{"id":3275,"date":"2016-06-27T20:22:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T14:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3275"},"modified":"2016-06-27T20:22:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T14:52:38","slug":"gunda-20-years-kanti-shah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3275","title":{"rendered":"20 Years of Gunda: Can We Finally Agree the Film is a Work of Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p><\/div>

n his review for Tommy Wiseau\u2019s 2003 film, <\/span>The Room<\/span><\/i>, critic Scott Foundas wrote that it \u201cprompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back\u201d. A decade and a half later, <\/span>The Disaster Artist<\/span><\/i>, a film on the making of <\/span>The Room<\/span><\/i>, earned a nod for the <\/span>Oscars<\/span><\/a> and won its lead, James Franco a <\/span>Golden Globe<\/span><\/a>. The tide had suddenly changed: From being a film that almost everyone had ignored or had demolished, people were now inexplicably warming up to <\/span>The Room\u2019s<\/span><\/i> eccentricities<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> And even acknowledging its appeal while fervently rewatching it \u2013 watching it with affection rather than disgust. <\/span>\n\nCloser home, a similar situation unfolded 20 years ago: India disregarded the release of one of its own oddities, Kanti Shah\u2019s vigilante action and justice starrer <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i>. Over the years, <\/span>Gunda\u2019s<\/span><\/i> over-the-top shenanigans have earned it the status of India\u2019s <\/span>The Room<\/span><\/i>. Considering the appetite for excess that we now display in our<\/span> popular culture<\/span><\/a>, can we all agree that perhaps it\u2019s time <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> should also be considered a work of art?<\/span>\n\nJust like <\/span>The Room<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Gunda\u2019<\/span><\/i>s popularity was neither sudden nor orchestrated by its makers; instead it rose gradually, hopping along <\/span>laptop screens<\/span><\/a> in countless engineering colleges that dot India. When I\u2019d watched it 10 years ago in mine, <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> was touted as the film you couldn\u2019t finish. I never did. Even after 20 attempts, I haven\u2019t gotten through to the film\u2019s end. Not because it is grating or leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, but because it overwhelms me with its earnestness, it\u2019s honest-to-god belief in its ridiculousness.<\/span>\n\nShah\u2019s <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> is a standard one-good-man-against-all-evil kind of film, where its hero \u2014 both through his <\/span>morality<\/span><\/a> and personal happenstance \u2014 closes (murders) each chapter of the evil tome he finds himself the protagonist (and victim) of. Think a poor man\u2019s <\/span>V for Vendetta<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span>\n\n

It\u2019s natural to laugh at Gunda, and rarely with it. Its ludicrousness is like a handicap it cannot (and perhaps never intended to) overcome.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nOn one hand, <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> should probably be classified as a poor film \u2014 a rancorously juvenile concoction of shoddy imagery that zips together the blunt edges of unimpeachable dialogue. But on the other, Shah\u2019s faith in his own imagination and most crucially, the locus of his broad view highlight a certain kind of <\/span>honesty<\/span><\/a>. In an era where directors became travel agents and <\/span>multiplexes<\/span><\/a> chose to cater to the affluent middle-classes, that a man in <\/span>Mumbai<\/span><\/a> decided to make a film so abstract, so unsubtle, and so brutally on-the-nose, is evidence of heart, if nothing else.<\/span>\n\nGunda<\/span><\/i> did not rise to fame on the back of its ineptness alone. Its first 15 minutes are a perilously unsentimental montage of real <\/span>goons<\/span><\/a> introducing themselves with statuesque couplets \u2014 the kind of one-liners you cannot unhear. Be it Ibu Hatela announcing his lineage as \u201cMaa meri chudail ki beti\u201d or a version of a trans-person, Shakti Kapoor eating something called \u201cVitamin Sex\u201d. In a way,<\/span> Gunda\u2019s<\/span><\/i> popularity is also a nod to its originality and its unwillingness to become embedded in a culture that runs on pretence. Had <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> tried to be the ocean that touches every shore, it would be as indistinct as each lie we tell ourselves; like the many inoffensive, milquetoast films <\/span>Bollywood<\/span><\/a> offers as an excuse for its offscreen indecency. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s natural to laugh at <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i>, and rarely with it. Its ludicrousness is like a <\/span>handicap<\/span><\/a> it cannot (and perhaps never intended to) overcome. But while we roar at its preposterousness, there are tiny prophecies the film echoes that go further than most people give it credit for. <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> coined wondrous labels like \u201cqafan-chor neta\u201d or pearls of wisdom like \u201cAajkal netagiri aur dadagiri ek hi baap ke do harami aulaad hain.\u201d Which one of us, at one point or the other, has not held a similar opinion? <\/span>\n\nGunda<\/span><\/i> also affords us a more literal translation of <\/span>reality<\/span><\/a>. Of course it is deeply misogynistic \u2013 the film\u2019s villains <\/span>rape<\/span><\/a> women after declaring that they will. But in an age where hate-speech is a potent cannon and rape the weapon of collective masculinity, can we blame Shah\u2019s villains for looking a lot like India\u2019s men?<\/span>\n\nThen there\u2019s the mysteriousness of the film\u2019s director to contend with: Shah has never agreed to interviews; I have tried to contact him to no avail. There are stories of the <\/span>Deol<\/span><\/a> brothers beating him and other loose ends scattered across unverified anecdotes on the internet, but very little is known about the man himself. Perhaps, Shah is wise enough to know that it isn\u2019t his life or his opinions that the world anticipates, but his inanity. A world that is waiting to discover just how big of a joker the man really is. After all, anything less would be misjudgement, even in an age where anything qualifies as <\/span>poetry<\/span><\/a>, music, and a talent worthy of fame.<\/span>\n\nAt its heart, <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i> remains a joyous journey of one man\u2019s idea of cinema and his devotion to it. As we\u2019ve witnessed, films that are comparatively frivolous in both intent and spirit are generously heralded as blockbusters because they play safe. Unlike <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i>. Shah may have descended into oblivion since <\/span>Gunda<\/span><\/i>, but the film will continue to be seen as a homage to his own eccentricity and individualism. When has a work of art warranted anything else? \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its heart, Kanti Shah\u2019s Gunda, remains a joyous journey of one man’s idea of cinema and his devotion to it. Considering the appetite for excess that we now display in our popular culture, isn’t it time Gunda is appreciated for its ingenuity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":3276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[6382,141,6383,6384],"class_list":["post-3275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-20-years-of-gunda","tag-bollywood","tag-gunda","tag-kanti-shah"],"yoast_head":"\n20 Years of Gunda: Can We Finally Agree the Film is a Work of Art?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At its heart, Kanti Shah\u2019s Gunda, remains a joyous journey of one man's idea of cinema and his devotion to it. 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