Aamir Khan: Bollywood's not so Secret Superstar leaves audiences wrestling with their conscience

After breaking box office records in wrestling drama, ‘Dangal,’ Khan returns to more traditional Bollywood fare in ‘Secret Superstar.’

From playing a wrestler to an alien, to a man confronted by the horrors of partition, Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan is nothing if not versatile, yet he always manages to bring an authenticity to the screen which is true to the voice of Indian cinema and has made him one of the country’s most cutting edge actors of his generation. The common thread in Aamir Khan’s films however, is that they always leave their audiences wrestling with their conscience.

The role of women in society has become a common theme in his films in recent years. His last film, Dangal, was a David and Goliath tale of adversity, based on a true story about a former amateur wrestler, who battles his own demons, not least his bitterness over the lack of an heir to fulfil his dream of winning India's first gold medal in the sport.

But when his daughters get into a fight with some boys who harass them on the way home from school and emerge victorious, he decides to train them to become wrestling champions and in the process, challenges his own and his country's views on what it is to be an Indian woman.

The film which came out at Christmas went on to become the top grossing Bollywood movie of all time after amassing more than £41m at the box office worldwide in just three weeks.

In his latest screen offering, Secret Superstar, Khan revisits the same themes explored in Dangal and takes them a step further in a tale of love and redemption with a toe tapping soundtrack to boot.

Unapologetically Bollywood in all its musical, melodramatic glory, the film, which sees Khan reunited with his on-screen daughter in Dangal, Zahira Wasim, tells the story of 15-year-old Insiya, the archetypal small town girl with big dreams of becoming a singer.

Unable to enter an inter-school talent show out of fear of her bitter, controlling father, who makes a point of favouring his son over his daughter, Insiya takes her frustrations out on her illiterate mother who bears the brunt of her father's violent temper.

When her mum manages to acquire a laptop in a bid to appease her, Insiya starts uploading videos of herself on YouTube under the alias Secret Superstar, hiding her identity beneath her mum's burqa to ensure her dad never finds out.

What is interesting about the film is that it subverts the usual image of the burqa as a symbol of oppression as it becomes a route to freedom for Insiya. When she realises the sacrifices her mum made to get the laptop she finds escape from an unexpected source, a womanising talent show judge called Shakti Kumar (Aamir Khan.)

The film combines classic Bollywood tradition with modernity, exploring timeless themes such as the concept of family and the faultlines which lies between generations. However, the modern voice which is interwoven into the plot is very much an Indian voice, rather than the aping of MTV videos which has become the trend in films today.

The portrayal of India is like an ode to a flawed lover, reminiscent of films like Monsoon Wedding, and is very much focused on the working class, an aspect of society rarely portrayed in mainstream commercial films.

The central romantic relationship in the film between the teenage protagonist and a hapless classmate (both of whom actually look like kids rather than unrealistically glamourous Bollywood starlets), harks back to the innocent days of Bollywood when love was expressed through shy glances, rather than the raunchy dance routines which verge on simulated sex that have become the trend today.

However, this is more than just a coming of age film with a few songs and saris thrown in as the film explores some dark shadows behind closed doors such as domestic violence, gender selective abortion, the impact of illiteracy on the lives of women.

While the portrayal of some of these issues may seem quite jolting to western audiences in what appears to be a family comedy at first glance, like being woken up from a dream by a sudden thunderstorm (one scene of domestic violence is particularly harrowing for a 12A certificate film), in a country where the gender disparity is some regions is approximately 830 girls born for every 1,000 boys and domestic violence is rife, perhaps a commercial entertainment film is the best vehicle to get his message across.

"The centre of the film is the 15 year old girl who is a very talented musician who is a singer and has a lot of hopes and dreams to follow her passion and unfortunately her environment is very constricted so it is about her struggle to overcome that, her struggle for independence and her struggle to find her own voice," said Khan, who both produced and starred in the film.

"It is a film about the empowerment of the girl child, but unlike Dangal, which was about the daughters from the point of view of the father, this film goes one step further than that where the protagonist is a 14 year old girl from a small town in India and it is her voice that we are hearing, her point of view we are seeing.

“Also, Dangal is a film which was focusing more on parents and trying to get them to understand that there should be no difference in our behaviour towards a girl child than a boy child, whereas this is from the point of view of the girl herself.

"I think it’s a great story, especially in these times. Very few films are made with the voice of a teenage girl which I thought is a very important voice to hear. Secret Superstar doesn't talk to parents so much, but more to teenage kids. Of course the themes also apply to anyone above their teenage years because I could be 40 and still have dreams and still feel that I am in a situation where I need to fight my way through so in that sense it applies to anyone who has dreams and aspirations and wants to achieve them."

While the 52-year-old actor takes a back seat in the film, he is in his element in his supporting role as the sleazetastic Shakti Kumar. Less lovable, more rogue, he plays a womanising singer / songwriter and talent show judge who makes Simon Cowell look like, well a Cheryl in comparison, who gets blackballed by the music industry after after reducing a child contestant to tears.

"He's not really somebody with a heart of gold. He is someone who is very arrogant and full of himself," said Khan, " He's very self-centred and not really bothered about anyone around him. He is fairly rude and obnoxious as a person. I don't know if he has any redeeming qualities, but he is someone who is so obviously politically incorrect in every way that you end up laughing at him.

Despite his flaws and flamboyant dress sense, he emerges as more of a father figure to the girl than her own dad ever was and both characters end up finding their voices through their relationship with each other. While in places, it does verge into cheesiness - for example, post Harvey Weinstein, it's hard to believe that a womaniser like Shakti Kumar could switch from a Simon Cowell to a Mr Miyagi figure - but there is only so far you can stray from Bollywood convention, and the cheesiness adds to the charm and makes the story more relatable.

"I have played him as honestly as I could, but the fact is he is written as a caricature of himself," Khan added. “There are people in our world who are caricatures of themselves and they are almost acting all the time even in their daily life and the kind of person Shakti Kumar is so I have tried to play it as accurately as I could and for that I also had to pitch it slightly higher almost as a person who is a caricature of himself"

In the West, there is a tendency to use Hollywood as a yardstick to contextualize cinema from other countries, to the extent that it has become lazy shorthand where every other actor is a Bollywood Tom Cruise.

However in this case, Aamir’s career trajectory is very similar to Leonardo DiCaprio in that he managed to make the difficult transition from teen pin up to respected actor, without losing his movie idol status. However even in the early days, he was always experimental and his name was synonymous with well written scripts and intelligent plots.

"My struggle was more to try to do the kind of cinema I wanted to and to be in control of what I am selecting and the quality of the work i was doing so for me the struggle was in that. Also i began my career at a time when the kinds of films being made were not suited to my taste and trying to follow my own sensibilities and that was an uphill battle for me

The turning point for Khan came when he launched his own production company and made the film ‘Lagaan,’ which went on to be short listed for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Since then he has continued to blur the line between art house and commercial cinema, releasing just one film a year, something which was previously unheard of in the world's most prolific film industry.

Secret Superstar is out in the UK and worldwide today.