The
reason why GANGS OF WASSEYPUR will not immediately take its rightful place in
the pantheon of Hindi cinema as one of the most daring, visionary, innovative
and masterful films that Bollywood has ever produced, is because it is too long
(at 2 hours 40 minutes) for kids looking for a fun way to while away a couple
of hours, too gory for adults looking for “wholesome family entertainment”, too
complex even for movie critics who have to chew their pens all through the
film, struggling to come up with catchy phrases to describe the film with, a
film whose plot defies explanation, whose characters defy categorization, a
film whose very existence proves, without a doubt, that Anurag Kashyap is not
only a genius, but a mad, psychotic genius at that.
GANGS
OF WASSEYPUR is Anurag Kashyap’s gift to the torrent-crazy cinema buffs of India. This
film deserves (and requires) an audience prepared to give it the time and
attention it needs, an audience which has gone in for the experience and
nothing more, an audience which has gone in without moral inhibitions and an
audience which can appreciate Kashyap’s shattering of certain cinematic
traditions and embracing of others, which makes the film such a delightful
watch.
It
would be incongruous, having called the plot too complex to explain, if I tried
to do just that (i.e. explain), and indeed the task exceeds my ability. The
massive, epic behemoth of a screenplay details the decades-long blood feud
between Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpai) and Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia),
making detours into the workings of the coal mafia of Dhanbad, train-robbers,
badland politics, romance, seduction and infidelity. These detours have been
criticized by many critics, calling it the reason why the film is
self-indulgent, overlong and needlessly complex. But it is those little
moments, not really important in progressing the plot (and in the hands of a
more commercial-minded director, would probably have been snipped) but magical
in exposition of character, like a slow-mo dream sequence where two people
reciprocate their mutual attraction by putting on matching Ray-Bans, or another
scene where Sardar and his mates humiliate Ramadhir and his son in a police
station, and then gleefully walk into jail as punishment (which jail they later
break out of), that give the film much of its charm.
It
has to be admitted, perhaps, that the editing scissors may have been sharpened
in some places, but there is not much that can be cut off, which would not
decrease the overall impact of the film. The film is a gargantuan experience,
an epic in the truest sense of the term, an ambitious chronicle of the dusty
hinterland of India
over the period of six decades. And what’s more, unlike most epics, not for one
moment, did I realize how long the film was. It is that rare thing, a gripping
epic thriller.
The
acting is spectacularly good, whether it be Richa Chadda as Sardar’s
long-suffering feisty wife Nagma, Reemma Sen as Durga the seductress,
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Sardar’s Michael Corleone-esque son Faizal Khan, or
Piyush Mishra as Sardar’s uncle. But the meatiest two roles in the film, played
by Bajpai and Dhulia,
are transcendent. Dhulia
stuns as the powerful mine owner-to-politician, spitting out expletives with a
quiet venomous voice, so that waves of hate seem to emanating from the big
screen. And what to say about the erstwhile Mumbai ka Don, Bhiku Mhatre? With
one of his most powerful roles in recent times, Manoj Bajpai makes every second
of his screen time count, running the gamut of emotions with the ease of a
maestro, from lust to rage. His eyes say it all.
The
behind-the-scenes departments are phenomenal here. Full marks to Sneha
Khanwalkar’s exquisite and innovative soundtrack, with songs like Hunter and Keh Ke Lunga (the movie’s theme song, so to say), which break every
tradition in Bollywood music, and complement the visuals beautifully. The
production design by Wasiq Khan is also flawless, capturing the colours and
textures of India’s
Hindi belt from the 1930s to the 80s. The mise en scene is spot on in every
frame of the film, from the blood-spattered Kasai
mohalla of the Qureshis to the white Ambassador of Ramadhir Singh. Kudos also
the exquisite cinematography. Kashyap and his DOP Rajeev Ravi (No Smoking) create a restless roving
camera, which swoops up and down and in and out in a delightful array of moves,
some of which I have no idea how they did. The opening scene where a house is
riddled with bullets and hand grenades, men poking rifles through holes in the
doors and firing in every direction, is shocking in the immediacy of the
violence. You are not just watching the scene, you are in it.
The
film is filled with cinematic homages from a Disco Dancer-era Mithun impersonator to the last scene of the film,
which is uncannily similar to the scene from The Godfather where Sonny Corleone gets assassinated. The shadow of
The Godfather looms large over this
film, many characters fitting the moulds of Vito Corleone, Tom Hagen or Michael
Corleone. There is even a blood-thirsty Virgil Sollozzo-type among the
multitude of characters in the film. But unlike Sarkar, GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is not a Godfather remake. This is a film unique to India, a story
of an Indian town in the lawless badlands. As a cinematic experience, it stands
tall beside Coppola’s classic and calls out to be considered an equal.
At
last, we have a Bollywood film (and make no mistake, this is a masala potboiler
at its very best), that can flick the best of world cinema in the nuts. Now
that is as good a reason to see the film as any. Long live the King of
Alternative Bollywood, Anurag Kashyap!
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