Asshole
Gandu
India
2010
85 Min
Black and White
2.35:1
Bengali
DIR Kaushik Mukherjee
EXEC Dipankar Chaki
PROD Kaushik Mukherjee
SCR Kaushik Mukherjee, Surojit Sen
DP Kaushik Mukherjee
CAST Anubrata Basu, Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Rituparna Sen, Shilajit Majumder
ED Manas Mittal, Kaushik Mukherjee, Surojit Sen
PROD DES Kaushik Mukherjee
MUSIC Five Little Indians
Gandu is an exciting film and could even become one of the path breaking films in the larger context of Indian film industry in the future. It has some phenomenal ideas(both technical as well as conceptual) but their execution leaves you wanting for more . It is experimental in parts and a kind of social commentary on the urban youth of today.
Gandu begins with a pulsating punk rock rhythm which our protagonist is drumming on his dining room table, waiting for his food to arrive. Almost, immediately the film seems to indicate that its gonna be a roller coaster ride and a rebellion against tradition. The protagonist wants to be a rap musician and his daily activities include song-writing, worshiping at a Kali temple, stealing money from his mother’s lover while they are having sex, buying a lottery ticket, and getting stoned. He finds a perfect companion in another dreamer who calls himself Rickshaw. He is a Bruce Lee wannabe and hence practices his martial art moves when he is not cycling his rickshaw. Our protagonist is called Gandu(Asshole) and it seems that even he has accepted this name. He is an asshole for the society that considers doctors and engineers as respectable people compared to some school drop out who wants to be a rap musician. Gandu has a lot of angst against the popular culture and parodies a lot of it in his rap songs.
Gandu likes Rickshaw and even has a premonition of being his close friend(in a bizzare dream sequence) at a time when he is actually thinking of revenge.Together they spend a lot of time getting stoned and speaking out their inner feelings. Rickshaw hopes to live in a house like Gandu whereas Gandu despises everything about his life. In a rather insightful scene after a heavy drugs session Gandu asks Rickshaw: “Hey Rickshaw! Will I die if I fall from here?”. The irony of this scene is that Gandu is sitting on a low pedestal that wouldn’t even give him a bruise if he fell. Rickshaw abuses him in his characteristic manner and says his mind is completely fucked. Gandu seems to reflect his inner fears to Rickshaw in that scene and we almost start sympathizing with him. There are some other avant garde and sexually explicit scenes where Gandu like any other youth is desperate to shed his load by either masturbating or dreaming of having sex with an alien sex kitten. There are also visitations of Goddess Kali in his dreams where he seems to be having a threesome along with Rickshaw. He even imagines having sex with his mother until he wakes up from his dream with a shock.
There are also scenes in this film where the director seems to take opinions from the urban youth regarding certain aspects of popular culture including pornography. He seems to justify all the blasphemy in the film after taking opinions from the general public which makes it so much easier to digest. The film ends on a bizarre note which we can’t be sure of whether it is a dream or a reality but the director definitely seems to get his point across to the audience.
There is no chance of releasing this film to the mainstream audience but its larger significance as a major contribution to cinema as an art cannot be ignored.
PS:
Gunda and Gandu are anagrams. This doesn’t mean anything of-course but it sure does increase the cultness of the film :P
