Too much, yet so little

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Gangs of Wasseypur is neither grand nor great, but it’s a lofty affair. Writer, director and producer Anurag Kashyap’s two-part magnum opus saunters confidently, like a film one ought to like, demanding a certain kind of viewing and viewer — patient, attentive and indulgent. Its obsession with telling its copious story and the attendant arrogance in telling it the way it wants to are both impressive and trying. But like many lesser magnum opuses, Gangs of Wasseypur is tedious because Kashyap has bitten off more than he can chew. So while I feel respect, I don’t have much love for GOW.

Good cinema is supposed to transport you, lift you from your seat and, depending on the director, drop you with a thud or gently let you slide off into another world. GOW takes you to another world, but then it makes you squat in a corner while the director ambles about, forgetting about you and the story. Some of these breaks are used creatively, but mostly we sit idle on your haunches, wondering how long it’ll be till Mr Kashyap gets his act together.
These long, listless spells reminded me of DD documentaries and certain art films, and that’s not just because of the old footage of Independence that GOW uses.

Gangs of Wasseypur is essentially a revenge saga which gets its heft and depth from the various dynamic backdrops the film’s writers (Zeishan Quadri, Sachin Ladi and Kashyap) and director have erected around it. The first one is the story of India, beginning in 1941. Then there’s the story of Dhanbad, the mining town where people’s fate and fortunes are decided by who is running the coal mines. And then there is Wasseypur, a town in Dhanbad where life is linked to both Dhanbad and India, but more significantly to the clan one belongs — Qureshis or Pathans (Khans). In Wasseypur, bloodlines matter, because, really, there’s little else. Sunni Muslims are forever clashing, while living in complete harmony with the Hindus.
Though we begin in 2004, with gunmen aiming for one Faisal Khan, this scene is actually a link to Gangs of Wasseypur 2, scheduled to release in the second or third week of July, depending on how GOW 1 fares at the box office.
It’s 1941, a time when, according to the film, Sultana Daku, a Qureshi from Wasseypur, was alive and active. Historical records, however, state that Sultana Daku was a bandit from the Bhantu clan who operated in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) and was hanged in July 1924 in Haldwani jail.
But never mind that factoid. The film places him in Wasseypur and irritates him with the news that someone posing as Sultana Daku is robbing trains. That someone is Shahid Khan (Jaideep Ahlawat). Sultana creeps up on Shahid and his gang one night and kills everyone barring Shahid and one gang member, Farhan (Piyush Mishra), who is also the film’s narrator. Shahid moves to another town with his wife and Farhan, starts working in a mine, and soon rises to become contractor Ramadhir Singh’s (Tigmanshu Dhulia) pehalwan. His job is to extract as much work as possible from the mine workers. But this job doesn’t sit easy with a man who has no respect for hierarchy, and that’s what brings an end to his story and takes us to the next one, featuring Shahid’s son Sardar Khan, then still a kid but with a sharp genetic memory. Little Sardar shaves his head and swears to keep it shaved till he kills Ramadhir and avenges his father's murder. To our absolute delight, he sings and tells us how he'll do that -- Teri keh ke loonga...
But as Sardar grows up (into Manoj Bajpayee), so does Ramadhir, in stature and clout — he is now a feared vidhayak who owns several coal mines. Sardar doesn’t have a gang; he operates with his friend Anwar (Jameel Khan), and chacha Farhan. They ferry passengers from the railway station in their jeep, attacking Ramadhir’s men and businesses en route.
Sardar gets married, first to feisty Najma (Richa Chadha), and then to sensuous Bengali, Durga (Reema Sen), and they bear him sons.
Running parallel to this story are several others. Farhan’s voiceover tells us about Dhanbad mines — nationalisation, corporate coming in, followed by trade unions — and the region’s changing economy. Then there’s Bollywood’s story told through film posters and songs, the story of changing technology told through the evolution of firearms, arrival of family’s first refrigerator and changing man-woman equations. Of course, the Khans and the Qureshis, now led by the butcher Sultan Qureshi (Pankaj Tripathi), still hate each other.
Because of Kashyap’s keen eye for the absurd and affinity for the macabre, embedded in this convoluted saga with spasmodic bloodletting are some real gems. Foremost is the film’s musical score by the insanely talented Sneha Khanwalkar. Every song plays a role — some set the mood, some carry the story forward, and some are there just to delights us with the brilliance of Varun Grover and Piyush Mishra’s lyrics.
For most part, GOW feels like we are trapped in a Men’s Only compartment, a hard and, often, dull place. But every time it ventures to the co-ed area, the film comes to life. Like when Maulvi Saab tells Sardar to keep off his pregnant wife, or the sequence of Sardar and Durga’s cute courtship.
Though these crackling scenes with very talented women renew our bond with the film, we are soon back in the Men’s Only world and the fatigue increases till the next generation — Sardar’s two sons, who have grown up mostly without abbu — arrives.
Danish (Vineet Singh) and Faisal (Nawazuddin) come into their own, one by marriage into the Qureshi clan and the other — the dark, quiet, shy loner who carries familial baggage — finding expression in guns. It’s the Eighties. Boys and girls have discovered cool shades and cooler identities. But just as we are getting acquainted with the talented Mr Nawazuddin Siddiqui, part one ends.
What follows is a trailer of GOW Part 2, and the promise of a pacier film, with attitude and crazy, cultish characters.

Gangs of Wasseypur is acutely aware of many films — from Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, to the 1968 thuggee vendetta saga Sangharsh. Francis Ford Cappola too hangs about in rooms with large families, and Tarantino is often found where there’s quick action and dismembered body parts. Yet, it is not an easy, entertaining watch because it is burdened with needlessly complicated family trees alongside the history of India and the coal economy. A lot of characters, inhabited by superb actors, are introduced to us, and just as we are making a mental note of who is who, they are bumped off. Also, despite Piyush Mishra’s instructive account of the changing times, the film's narrative lacks finesse and clarity. Anurag Kashyap creates epics very well, but here he was either confused or just overwhelmed by the material he had and wanted to bung in. A disproportionate amount of time is spent in setting the mood and getting the atmospherics right and while this is admirable, not enough happens to keep us engaged.
Though a regular revenge story, revenge often seems peripheral to the film. Sardar Khan is not the tortoise slowly getting to finish line, but more the distracted rabbit. Partly that's how his character has been constructed, and partly because GOW is a three-generation saga. But his revenge attempts are few and flimsy, made even more pathetic by the fact that Manoj Bajpayee is often invisible, especially when up against the potent Ramadhir Singh played with loads of patriarchal attitude by Tigmanshu Dhulia. Sardar Khan is never really a threat to Ramadhir, just an annoying nuisance. For the climatic revenge we have to wait a while. And it seems like it'll be worth it.