that his heart doesn’t lie in his abandonment of songs about sex.

Ali’s direction livens up the story’s more rote showbiz elements. Some of his framing is inspired by comic books, most directly in an animated scene of Chamkila smoking a cigarette. (The film also incorporates split screen.) Ali and cinematographer Sylvester Fonseca keep the proceedings colorful, featuring heavily saturated shades of red and green. Even the film’s darkest scenes are careful to incorporate, somewhere, a glow of light.

Because Ali’s films after Tanasha haven’t been well received, he has a lot on the line here. Although he was the showrunner for the Netflix series She, Amar Singh Chamkila marks Ali’s return to filmmaking after a four-year absence. The movie makes a few box office compromises to please a broad audience in India that may not be apparent to Americans. Although Chamkila’s songs are performed in the singer’s native Punjabi, the dialogue is (unrealistically) spoken in Hindi. All in all, Amar Singh Chamkila doesn’t hit the compelling heights of Highway and Tanasha, but the director successfully infuses — within the limits of the musical biopic — a buoyant, rebellious spirit.

Steve Erickson writes about film and music for Gay City News, Slant Magazine, the Nashville Scene, Trouser Press, and other outlets. He also produces electronic music under the tag callinamagician. His latest album, Bells and Whistles, was released in January 2024, and is available to stream here.