GoW

Let me start by talking about another movie, there are so many contrasts between them yet I feel their impact on us is going to be similar.
Sholay. Critics panned the movie when it was released and yet it went on to become one of the highest grossing movie of all times.
GoW is a darling of the critics will not do anywhere as good as Sholay at the box office, but just like Sholay it will be watched many times. Both are movies that will be remembered for their lines, will be watched many times by fans, so much so that people will forward to the lines or scenes that they want to hear/see.

The Villain who hates Bollywood and tells his son “बेटा, तुमसे ना हो पाएगा। मुझे तुम्हारे लक्शन बिलकुल थीक नाही लग रहे।”
“िबधायक को कुट कर”
“में तो समझता था कि में बच्चन हंु, अांख खुलि तो पाता चला कि बच्चन तो कोेइ ओर है। मंे तो शशि कपुर हुं।” (I think refering to another Bollywoord blockbuster ‘Trishul’).

The acting is par excellence, The way Siddiqui has enacted the transformation of Faizal Khan from a drug addict, unsure, fumbling kid to a feared don is simply amazing, In the middle of GoW-2 you suddenly wonder if this is the same kid from GoW-1.

To me these two movies are at the extreme ends of story telling in Indian Cinema. Both are stories of revenge. In Sholay the revenge is planned and executed. In GoW, people wait for an appropriate opportunity and when it comes the revenge is spontaneous and violent. And in between life continues, people work, quarrel, die, cook, fall in love, marry etc… Both had directors who wanted to do something different. One started of as a four-line story; the other is based on 60 years of history.
In Sholay you are not surprised when a song suddenly appears in the middle of all the action (because the you expect it). After watching GoW when you look for a particular song you liked, you are surprised to find that there are 10-12 other songs in the movie, you don’t remember them because they blend in with the storyline. The songs continue the narrative. They are just at the right time.

I can go on writing about the songs.
“तेरी कह के लूंगा”. (I am going to tell you and then screw you).
“Womaniya”
“इक बगल में चाँद होगा इक बगल में रोटियां।”

The women in the movie are not the gym going women that you see in most of the other movies. Sardar Khan may be a bahu bali to the world, but at home it is Najma Khatoom who rules. There is a line where Sardar Khan tells his eldest son “Ramadhir Singh could not raise a finger against me” (the actual line in Hindi is much more colourful) “but your mom, she will fry my heart in oil.”
Faizal Khan’s strength is his wife. Who inspires him when he is down and out.

I am reminded of a line from the book, ‘Agony and Ecstasy’, which is a fictional account of Michaelangelo’s life. In the book, when Leonardo Da Vinci (the other great artist of that era) visits the Vatican to see Michaelangelo’s creation, he says “The painter, after he studies your ceiling, must take care not to become wooden through too strong an emphasis on bone, muscle and sinews. … What do painters do, when they try to go beyond you?”. It is the same with GoW, anyone who makes an attempt to make a movie that feels more real than GoW will simply fail, and will have, at the most have created a copy.
It’s not that there have not been realistic movies in the past. Sehar, Apaharan, Rajneeti, Hasil etc… but all these have something missing in them. You, the audience are not part of the movie, The movie is running on the screen, you are watching. In GoW you find yourself wanting to wash yourself of all the soot from the coal mines where Shahid Khan works. You are on the street where Sultan Qureshi is murdered. You duck when Salman Qureshi throws a piece of गोश्त at you. You find yourself fanning away the smoke from Faizal’s चिलम.

Finally, There has been a gap of almost 40 years between Sholay and GoW. I hope I don’t have to wait that much for the next game changer.