Spoilers ahead…
Before I begin writing about Gangubai Kathiawadi, I have to write about my feelings about the genre. Most biopics are about “noble people who suffered a lot and did great things”, and these are the most difficult people to dramatise on screen. In real life, they may be inspirational (there are many such people that are my role models, who I think of and get mental adrenaline shots from whenever I am feeling low) – but on screen, with their lives compressed to just the highlights, they become boring. Because the narrative arc of most biopics remains the same, rarely rising above the same set of highlights. They start at rock bottom. They try, try, try. They defeat sceptics and enemies. They succeed. Rinse. Repeat. What makes it worse is that most filmmakers treat these lives as sacred, not human. So we never get their flaws, their terrible eccentricities, their things-that-make-them-human.
Every film needs a strong filmmaker, but it’s especially so for the biopic. Because if I wanted to know about the “real” Gangubai Kathiawadi, I could Wiki her up or read the Hussain Zaidi book this film is based on. What I want on screen is the Gangubai Kathiawadi as seen through the eyes of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, one of the greatest filmmakers (and frame-makers) of our time. I want to see this “fictional” Gangubai that lives in his head, and I want to see what this director’s wonderfully purplish imagination does with her life.
And I must say I have mixed feelings about the end result. Gangubai Kathiawadi is certainly lively and entertaining (more about that later), but the on-screen Gangubai (Alia Bhatt) – as a character – ends up being one of those generic “noble people who suffered a lot and did great things”. She ends up being a biopic cliche. She gets an intriguing “intro scene”, filled with voiceover lines like: Pyaar ko gaali deti hai par uski gaali mein bhi pyaar hai. And she wears white, which could be either a symbol of her purity of heart, or a widow’s attire signifying that her dreams of a family life are dead. (Maybe it’s a bit of both.) And I was thrilled by a typically Bhansali-esqe touch. Gangubai is summoned by a brothel-runner to tame a young girl who won’t cooperate. The touch is in how Gangubai thrusts her umbrella into the brothel-runner’s hands. The gesture says: Shut the fuck up and let me do my job.
But once she meets the young girl, we cut to that most overused of devices, the flashback, from when Gangubai was as young as this girl. (The screenplay is by Bhansali and Utkarshini Vashishtha.) Seema Pahwa was the brothel-runner she was sold to back then, and you only have to recall Rani Mukerji in Saawariya to see the difference in writing: Rani Mukerji played an extraordinary (and entirely Bhansali-esque) character, while Seema Pahwa plays a generic “madam”. Later, Vijay Raaz appears as a political competitor, and you only have to recall Tanvi Azmi in Bajirao Mastani, who plotted and planned: Tanvi Azmi came off like a female Chanakya , while Vijay Raaz comes off like a token “trans-woman” and a paper tiger, all roar and no bite. At one point, Gangubai calls her mother after 12 years, and you only have to recall the call Hrithik Roshan had with his ex in Guzaarish: that scene played out effortlessly, like a painting come to life, while here, the scene feels “manufactured”. The tears in Gangubai’s eyes don’t become our tears.
And yet, the film keeps you watching. You can call the screenplay “episodic” (if you want to be charitable), or you could call it choppy, especially in the way the secondary cast is written. But when you see a sex worker’s corpse being decorated by a whole bunch of her colleagues, when you see the clouds of powder erupting from Gangubai’s face as she dresses up in order to solicit men, when you see a letter being written with incidents from all the sex workers in the room, when you see the camera descend onto a young girl’s face as her nose is (symbolically) being pierced, or when you see Gangubai’s dance-like gesture to her sometime lover (Shantanu Maheshwari) where she asks him to show the cards he’s drawn, or each time they talk in gesture-ese, you know that you are in the hands of a master. Every director choreographs his/her actors, but Bhansali makes directing itself look like choreography – like in the stunning, stunning scene where Gangubai is “taught” how to solicit men with an outstreched hand. It’s direction as dance.
I wish the love angle had been explored more. It’s classic Bhansali territory – and I wanted the man to feel what Ram was feeling when he lost Leela in Goliyon ki Rasleela. But even what Bhansali gives us (the matching moves in Jab saiyaan where each person bends over the other for a reason you do not anticipate, or the fact that she is able to get close to him only after covering his face or turning his face away), is more poetry than what any other Hindi filmmaker is capable of. In a wonderful qawwali, the lyricist AM Turaz writes: Kisi ki yaad mein shaamein guzaarne ke liye / Kaleja chahiye khud ko maarne ke liye. That’s Gangubai’s life at that very moment. Imagine these lines come to life. I missed that. I missed Gangubai’s inner life.
But Bhansali finds a unique way to address at least part of this problem. For the first time in his career, the dialogues (written by Prakash Kapadia and Utkarshini Vashishtha) come with a 70s masala-film flavour – and they are fantastic. These are not the lines from Black or Saawariya or Devdas, which were very much set in Bhansali’s own “khwabon ki duniya“, his dream world. These are lines from the Salim-Javed universe. When Gangubai parts with her lover she snaps at him: Zindagi bhar mera rakhel banke kya karega tu? Ajay Devgn has a brilliant scene where he humiliates a man who wants Kamathipura gone. And I felt: Maybe this should have been the movie. Maybe Ajay should have had more than a guest appearance. Maybe the parts with the journalist (Jim Sarbh) should have been the movie: How Gangubai, the Badass, Saved Kamathipura. (What we get is How Gangubai, the Angel, Saved Kamathipura.)
I have another suggestion: How Alia, the Awesome, Saved This Movie. Watching the teasers, I had my doubts, but Alia blew each one away like puffs of smoke from her bidi. From her exaggerated excitement when she thinks she may get to star opposite Dev Anand to her deal-making with the Ajay Devgn character to her stone-face when her friend dies, she reinvents herself as an actress – not just as any actress, but as a “Bhansali actress”. She joins the small group of actors (Ranveer Singh, Rani Mukerji) that was able to put their own spin on this director’s Gothic-nautanki approach to “acting”, which is as much performance as performance art.
Like every self-respecting masala movie, there are echoes, parallels . The first time Gangubai is on a train, she is a young Gujarati girl with the purest of names: Ganga. She is heading to Bombay to become a heroine. The second time we see her on a train, she is Gangubai. She has become a heroine: not in the films, but of Kamathipura. And this time, she is travelling to Delhi, to see the Prime Minister. The first time she dances the garba, at home, she is innocence and fun personified. The second time we see the dance in Kamathipura, it’s as though she has been possessed by a demon. The post-interval portion of the film is practically a series of echoes, scene after scene of very noble-minded, applause-worthy speeches. The journalist applauds. The people applaud. Jawaharlal Nehru (mentally) applauds. In the theatre, the audience applauds. I left the theatre wondering whether this adulation, this worship, this love was for Gangubai or for Alia.
Copyright ©2022 Baradwaj Rangan.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Thupparivaalan
June 27, 2022
Alia and Bhansali is just box Office. Caught the movie in Netflix and was simply blown away by Alia’s performance. She infuses life into a bad screenplay – which gets progressively worse later. It moves from personal to political and lost me there. The lack of a good antagonist seems to have been the issue here and film runs out of steam in the second half.
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Anu Warrier
June 23, 2022
Funny that I should read this interview after so long. But the minute I read it, I thought about Gaekwad’s hit piece (seriously, that’s how it struck me right from the beginning). So her’s another perspective on Sanjay Leela Bhansali from a man who’s worked with him for decades. 🙂
https://www.rediff.com/movies/report/why-sanjay-leela-bhansali-makes-hit-films/20220623.htm
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slb
June 14, 2022
Just want to comment that I am grateful for directors like SanJay Leela Bhansali and RaJamouli who are such visionaries and create beautiful movies with amazing visuals & stunning sets and create dream like images on screen.
I don’t think there are other filmmakers like them anywhere in the world who are capable of making stunning visuals like these 2. How boring and colorless movie watching would be without the grand song picturisations and opulent sets they put up in their movies.
Looking forward to more of their work in the future.
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Rahul
May 22, 2022
Madan , yeah, this is what he said about it
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Madan
May 21, 2022
Looks like the article was taken down after all.
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Sreehari
May 15, 2022
The problem with the Manish Gaekwad article is that entertaining as it is, it feels like “the dismembering of a man who’s nothing more than a megalomaniac, by a person who has all the right perspective on things.” Gaekwad’s is the only sane voice in the madhouse he details. Anybody who has read enough pieces of great nonfiction, of great participatory journalism, will immediately deduce that this is too easy and too unbalanced as a critique to be taken seriously.
If you ask me, the only things that Gaekwad manages to sell by the end of his article are his golden wit and his all-too liberal attitude. This is the kind of writing that Jug Suraiya and Suresh Nair used to do in the 1990s, brought up to date by a generation that possesses a sitcom consciousness and a general knowingness that comes when a nation evolves on the cultural front — all the same, there’s no real risk being taken here. And a good piece of writing takes risk.
Also, I may not share Rangan Saab’s enthusiasm for Bhansali’s craft, and I do believe the man works inside too limited a palette of feeling to be called a good generous artist, but to reduce Bhansali’s filmography into a series of plagiarisms is to perform the lowest diagnosis. Again, it’s too easy.
The writer’s inability to inflame himself and his fundamental incomprehension of the subject he is trying to immolate makes the piece, in my opinion, a wonderful catty piece of journalism, but a philistine utterance nevertheless.
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Ramit
May 15, 2022
Maybe the accusations are true but the article does have a ‘grapes are sour’ vibe to it.
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Sreehari
May 14, 2022
Just curious. When has Gay Talese performed a hatchet job of this kind? I have browsed through most of Talese’s work, from the early NY Times articles to The Voyeur’s Motel, and I am just amazed at the throwaway nature of the analogy being rolled out here. I am amazed, you understand, because even “Pure Cinema” pales in comparison to this analogy.
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MANK
May 14, 2022
Thanks Rahul for putting up that article. it was great fun. Though i have heard enough horror stories about SLB’s working methods, I fully get it that this piece is very exaggerated and filtered through the writer’s prejudices, so i don’t take it seriously, but it was fun to read.
Brangan, isn’t that “Gay Talese”?
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 14, 2022
Manish Gaekwad does seem to have an agenda doesn’t he? I wonder what exactly went down to prompt this vitriolic takedown… But it was such a guilty pleasure to read and as much as I can’t stand SLB, I nevertheless felt ashamed of myself for enjoying it as much as I did.
The unease for me atleast, seems to be that going by the piece, it is obvious that in his own way Gaekwad is every bit the ego maniac and vicious pissant, SLB is accused of being. Hell hath no fury like a spurned toxic male ego, I guess.
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Madan
May 14, 2022
Rahul : The article does a sort of me-too nod and wink which someone MAY tell SLB to take action against. The rest, it’s not necessarily bad per se but if say SLB depends on wannabe minions NOT knowing about all this, then it hurts his cause and he may want to silence the writer. We’ll see. You could be right and he could be totally blase about it but defamation is lately a popular weapon that the powerful in India wield. It doesn’t even have to come out to the public. A smart legal team may do it hush hush and settle it out of court. And maybe the writer will get a pound of flesh in exchange too, possible.
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Rahul
May 14, 2022
Not sure that there is anything really bad in there , or worth suing for. SLB isn’t out to win a popularity contest. The thing that I take objection to were the veiled hints to his sexuality, which should be nobody’s business.
That said, at least one other person who has worked with SLB has tweeted that the experience of working with him is actually worse than what is stated in the piece.
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Madan
May 14, 2022
Article was put up yesterday. So it COULD happen that SLB gets to know of this and sues him. Or sends his legal team to tell him to take it down.
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brangan
May 14, 2022
Madan:That is exactly what I was thinking. This is a pure and simple (and witty) hatchet job, written with a man with an agenda. The kind of “profile” Guy Talese used to do of “lowly” Hollywood stars. SlB could well sue him.
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Madan
May 14, 2022
Anu Warrier : He didn’t put his fan fiction disclaimer on this one. So he might be referring to a real experience. Because without that disclaimer, if say he never met or worked for Bhansali, the latter could even sue him for this article.
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Anu Warrier
May 14, 2022
@Madan, was that for real or satire? I’ve read Manish Gaekwad’s articles on Medium before and there’s a lot that is supposedly fan fiction… I have a tough time believing what he writes, really.
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Madan
May 13, 2022
Brilliant, brilliant article but this line struck me as odd or perhaps an anachronistic habit of the writer that he could do well to revisit:
“I look for books when I enter a house for signs of intelligent life. ” – Hmmm, due to paucity of space, my entire collection is in a ground level shelf in the bedroom (and the music CD collection is, again, in a closed shelf on top of which the TV sits). You can’t see my collection which I don’t feel any need to show off. And there’s plenty more on Kindle. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and likewise maybe you shouldn’t judge a person’s reading habits by where he keeps his books. Of course, I am sure SLB has enough living space to display his collection, such as it may be, but perhaps such rules are better applied to celebs like him and not too generally.
Other than that, it is interesting to hear SLB is exactly as eccentric as he comes across even in his TV appearances. LOLed at chacha. Reads eerily like my own Reader’s Write on Prada (or rather, the source material for my write up).
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Rahul
May 13, 2022
Fun article here
View at Medium.com
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Faroo
March 13, 2022
You might love or hate SLB for making a (any) movie — but it helped get a written BR review. That is a win for sure 😉
Andha naal nyabagam vandhadhe!!!
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Ramit
March 9, 2022
@Yajiv, I guess if it was just a cameo, she wouldn’t have said yes. Her PR is managed quite smartly. They are aware of the image this Hollywood debut will make. They would want it to be respectable.
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Yajiv
March 9, 2022
@Ramit: It will be interesting to see how far up/down the callsheet she is in her Netflix Hollywood movie. And for that matter, Dhanush in The Gray Man. My guess is they will be more of extended cameos designed to lure Indian eyeballs to the screen.
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Ramit
March 9, 2022
https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/arjun-kapoor-calls-alia-bhatt-mini-meryl-as-she-announces-hollywood-debut-bollywood-stars-cheer-for-her-101646718641534-amp.html
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krishikari
March 9, 2022
Finally went to see a movie in the theatre after two years and An SLB spectacle is the most one could hope for to break the fast. Loved almost everything, especially the music and the tableau like scenes, the masala dialogues, costuming, the language of gestures was beautiful. My friend and I clapped at the end like the rest of the audience and gave each other spontaneous overhead namastes, getting carried away is the best part of theatre going, along with smuggling in samosas and coconut water instead of buying overpriced nachos.
I have to agree with almost everything in BR’s review, it was episodic, scenes seemed stand alone not always leading to the next one. Nodding along as well as with what everyone here has said. Especially @nikkie1602 yes, what happened to that terrible scar? I know I know I know this is not supposed to be realistic but how amazing and artful would it have been to have that scar visible from that point on? It was one of the few logical scenes the madam wanted to break her spirit and purposely sent her to the most violent client and then gets scared he’s going to destroy her investment.
Also why was Vijay Raaz such a toothless tiger?
Ajay Devgn was a powerful presence, he just fit the role. Jimmy Sarbh, too much was made of him, though the Irani restaurant scenes were fabulous, especially when the camera moved overhead. More luscious tableaus.
I did find a few things distasteful. The graphic violence … not the greatest creative choice, it was like pandering to the people who enjoy seeing women getting beaten up. Yes, I am absolutely stating the movie choice I want to see not the movie choice the director made. So what? The white, white, Alia against the dark other girls, this was too much of a regressive cliche visually. The white sari alone would have done. But everyone was beautifully lit, glowing.
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SR
March 6, 2022
The Rahul Desai review totally echoed what I feel about the movie. I want to see the SLB world instead got Alia World and SLB just living in it. Very disappointed. At least got BR written review out of it.
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vijay
March 5, 2022
But Mani didnt put “loosely based on lives of MGR/Karunanidhi” in his Iruvar credits…He chickened out, went the other way, and instead claimed it had no resemblance to anything or anyone real. Probably it was political pressure, or the aftermath of somebody lobbing a bomb into his house sometime after Bombay(?!)..
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suresh kumar mahto
March 5, 2022
Mind blowing. You got eyes, that thinks !
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Madan
March 5, 2022
” The Air Deccan founder was an entrepreneur not some little villager. But the former will be termed “A-centre”, so you take the latter approach. Which is fine. But just don’t call it a… bio-pic 🙂 Because no film is really a “bio”.” – And this sums up the problem with bios. They will still call it a bio and, as in the case of Soorarai Pootru, even claim that the film was inspired by the Gopinath book whilst borrowing almost nothing from it. They want the publicity generated from the bio angle and then seek shelter under cinematic licence when departures from the important facts are pointed out. Bios generally wanna have the cake and eat it too. It’s much easier (in theory!) to accept deviations from a book adaptation because both are works of art whereas a person’s life is real and doesn’t only exist in the fertile imagination of a creator. Of course, if you love a book, you will almost never enjoy the movie adaptation of it, but that’s a different story.
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brangan
March 5, 2022
KS: According to you, what exactly is the point of a biopic?
That’s a fantastic question. We don’t label book adaptations as lit-pics.
Plus, NO biopic can ever “compress” a life in a new way (maybe a miniseries can) — so I don’t know the point of a biopic.
I was chatting with a friend recently (he’s writing a biopic) and he was talking about how he had to cut this character out, and how the school years had to be cut out. So he’s essentially “fictionalising” the life of the person in question.
I think Mani Ratnam’s approach is best. Take a life. Add a disclaimer that it is “loosely inspired by” or “this is not a true story”. Then twist it all you want as per your imagination and the requirements of your screenplay/direction.
Anyway, a lot of screenwriting is finding fictional ways to approximate the “real events” that supposedly happened. Why have a separate term for it, “bio-pic”?
I have a separate (more existential) issue with this term. No one really knows a life — not the biographer, and sometimes not even the subject him/herself.
We all forget things. Or reshape them to suit a narrative in our minds. So the “internal” stuff is all fiction anyway. The Air Deccan founder was an entrepreneur not some little villager. But the former will be termed “A-centre”, so you take the latter approach. Which is fine. But just don’t call it a… bio-pic 🙂 Because no film is really a “bio”.
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Yajiv
March 5, 2022
I hope a reader (or BR) reviews Jhund in this blog as well. It’s been getting rave reviews elsewhere so I’d interested to know what fellow readers think.
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Voldemort
March 4, 2022
I disliked Alia in Kalank. From the trailer I thought she would look completely odd for the role (which she does at some points) but boy everywhere else she is just so good. I have never teared up for a Bhansali movie (I like them but I think they are too glossy and pretty) but this movie had me mist up at several places. The love story was so beautiful and heart wrenching. The songs are lovely (as always in a Bhansali film). I wish BR had written a longer review, like the ones for Bajirao, Padmavat and his other films. This one is great but doesn’t have the usual effusive BR.
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Anu Warrier
March 4, 2022
If I want the truth, I’d read a newspaper.
@BR, this line cracked me up! 🙂 Ah, BR, how I weep for the days when newspapers actually did write, well, more of the truth.
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KS
March 4, 2022
@brangan:
According to you, what exactly is the point of a biopic? Does it have any intrinsic cinematic value? Or is it purely a marketing gimmick that exploits and rides on the draw of an already-known name or the deceptive allure of a “based on a true story” tag?
Any real-life journey, that too one spanning decades, would either be too mundane or too messy to be collapsed into a coherent two-hour long visual story. So inevitably the makers would have to use their imagination to weave a story out of the information. But at the same time, one cannot let their imagination lead them on too far, as then the real-life connect would come undone (and in some cases, may even lead to legal obstacles and protests).
It seems like an unsatisfying neither-here-nor-there situation. Which is why almost all biopics feel the same, since the same unavoidable tropes and emotional beats are all repeated. The constraints of the genre ensure that almost all movies, modulo the quirks of the settings, play out the same.
So why bother with a biopic at all? Why not just use the real-life character as a seed for inspiration, and come up with a fully fictional story resulting from unfettered imagination and inspiration from a whole genre of similar stories and characters?
The only merit of a biopic that I can think of is the curiosity and pre-established connect with the character if they happen to be someone famous and well-loved (like a biopic of Sachin or Dhoni). This is the marketing gimmick I was talking about. But even that fails to explain the faithfulness to the real-life story of some obscure brothel owner whose name most people wouldn’t have heard of before this movie anyway.
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Madan
March 4, 2022
Nimmi Rangaswamy : Not saying it’s random. Only that certain settings, certain storylines make the fondness for gloss and gaudiness a real hard sell, at least for me. And for others too who have this problem with SLB films.
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Nimmi Rangaswamy
March 4, 2022
Gorgeous heroines are part of the Bhansali universe – he will make them even more gorgeous with color-codes, costumes [ what more than Aishwarya in Guzarish] … even the villainous women and mothers get gorgeous props- Kiron Kher Ananya Khare in Devdas for example … the dancers in a song are costumed and coloured. Rani in Black is slightly different – her costumes are indeed part of the palette [White Grey Back and Red in one stunning scene] though she isn’t prettified but Bhansali makes up with her gorgeous styling in Sawariya.. This styling is not random no? it’s integral to the film making…
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Madan
March 4, 2022
Ramit : Well in that case, given Rani’s enormous star wattage, it proves vijay’s point. I actually don’t see how Rani is prettier than Konkona or Nandita Das but star quality /charisma is extremely subjective anyway. I remember watching a documentary about Thatcher where these old British farts earnestly discussed her sex appeal. Like seriously?
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Ramit
March 4, 2022
Madan, vijay is talking about Bhansali’s heroines looking too pretty. I gave a counterexample.
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nikkie1602
March 4, 2022
@vijay: I am not asking for a Konkona or a Radhika for the role. I just think that Alia stood out from that lot way too much. Somehow, this ‘urban’ look wasn’t a problem for me in Padmaavat or Bajirao Mastani, I thought Deepika blended in with the REST of the cast. I don’t think Alia did that.
And it’s not even that I have a problem with Bhansali ‘s way of filmmaking. I loved Saawariya and really enjoyed Bajirao Mastani and Padmaavat too(would love to see a director’s cut of this one). But with Gangubai Kathiawadi, something was off.
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Ramit
March 4, 2022
For all the stylistic staging, I find Bhansali’s cinema quite realistic.
A lot of spoilers ahead.
A young Ganga deceiving her parents for her ‘love’ and ‘dream’. A realistic take on how people can fall prey to boobytraps.
Ganga accepting her fate and becoming Gangubai. A realistic take on how people change as per their surroundings.
A customer turning violent. A realistic take of how some people like it rough. Too rough.
Gangu sacrificing her love. A realistic take on how aspirations or idealism can precedence over the matters of heart.
Gangu’s lover moving on with life and wife. A realistic take of how the show keeps going.
It’s these realistic takes that make me fall head over heels for Bhansali’s cinema. His every cinema. Visuals are not secondary. They accentuate the emotions.
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brangan
March 4, 2022
See this line from this article:
“he loved that outfit so much that the first time in the film Gangubai is calling out to customers, he used it. He designed that entire doorway, the entire colour palette of that scene keeping that outfit in mind. ”
https://www.filmcompanion.in/interviews/bollywood-interview/gangubai-kathiawadi-alia-bhatt-sanjay-leela-bhansali-breaking-down-all-white-costumes/
Every director does this kind of colour-coordination (with the DoP), but Bhansali takes it all the way. He is VERY clear about what he is doing.
Also, this line:
“Bhansali likes that goddess-y feeling in his heroines, and red always plays a significant part. That climax sari has a very Durga Puja look, when she is taken out for a procession. ”
As for critics, you can never say “Rahul nails some of the issues not just in this film, but in SLB’s films in general. Just another perspective.”
Because that’s a perspective, too. The most you can say is:
“Rahul nails some of the issues THAT I HAVE WITH BHANSALI”S FILMS”.
Then, sure.
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brangan
March 4, 2022
vijay: for that matter, did Gangubhai look like Alia Bhatt?
Akbar was supposed to be a short man withy a wart on his nose. On screen he was played by Hrithik Roshan. Just saying,
One day, Indian audiences may begin to see films without stars in large numbers, and make them multi-crore box-office hits. Until then, you’re out of luck I am afraid. 🙂
For those who are used to aunthentic or semi-realistic portrayals of real life characters which is what a LOT of biopics do, SLB’s treatment may not work.
But of course. In any case, most biopics (at least for me) fall in the “fiction:” category. They are hardly the “exact truth”.
With Bhansali, he is not even INTERESTED in the “truth”. He is only interested in how HE sees that truth. And this is very much an artist’s prerogative (underlined by the “loosely based on” disclaimer at the beginning). If I want the truth, I’d read a newspaper. If I want to see a director’s vision, I’d go to the movies.
And clearly, his approach is not going to work for those who do not like his style of staging, his style of making people speak, his style of gestural performance, if you do not like his way of using lyrics to highlight an “offf” moment….
So why even even bother to watch the man’s films? He has given ample indications of his style, and if it does not work, there are so many other films to watch 🙂
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Madan
March 4, 2022
vijay: Yes, with the caveat that I too haven’t seen GK yet, Rahul Desai’s review sums up the typical SLB experience well. I don’t have anything against converting a gritty background into a fable. That’s as old as storyteller. The problem is SLB is not an amazing storyteller and instead makes them convoluted. That is why I enjoy his lavish historicals more because he makes them with the required style and grandeur.
Ramit : The beautification in Black isn’t in the manner in which the little Rani Mukherjee is shown but firstly in the colour tones the movie is shot in and secondly in the manufactured exam pass ho gayi happy ending. It’s not that I am opposed in principle to happy endings but in that movie I couldn’t buy into it.
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Ramit
March 4, 2022
@vijay, Black had no beautification of the character/actor. And Rani Mukherjee does fall in the category of Konkana and Radhika.
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vijay
March 4, 2022
this review by Rahul Desai from filmcompanion, nails some of the issues not just in this film, but in SLB’s films in general. Just another perspective.
https://www.filmcompanion.in/reviews/bollywood-review/gangubai-kathiawadi-review-is-alia-bhatt-world-and-sanjay-leela-bansali-just-lives-in-it/
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vijay
March 4, 2022
I am yet to see any serious biopics in Hollywood which has a Bhansali kind of approach to filmmamking. But even if there are a couple which I may have missed it doesnt matter.
For those who are used to aunthentic or semi-realistic portrayals of real life characters which is what a LOT of biopics do, SLB’s treatment may not work.We are not talking about semi-fictional depictions of centuries-old Bajirao or Padmavati here, where it doesnt matter much.
“I get she needs to stand out amongst all the other girls at the brothel, but she was practically glowing and looked too urban….took me out of the film too many times”
for that matter, did Gangubhai look like Alia Bhatt? This is SLB we are talking about. He is not going to use a Konkana Sen or even a Radhika Apte as his central character, even if that character happened to be playing a homeless labourer suffering from leprosy 🙂
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brangan
March 4, 2022
Akansha: Seema Pahwa – Indira Tiwari were show stealer they looked so authentic . Don’t know why such a mediocre performance is being appreciated so much
But why would you look for a Bhansali movie to be “authentic”? This is how HE imagines Gangubai and Kamathipura. That has always been his vision — to take BLACK, for example as another movie set in a “real world”. There’s nothing “authentic” in that, either. It’s how HE sees Helen Keller’s story.
To expect dirt and grime as the only markers of “reality” is to do a disservice to an artist’s vision. Now, I am not saying you have to like GANGUBAI.
But if you like “authentic” films, you should be looking elsewhere.
Also, Alia’s performance is fantastic because she’s just got the “Bhansali performance mode,” the way Ranveer did in his three Bhansali films. Look at Ramit’s comments above.
Take MOULIN ROUGE. Watch the John Huston 1950s version and then the Baz Luhrmann recent version and they are nothing alike. This is also a movie about a courtesan and a real nightclub but Luhrmann’s sets are like a great big circus. Huston — being more down-to-earth — adhered to the “authentic” look-and-feel of the real nightclub.
Or take Luhrmann’s THE GREAT GATSBY vs Jack Clayton’s 1974 version. Again, Luhrmann’s version is so different, and even from the book itself.
Taste of, of course. is subjective. But to expect a filmmaker to make the movie YOU want to see (or you consider “authentic”) is not right, no?
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Abishekspeare
March 4, 2022
The writer fan kanni in me is orgasming
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Senthil S
March 4, 2022
So happy to see a full blown written Rangan review again.
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Kasthuri
March 3, 2022
Baradwaj, on a completeley different topic – this year will be 20 yrs since Panchathanthiram. Could you make a reunion happen ? It is one cult classic tamil film !
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
When Gangu breaks up with her lover in the car, she had been pretty stern but the moment he says, ‘main ab utru’, she softens and asks him to stay a little longer. This feeling-one-thing-and-saying-another is a classic Bhansali trope and it was on display here a lot. And Alia makes the best out of these scenes. When she wins elections, she is dejected at first (for what she had to give up for that) and she starts her speech with that listlessness. But while she is speaking, she internalizes the words and charges up not only the crowd but herself too. That was a great example of magical acting.
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vijay
March 3, 2022
I have’nt see this film but from whatever I have seen of SLB, maybe his style, described as “Gothic-nautanki” by BR era is more suited to semi-fictional period pieces where the good looks, the clean frames and the grand sets are’nt a distraction but part of the milieu(like Padmavat or Bajirao)? or even an imagined world. But for a biopic set within the last century and that too in a place like Kamathipura, the same style may not fit. But I still will reserve final judgement when I get around to seeing it. But after reading some comments above, wondering if this was an issue.
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
Even though the screenplay asks Alia to shed tears at multiple places, she manages to bring variations in every cry. Sometimes her voice is shaking, sometimes she just sobs, sometimes she cries out loud, sometimes she cries without tears. Her full range was on display. In one scene, when she is smoking bidi after being injured, she makes sure to make her lips tremble in line with the character. When her attacker is attacked, she sits on him with a manly pose to ask for her due. In the call to mother scene, she had 30 seconds to put her point. She raised the pitch with every passing second, ending in a crescendo. This is another example of choreographed direction and Alia putting her own spin. The choreography of Meri Jaan was another timed performance. And Alia aces there too. If thrusting the umbrella in another person’s hand was Bhansali-esque, so was snatching it back. This time to convey: keep blabbering, I’ll do what I want to do. And Alia doesn’t miss a beat there either.
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nikkie1602
March 3, 2022
The movie did not work for me at all. And the same for Alia’s performance…missed opportunities, so many of them…
– She wanted to be an actress, and now she puts up this tough act. I could figure this out but I did not feel it. Even her transformation from Ganga to Gangubai was way too swift.
The same with the garba performance. I could figure it out but I did not feel her pain as she danced.
– Vijay Raaz was criminally underutilized. Razia Bai was never mentioned before though according to Gangu she has been making life hell for the girls of Kamathipura. They could have done so much! Could have explored how Gangu’s alluring feminity is the thing that rankled Razia the most.
– And yes this is Bhansali and everything has to be pretty. But absolutely no scar remains on Alia’s face after the gruesome beating she receives? Her face doesn’t experience the ravages of time and Kamathipura? I get she needs to stand out amongst all the other girls at the brothel, but she was practically glowing and looked too urban….took me out of the film too many times
– Conflicts were resolved so quickly no? One conversation with Pathan and she becomes his partner. One film screening and Razia loses the election. Nothing stayed.
– The Azad maidan speech was meh. It was supposed to be this spontaneous burst..she literally throws away the prepared speech. But it seemed she had prepared the speech she eventually gave…seemed too rehearsed. Her voice modulation and accent was off.
– The music was amazing though. I loved the qawalli and Huma Qureshi.
P.S. – And what was with Gangubai’s gruesome scar? It just wasn’t visible after some time. Was that only me or somebody else noticed it too?
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
Perhaps the biggest victory for Bhansali is in projecting the lives of sex workers in a decent, family watching way. Nothing is curtailed, yet everything is conveyed. Closing doors, switching off lights, distant screams, post-act close up, all added to convey the point in U/A way.
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Akansha
March 3, 2022
I didn’t liked Alia Bhatt’s performance at all , her dialect was inconsistent , she had no aura of a lady boss mafia queen . Her voice modulation was too forced , she didn’t even did any body transformation she was same throughout the film . She never looked like part of kamathipura her makeup was too perfect . Seema Pahwa – Indira Tiwari were show stealer they looked so authentic . Don’t know why such a mediocre performance is being appreciated so much
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
The most touching part, for me, was the love story, however brief. It establishes a relationship beyond sex. And it establishes sex beyond ‘an act’. Their scenes are full of sexual tension. The way they look, the way they come close or get away, the way they play around (they can play cards across a busy street, oblivion of all others around them. How romantic!) and the way they part ways.
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
But I agree, at many places Bhansali is in such a grip that we can’t help but be awed by what we are seeing, even when a scene is predictable. e.g. when Alia is about to touch Ajay’s feet and he stops her saying one should touch feet of God only. We know what’s about to come, yet the scene moved me to tears. It’s partly because of the sincerity and conviction Alia shows on her face while completing the feet touching and partly for the camera moving away from the closeups to capturing both of them in one frame, thus giving us a full view of their faith.
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Piyush Pratik
March 3, 2022
I would argue that the screenplay wasn’t meant to be a ‘story’ but was designed for flow. It seemed like it wanted to capture the flux of a life, rather than the crux of it. People around Gangu keep changing, moving, shifting sides, but it is her arc alone that remains steadfast. Everyone else is a scribble on the margin.
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
The screenplay relied a lot on the tears of Alia. Everytime, emotional quotient is required, make Gangu cry, thereby making scenes look manufactured like the call to the mother scene you referenced. Another scene is when Kamli is on bed. One would expect not to cry in front of the sick person lest they should feel more miserable but Gangu lies by Kamli’s side and cries. This was a poor screenplay choice, in my opinion.
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Ramit
March 3, 2022
Even I felt that Alia was so good that she could as well replace Kangana Ranaut in Tanu weds Manu and Queen.
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ViralVora
March 3, 2022
As always your takes are what I wait for to read!
my take on the same
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Sahir.
March 3, 2022
I felt particularly bad, like you, for the smaller characters – especially Vijay Raaz. Raziabai is so incidental that it’s odd. The same for the young girl Gangu marries to Afshaan: who is she? What does she feel?
Still, very watchable. I enjoyed this review too!
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