India has a fine way of dealing with its champions. Makhan Singh, Gold and Silver medalist, Asian Games, 1962, drives a truck. Hockey Olympian S. Dungdung is trying to find a job as a security guard. Anurag Kashyap should, at any rate, be thankful he still has a roof over his head. After his No Smoking, clearly the most original and moving work mainstream Bollywood has seen since Satya, it’s surprising that we didn’t lynch him, blacken his face and parade him around on a donkey.
But hold on.
I think we did.
Khalid Mohammad says ‘The rest of the world needs your brain. Ulp, I don’t.’ Nikhat Kazmi uses the phrases ‘Nahin samajh mein aaya?’ and 'self indulgent' in her review. And the others cut, copy and paste.
The film flops.
Clearly, Anurag Kashyap had committed the cardinal sin. He had made an intelligent film. In the land of the dumb, this calls for capital punishment.
Hold on. I’m getting ahead of myself here.
What’s the film about?
It’s about K (John Abraham) who’s coerced into quitting smoking.
Really. That’s it.
Of course, Kashyap digs into the finer questions of the issue, like moral high ground, free will and duplicity among others. But the movement through the text is very controlled. There’s not a single scene in the film that’s not relevant for the narrative. As for the subtext, it’s effect on the film is only additive. You don’t really miss out on much if you haven’t read Kafka, or seen Cabaret, or done any of the things Khalid clearly hasn’t.
The Deus Ex Machina is Baba Bangali (Paresh Rawal), resident tantric in an underground city beneath a carpet shop. The man has, aside from an army of djinns and a photograph with Adolf Hitler, records of your whole life in VHS. This is the man K’s wife (Ayesha Takia) sends him to. This is her righteousness. Enter the contract and K’s willingness to sign it. And you know the script has nailed it. The fascism of virtue. Suicidal conformity. Thirty minutes and you’re already in territory hitherto untouched by the Bombay brand of film. The rest of the film is a tour de force that follows the case to its bitter end. Any intelligent viewer would see this not only as K’s ‘struggle’ to quit smoking but as a question put to the basic notion of morality.
I don’t see this as indulgence but relevance. And a relevance that stretches from Nagpur to New York.
And it’s entertaining as hell too.
Of the critics? I really don’t want to waste my time discussing those dumb fucks.
Should you see it? Definitely. And from what the reaction to it seems like, it’s probably the last great Bollywood film ever.
Is there a happy ending? Fuck off man.
