Finally, I got to see Gangs of Wasseypur. After hearing so much, I decided to dekho Anurag Kashyap’s much talked about magnum opus; at least, the first half of it which has been released. My children had repeatedly warned me against seeing it, telling me about the violence, both physical and verbal. But, I decided to see it nevertheless.
After all, with reviews such as brilliant, amazing, standing ovation, four stars; how could one ignore it? It could not be just hot air. So, I did go and I did see the Gangs of Wasseypur.
And believe me, despite some brilliant performances, excellent casting, fantastic cinematography, Bollywood has hit a new low.
Actually, this was started by Vishal Bhardwaj in his film Onkara; where in the opening scene he makes Saif Ali mouth the “ch” word.
But, Gangs of Wasseypur, from the word go establishes profanity as the medium of communication. The filthiest, sexist, incestuous abuses, which are not new to mankind (read men), are used generously, something which was never done in mainstream cinema. Not just here in Bollywood but also in Hollywood.
The argument put forth these days is that this is hard core reality. But, this terrible reality was always there, from time memorable. But, good movies like good books didn’t need to use such expletives to convey crudeness of the rural hinterland or the urban underbelly. Some things were left to the imagination of the viewers, which is quite fertile anyway.
Blockbusters based on dacoits like Sholay and even Ganga Jamuna did not need to use such language to show roughness or brutality of the people mouthing them. Even more shocking was Rani Mukherji using similar language in ‘No One Killed Jessica’. Firstly, Bollywood perhaps doesn’t know that women in media who work for English channels are too uppity to use the desi profanity the kind used by Rani in the role of a journalist she was portraying. The script writer got it all wrong.
Secondly, is this what you call emancipation? Is this women’s liberation? Doing and saying the terrible things men have been doing for centuries; in fact, trying to outdo them to prove that women can do it even better. Bollywood seems to have lost its compass.
Coming back to GOW, the lyrics are even more revolting. Is this music? With all kinds of sexual innuendos and double meanings it makes one cringe. The English song sung on the train by a bunch of hippies is downright vulgar. Is this what you call cinema coming of age? Is this what you mean by saying the audience has matured?
And, what about the blood and gore. It gets more and more perverse, symptomatic of the sickness prevailing in our society today. Glorifying murder! No wonder killing in this country has become a national sport. It is not right to say that movies do not impact the minds of viewers. They do in more ways than we would like to accept. We all remember how when we were young we often followed fads, fashions, thoughts, behavior after seeing some hit movie. Yes, most of us grew out of it. But, we too held many a star as role models. But, then those were the days of idealism. Maybe, this is today’s idealism.
Like all other professions, cinema too has a social responsibility. You cannot live in a bubble of money and fame only. It is a very powerful medium to be used with extreme care.
And what about the women in this movie? The young actresses, who are very articulate these days, came on talk shows while promoting the film and talked about having strong female roles. Really? Their only role seems to be of cooking, cleaning, procreating and providing physical gratification to the macho men who go about shooting and killing people happily with smiles on their faces. Aren’t both, the wife and mistress, abandoned by the man, they choose to live with, at different points of time.
So is killing always heroic? Apparently in movies it is, especially, if some injustice has been done to you by anyone at any point of time. Go out and kill that person and a few more on the way. The only killing to my mind one accords respect albeit with sadness is when a nation goes to war.
But, what is this we see in most movies today. Bone crunching, skull breaking, mindless violence and horrendous forms of torture that too done by our heroes. If the good guys are doing all this, then what should be the conduct of the bad guys? No longer, the simple dishum-dishum, of the hero versus the villain, like in the good old days, when the villain was rarely killed. At the end of the movie, after the hero had thoroughly thrashed him, he was invariably handed over to the police for the law to take its own course.
Vigilantism, I believe has found inspiration to a great extent from cinemas. It has attained cult hood with huge amounts of social sanction. Sometimes, one wonders why our male lead actors like Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Amir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, who are mostly in their mid forties with kids at home do these so called action movies with huge doses of sickening violence. How do they justify their bad acts in movies to their children?
GOW made me cringe at almost every sentence. Maybe, I am old fashioned and not in sync with the times. Maybe this is today’s value system, if you may call it value. Maybe, gentility is passé. But, one would like to tell this new breed of directors and script writers that ma behan galis and other abuses using various parts of anatomy have been a part of vocabulary throughout India, more so, in the Hindi belt always. But, it was never condoned or considered good to use it in mixed company. Can we ever imagine Javed Akhtar writing something like this in his movies?
Everything about GOW is in your face. Nothing is conveyed in a subtle manner. To be gross is the new mantra to rake in the moolah. Some scenes are deliberately bloody; the abattoir, the carcasses, the river of blood flowing, and men conversing indifferently in that gore.
Just a day, later I saw Paan Singh Tomar on TV. It is also about vendetta, injustice, and a man becoming a dacoit when no options are left. But, the movie is humane. There is honour, value, love and brotherhood in it. To a great extent it is heroic. There are a few abuses in it also, but not of the kind in GOW. Also, killing is shown as a last resort done with regret. Not mindless, irreverent and timepass like in GOW. I would like to remember Manoj Bajpai of Shool and not of GOW.
Lastly, just a small question: what’s with the gamcha worn by the entire male cast for all interviews and Cannes. It wasn’t as if it was some signature garment worn throughout the movie. Manoj Bajpai is seen donning the ubiquitous raiment only once after his bathing scene.
And reinforcing this gun totting culture fast emerging in Bollywood as cool, was the bash thrown by Anurag Kashyap to celebrate the success (box office revenues) of his film GOW where the entire cast was brandishing guns for the cameras. No cops watching?
