Death may be a tragic affair, but cinema has often found humour lurking even within the morbid.
Key Points
- Hindi cinema has repeatedly used dead bodies as catalysts for comedy, chaos and satire.
- Films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Malamaal Weekly blended dark humour with memorable performances and absurd situations.
- The upcoming Netflix comedy, Maa Behen, features a plot twist involving the protagonists trying to dispose a dead body.
Netflix’s new Hindi comedy Maa Behen revolves around a constantly squabbling mother and her two grown-up daughters, who are suddenly forced to put their differences aside.
Why?
Because they now have to hide a dead body.
Directed by Suresh Triveni, Maa Behen stars Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri and Dharna Durga in the lead roles, while Ravi Kishan plays the creepy neighbour, who ends up becoming the corpse at the centre of the chaos.
Interestingly, Maa Behen is the second recent Indian film to revolve around a family trying to dispose of a dead body, after the Malayalam hit Bharathanatyam 2: Mohiniyattam, which won over both critics and audiences.
Death may be a tragic affair, but cinema has often found humour lurking even within the morbid.
Sreeju Sudhakaran looks at 10 Hindi comedies that used a dead body as a central plot device or an important part of its storyline (SPOILERS ahead).
Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983)
Kundan Shah’s legendary satire takes a wonderfully absurd turn when struggling photographers Vinod Chopra, played by Naseeruddin Shah, and Sudhir Mishra, played by Ravi Baswani, discover the corpse of the murdered Municipal Commissioner D’Mello, hilariously played by Satish Shah.
The duo decide to preserve the body in order to expose the corrupt contractor Tarneja, played by Pankaj Kapur.
Naturally, chaos erupts when almost everyone involved wants possession of the corpse for selfish reasons.
The crowning glory remains the unforgettable climax where the dead body, disguised as Draupadi, accidentally stumbles into a Mahabharata stage play.
Malamaal Weekly (2006)
A remake of the Irish comedy Waking Ned, Priyadarshan’s entertainer centres on a poverty-stricken village discovering that one of its residents has won the lottery.
The only complication? The winner is dead, but before dying he had called up the lottery company about his win.
The villagers must now convince the lottery inspector that the deceased is still alive so they can share the prize money among themselves.
Malayalam actor Innocent played the dead man, while Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Asrani, Riteish Deshmukh and Rajpal Yadav delivered wonderfully entertaining performances.
Bhagam Bhag (2006)
In the very same year as Malamaal Weekly, Priyadarshan returned with another comedy involving a corpse.
If Arbaaz Khan played the lottery inspector in Malamaal Weekly, then in Bhagam Bhag, he becomes the dead body around whose apparent murder the central trio of Akshay Kumar, Govinda and Paresh Rawal find themselves entangled.
Forced to flee while under suspicion, the trio’s misadventures create one of Priyadarshan’s trademark comedies of confusion.
The murder plot is inspired from the Marathi film, Bindhaast.
Nehlle Pe Dehlla (2007)
This Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan comedy lifts its core premise directly from the American cult comedy Weekend at Bernie’s.
The two stars play crooks attempting to blackmail a corrupt hotel manager, played by Shakti Kapoor, only to discover him dead. They then use his corpse like a puppet to convince others he is still alive while searching for the real killers.
The film features a bizarre sequence where the dead body seemingly walks on its own, leading the protagonists to hidden money.
Buddha Mar Gaya (2007)
Rahul Rawail’s black comedy courted controversy during its release for its risqué humour involving sex, homosexuality and incestuous undertones.
The plot revolves around a wealthy family whose lustful patriarch (Anupam Kher) dies during an intimate encounter.
However, revealing his death immediately could affect the family’s financial interests, forcing them to pretend he is still alive while paparazzi sniff around for the truth and a servant attempts to blackmail them.
The result is a deliberately outrageous comedy packed with uncomfortable humour that is not for everyone’s tastes. The movie also starred Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Mona Ambegaonkar, Mukesh Tiwari, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak and Rakhi Sawant.
Daddy Cool (2009)
A remake of the acclaimed British comedy Death at a Funeral, Daddy Cool features an ensemble cast including Suniel Shetty, Jaaved Jaaferi, Aftab Shivdasani, Chunky Pandey and Rajpal Yadav.
The film follows a dysfunctional family gathering for the funeral of its patriarch, only for scandalous revelations about the deceased’s secret life to trigger an escalating comedy of errors.
Daddy Cool may not match the brilliance of the original or its American remake, but remains passably entertaining if viewed on its own terms.
De Dana Dan (2009)
Another Priyadarshan ensemble comedy involving a corpse, though this time the dead body forms a smaller yet important part of the madness.
One subplot involves Akshay Kumar’s character Nitin being mistakenly believed to have been kidnapped, prompting his cruel employer, played by Archana Puran Singh, to arrange ransom money.
Since Nitin has no intention of returning to her, he wants everyone to think he is dead and arranges for a corpse through a crime boss played by Asrani.
By the time the body arrives, it is no longer needed and ends up adding further confusion to the film’s wildly chaotic climax.
Finding Fanny (2014)
Homi Adajania’s under-rated black comedy follows a quirky road trip undertaken to reunite an old man with his long-lost love.
Among the travellers is Don Pedro (played brilliantly by Pankaj Kapur), an artist who initially appears charming but is actually manipulative and deeply misogynistic.
He dies in an accidental shooting, yet his fate hilariously remains unnoticed inside the vehicle for a considerable stretch of the film, and even after his body falls out, his death remains unnoticed to the rest of his travel companions.
Andhadhun (2018)
The most unforgettable sequence in Sriram Raghavan’s brilliant black comedy arrives when Ayushmann Khurrana’s character, a pianist pretending to be blind, visits the flat of a washed-up movie star only to discover him dead.
Meanwhile, the dead man’s wife and her lover frantically try to hide the crime while the protagonist pretends he cannot see anything as he delivers his piano performance.
The corpse itself may not occupy much screen time, but its presence drives the entire narrative into increasingly twisted territory.
Karwaan (2018)
Akarsh Khurrana’s slice-of-life road trip comedy, starring Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan and Mithila Palkar, revolves around two dead bodies getting accidentally swapped and the frantic efforts of a grieving son to retrieve his father’s mortal remains.
The corpse ultimately becomes the catalyst for an unlikely friendship between the young man, an irritable van driver and the granddaughter of the body travelling with them, turning the road trip into a journey of self-discovery.
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
