Gangs of Wasseypur 2: A Review

by Pranay Mathur

[box]Pranay Mathur, an ardent fan of Anurag Kashyap, is glad that the director is back to what he does best, with Gangs of Wasseypur 2 – making movies the way he wants to. In this review, Pranay tells us about how despite its technical brilliance, clever script and hard-hitting dialogues, there were some aspects that could have been better. [/box]

As someone who has been well-fed on Anurag Kashyap’s staple of hard-hitting cinema, I couldn’t help feeling enthralled by the obscene attention to detail in the second installment of Kashyap’s ambitious venture and was thoroughly entertained, even if the film couldn’t satisfy my inner sceptic. His earlier films, inconsistently appealing though they were with respect to tone and purpose and the overall politics of the sub-genres Kashyap loves to dabble in, were fulfilling on the most part though they could not match up to the haunting visuals and atmospherics of Paanch and Black Friday, which lingered on my mind years after having seen them initially. Leading their viewers to draw their own moral conclusions, both films were bona-fide masterworks wherein Kashyap hadn’t lost the faith in telling a good story even with an early millennium audience that had given a cold shoulder to realistic, gritty dramas sans entertainment and masala elements in past, barring an occasional Satya.

After facing troubles with an unkind, scathing censor board, the filmmaker somewhat lost faith and digressed from his roots and the kind of filmmaking he initially believed in.  Taking a departure from the edgy, earthy feel of violent dramas, he made No Smoking – a film David Lynch would’ve found interesting. I do have a weakness for the Abraham-Takia starrer, but I severely missed the filmmaker who had arrived with a bang in the post-Ram Gopal Verma era. Following it was the youth-friendly and darkly comical Dev. D. Then there was Gulaal: a political drama intermittently narrated with beautiful poetic symbolism. I didn’t bother watching The Girl with Yellow Boots, as that was more about a smitten Anurag directing a screenplay written by his actress-wife.

Coming back to Gangs of Wasseypur (GOW), in more ways than one, it is a return to roots for a filmmaker who after tasting adequate success with his target audience goes back to making movies exactly the way he wants them. Being a fan of someone who makes films on his own terms, I’m kind of glad he did. However, barring the usual ‘technical’ aspects, the intricacies of thought process behind every shot selection and the intensity and understanding of dramatic nuances of relatively unknown but supremely talented actors, GOW-2 on the whole is staple Kashyap cinema wanting of tension and narrative depth. It’s hard not to miss the irony in the events unfolding over six decades (the entire revenge theme is turned on its head in the final, shocking sequence; additional divulgence will spoil the fun for those who’re still looking forward to the film) but sitting through a movie that, amalgamated with the first part, lasts more than five hours long of screen-time, you can’t help feeling a bit needy of asking ‘What’s the point?’ to a script that has scenes sparkling of raw intensity and unbridled energy, but appears disjointed when considering the narrative. On the surface, Kashyap has made a shining example of how wannabe Hindi filmmakers, more focused towards manoeuvring filmmaking techniques, would want their films to be, instead of catering more to a neutral, unsuspecting observer who likes his cinema to unfold like the stories he has always revelled in listening to since time immemorial. There’s much clever, albeit unnecessary use of dialogue in far too many scenes; sub-plots that have absolutely no relevance to the main story arc are frequent; and random characters appear and disappear out of frames without conviction. Anurag, in his quest for detailing and his unfailing love for every one of his talented bunch of performers, gets a little too lost in distinguishing one character’s motive and thought process from the rest, making most of them one-dimensional and thereby making much of his scenes redundant in a screenplay that’s carelessly edited.

This is not to say the shortcomings of a film as ambitious as this are glaring enough to dilute the impact it has actually had. This one cleverly mocks Hindi cinema over the years yet contradictorily pays heartening, charming tributes to Bollywood stars through innumerable references. Much of the characterizations, Faisal Khan and Definite notwithstanding, take their often corny cinema of Salman Khan’s cult favourites Maine Pyar Kiya and Tere Naam way too seriously. There’s Perpendicular, whom I find most interesting and unpretentiously funny in the film (how he derives his name is still unclear though) who ironically gets, well, beaten to pulp after watching a film of which nobility is the underlying theme! The chemistry between characters, especially the heartening and amusing interactions between the leading couple (Siddiqui owns the film despite his small and skinny stature and Huma Qureshi, an easy screen presence despite her character’s garish, over-the-top clothing), brings the house down on several occasions. It is, however, Zeishan Quadri as the Salman Khan fanatic Definite who steals the show with his natural, restrained act.

Kashyap is one of the most important voices in the Hindi film industry today. There’s no doubt that in the GOW series, he has delivered a one-of-a-kind picture that is bound to garner him more fans and accolades. If only he could understand the difference between a recipe that is naturally tempting and one that leaves you wanting and unsatisfied even after mixing the ‘ingredients’ in perfect proportions.

Pranay Mathur is a copy editor cum ardent cinema enthusiast who, when not watching movies from all over the world, spends time reading and chatting up with friends. He also likes to read and write blogs and aims to be a successful fiction writer some day.

[facebook] [/facebook] [retweet]Tweet[/retweet]