Looking In,Looking Out

Right now he’s got,in his own words,one foot in Bollywood,one outside. Exactly what,I ask him,is he up to? He’s arrived at the 65th annual Cannes festival happily having ruffled feathers back home,after being quoted in a newspaper supplement that “Bollywood never supported me”. What was that about? First off,he says,he was misquoted. I look sceptical,and he explains,“I meant that till I made Dev D,I never got any support”. After that,things were different. Big studios reached out to him. But even now,he says,he gets support only when he’s made his film (with the exception of Viacom 18,the producers of Gangs Of Wasseypur),and it’s got good reviews outside,not while he’s making it. Which is why,he says,he comes to Cannes,and goes everywhere else. “Because I get more understanding outside than I do back home. My survival and longevity depends upon it.”

Back in the ’70s and ’80s too,there were filmmakers trying to do their own thing,outside of Hindi cinema’s tightly controlled star and studio system. But there were no takers for those films outside art house theatres and film festivals. Of all the newer gen filmmakers working currently,which would include Vishal Bhardwaj,Dibakar Banerjee,and Imtiaz Ali,the most often heard voice is that of Kashyap’s. For his kind of cinema,he has learnt,outside is as important,if not more so,than inside.

The “outside support” that he talks about is evident during the first screening of his two-part lengthy gangland opus,Gangs Of Wasseypur (part of the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes). I stay all the way through,and at the end of more than six hours (with a 20 minute break) the theatre is full of claps and cheers. A lot of the noise comes from the youthful,dressed-to-the-nines,accessorised-by-striped-red-gamchas Wasseypur gang,making up more than three riotous rows,but there is audible appreciation from the other delegates and critics who’ve fetched up to see Anurag Kashyap’s new offering. How it will fare back home is a matter of conjecture,though (the first part of Wasseypur releases end June).

He was at Cannes two years back with Udaan,directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and produced by him. Having seen the strength of the market here,teeming with global sales agents hungry for new content,he knows that cracking Cannes is crucial. Even a chink here opens up the kind of markets he’s dreaming of,for the deeply individualistic films being made under his banner,Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt Limited (AKFPL). Vasan Bala’s quirky slice-of-Mumbai,Peddlers,gets an outing a day ahead of Wasseypur,at Cannes sidebar Critic’s Week.

Is he looking outside because there is little room for him at home? “The NRI market is even more conservative than the one in India. What we are searching for is the non-diaspora market which has no appetite for the song-and-dance Bollywood. My films,and the ones that are being made by others like me are dark and edgy,with radical subjects,and cater to a very different sensibility”.

“Dark and edgy” is where he started from,with his debut unreleased feature,Paanch. And those are the twin adjectives routinely trotted out to describe his work since,from Black Friday,to No Smoking to Gulal to Dev D to That Girl In Yellow Boots. Dev D was an outstanding piece of work,Black Friday was a good effort,the rest were patchy movies,but there was never any doubt that Kashyap’s voice was his own. Is he forever going to be stuck in this zone? He can only make films in this zone,he says,the one he’s most comfortable in. Not horror,though he loves watching it. But pulp,crime,thrillers,those are what he grew up reading,in journals like Manohar Kahaniyan,and Satyakatha.

He grew up in tiny UP towns,which haven’t changed since the ’70s. Anpara,Tanda,Obra (“the boys still sing out O bra,bra,like boys will,to the tune of O Priya,Priya,remember that song?”),where there were no cinema halls,only video parlours,with scratchy tapes to be lent out for home viewing. The closest theatre was in Lucknow which ran films of Dharmendra,Jeetendra and Amitabh. He was awestruck. The actors were no less than superheroes,and the people who made them magicians. “The day I discovered I could do the same thing,I ran away to Bombay”.

But he has kept close to his roots,to which he has returned with Gangs… And that’s what stood him in good stead all the while he tried finding his feet in Bombay,“working for free” for whoever would give him writing or acting gigs,running away for succour and a meal to the St Xavier’s hostel to Delhi buddy Imtiaz Ali’s room. Food and water were cadged along the way,thanks to actor Prashant Narayanan’s “ability to make instant girl-friends”. He also met up with “my closest support system Zoya” and Farhan,around this same time,as well as the movie-mad gang of Sriram and Sridhar Raghavan,Shiv Subramaniam,Shivam Nair,Abbas Tyrewala,Kamal Swaroop (his “writing teacher” who made one of the most original,whacked-out Indian films called Om Dar-Ba-Dar). It was also around then,in 1993-94,that he met Manoj Bajpai,whom he was a fan of,and who led him to Ram Gopal Varma,and his big breakthrough,Satya.

His progress,after Satya,is well known. Everyone wanted to see what this voluble young man,with a theatre background (Delhi’s Jan Natya Manch) and who clearly had the gift of telling stories and writing dialogues,would do next. For a long time,Kashyap seemed to have got caught in the same cleft a lot of maverick talent does: between a rock and very hard Bollywood place. But then Dev D came out (“I made it like this: you want a commercial love story with 15 songs? Lo,yeh lo”),and became a hit,Kashyap was on the way up,even if all the other offers he got were to make more of the same.

Which is exactly how his production house AKFPL came about. To give himself,and others like him (at any given time,his office is a throng of potential filmmakers,all talking film) a space to showcase their voices.

So does he give chances only to his band of fanboys,who colonise his office and social networking sites,and defend his work tooth and nail? They are not fanboys,he says,they are people who come to him with fresh ideas to seek a secure place where they can make their film without interference. “They fight with me,and trash me all the time”. But isn’t that typical fanboy behaviour? No,he says. “All these people who are working with me have the freedom to say anything to me. I don’t want to turn into another Ramu (Ram Gopal Varma,with whom he’s shared a tumultuous history),so I’ve surrounded myself with these people who are free to laugh on my face”.

If he is such a votary of the small individual film,then how come Phantom,his other company (where he partners with Madhu Mantena,Vikas Bahl and Vikramaditya Motwane) is busy announcing projects with big stars? What is the difference between him and other studios then? Sure,Phantom will make films with big budgets and big stars,he says,but with directors who have vision. He is also helping create content for television,as well as “working like a whore making advertisements” to fund the films he wants to make. And working on a superhero graphic novel in Hindi.

Up next are two biggies. Bombay Velvet (with Ranbir Kapoor) and Doga (not cast yet),the first a look at a yesteryear Bombay “in which Danny Boyle is helping me in spirit and in other ways”,and “Doga,which will be like an Indian Dark Knight.” As well as a clutch of small films which will include a non-Hindi slate (Bangla,Tamil,Malayalam and Marathi films). For which he is moving and shaking,here at Cannes. Raising money. Talking up a storm. Opening spaces. Small town boy,about to be 40 later this year,finding his place.

Varun GroverI am lined up right at a strategic exit from where the talent goes in and out of the Grand Palais (the site of the festival,but you already knew that). About to emerge is Brad Pitt and the other cast and crew of Killing Them Softly,one of the competition films. I am late for the press conference,the room is full up,we catch it on the big television screens scattered about in this main venue,with its theatres,the press room with never a sofa or a chair empty,and a terrace with a sparkling view of the sea where the photo-calls take place. Every where you look,eternal gorgeous woman Marilyn Monroe looks back at you,postergirl of the 65th edition of the Cannes film festival.

Those who can’t get in,stand out. Which is what I am doing,but hoping like all the others like me,that when the stars come out,Brad will turn towards me,and only me,and smile,and say something. As it turns out,I am perfectly positioned. He walks in front of a knot of people,golden Jesus locks brushing his shoulders. Looking every inch very Brad. He’s so close I can reach out and touch him. I yell out,but my voice is drowned by all the other shouts. They are taller,louder,and in the crush my phone falls to the ground. Still,I get my Brad moment. Right there in my head.

Here at Cannes,the world’s biggest,most glamorous film festival,with 100 feet yachts bobbing tantalising close to the Riviera shoreline stretching from Nice at one end to Monte Carlo at another,it is entirely possible to spend the whole time star gazing. And if you are lucky,you will spot several,even if you are not part of the media,which would be us with our badges,which lets us into theatres ahead of the throng,and the press hangout,exclusively our preserve,with free espresso shots and water on tap. Not still,but sparkling.

I spot Tilda Swinton and Bruce Willis. But that’s a view everyone else has,because it is opening night,and they are inaugurating the red carpet (their film Moonrise Kingdom opened the fest). Tilda is tall,elegant and ethereal. Willis looks much older than he did in his last picture. Freida Pinto is there too,holding up the Indian flag,and looking eminently red-carpet worthy. She has,without making a single big Bollywood film,become our hottest export to Hollywood. This must make our home grown lovelies quite envious,including perennial Cannes darling Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

I could go on about the rest of the beautiful people,but that would be at the cost of the movies that fill up the day. The film that I take away most strongly is Michael Haneke’s searing Amour,about love,life,old age and impending death. I predict,like so many others who watch in shaken,teary silence,that it would come away with laurels (And it does take the Palme d’Or,to no one’s surprise). Though it is not as powerful as his previous 4 Months,3 Weeks,and 2 Days,I also manage to catch Cristian Mungiu’s astonishing Beyond The Hills,based on a true story.

The rest of the days are filled with meetings,interviews,and screenings,rushing from my cosy hotel just behind the Rue de Antibes to the crowded Croisette,for which I pass through a delectable farmer’s market laden with different kind of cheeses and olives and preserves. But there’s never enough time to stop and stare,because the next film is always 10 minutes away,and the queue is usually very long.

But I almost always get in because though this festival’s scale is mind boggling,everything is beautifully organised. The inside of the Grand Palais resembles that of the Rajiv Chowk metro station in Delhi at peak hour,but the chaos is orderly. And when you step out,almost invariably to a drizzle (this year has been the wettest Cannes regulars remember),there are swish looking people waiting to accost you for spare tickets.

The floor below has the bustling market. This is where the buying and selling is initiated,and it carries over into the pavilions that dot the beach: each country has its flag as the marker. The India pavilion is there too,and a very busy hive it is,all through the festival.

As evening falls,everyone spills out to the welcoming cafes on the sidewalks. Crisp salad,the most divine thin crust pizza,fresh falafel and hummus time. Teamed,of course,with a glass of red. I snatch a moment to slow down,and smile back at Marilyn.