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While director Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal was facing criticism from all quarters for its perceived glorification of extreme violence and misogyny, with even industry insiders raising concerns about the movie, ace filmmaker Anurag Kashyap surprised everyone by sharing a photo with Vanga, describing him as the “most misunderstood, judged, and reviled” filmmaker. He also hailed the movie, calling it “the biggest game changer of Hindi cinema in the longest time and a film whose impact (good or bad) can’t be denied. And the filmmaker who takes it all on his chin. Great evening spent with him.”
Since then, Kashyap has been frequently questioned about his support for Vanga, even by his daughter Aaliyah Kashyap. Now, the Gangs of Wasseypur director has opened up about the factors that prompted him to meet Vanga. Drawing comparisons to his own experience during the production of Bombay Velvet, Kashyap stated that watching Vanga succeed gave him a sense of satisfaction.
“I like the guy. I have no problem with him. Unlike a lot of people in the industry who pretend to be someone they are not, he is honest. The former kind, I think, is even more toxic. But Vanga is an honest man. I don’t like anything more than honesty, no matter what others’ issues with honesty are. I love talking to him,” he said during a chat with Zoom.
Elaborating on Animal, he said, “No one can deny the impact Animal made. It made the action scenes we had seen in movies before seem fake. It changed so many things in terms of real action scenes, and it was an adult film of three and a half hours. They cut my film Bombay Velvet to two hours and fifty minutes and censored scenes because they were pushing for a U/A certificate. It is my most censored film and Pahlaj Nihalani (the then chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification-CBFC) personally made sure that he cut scenes from it. I got no support. I was under so much pressure during Bombay Velvet about the recovery and opening of the film. But it didn’t feel like mine anymore. I should have been stubborn like Sandeep and fought back to keep my version. You can argue with his creative vision, and he gives space to argue. But what do we do in general? We only attack and cancel people. We don’t discuss or debate.
“Fine, everyone pointed out the bad things… But what about the good things? Why did no one talk about those? After the release of Dev D, people cancelled me. After That Girl in Yellow Boots, when I was still married to Kalki, who played the lead role in the movie, one critic wrote, ‘What kind of husband makes his wife do such a role? God knows what their personal life would be.’ This is the mindset many people have. I have navigated such people.
“I never had a support system. Some called me ‘manhoos‘ and ‘pagal.’ I was easily branded, and I felt so alone and isolated. I felt like everybody was isolating and attacking Sandeep instead of talking to him. My daughter was quite upset when I put up that post about Animal. My friends from the industry were upset, and I called them over to my house, and we had a long discussion about it. I want to call out the hypocrisy of these people who criticised Animal, abused and cancelled the film, and then went and watched it, despite knowing what it’s about, and then double-cancelled it,” he stated.
“Why was everybody only attacking Sandeep for Animal? There were also other men and women who were associated with the project. Also, the film is called ‘Animal,’ not ‘human being.’ Sometimes I feel we have become overly woke. We just form opinions and accuse people,” Kashyap added.
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