Anurag Kashyap needs no introduction as he has cemented himself as one of the most globally renowned filmmakers from India. With multiple movies being screened at Cannes and opening up the Indian Netflix space with the drama series Sacred Games, Kashyap continues to experiment over the decades. He has definitely come a long way as a screenwriter and director considering that his debut film Paanch was denied a release by the censor board.
But Kashyap has flirted with controversy time and again, thanks to the extreme violence and explicit language that adorn most of his filmography. And yet none of this gritty content is used for shock value. Be it with Black Friday or Dev.D or No Smoking, Kashyap has subverted mainstream Bollywood with unabashedly bold artistic experiments.
A Master of Indian Crime
Starting out as a writer and assistant director under crime genre veteran Ram Gopal Varma, Kashyap’s destiny lay with the crime genre. While Gangs of Wasseypur duology found him exploring real-world gang wars of India’s coal-mining regions, Black Friday
details the police investigation that followed the 1993 terrorist bomb blasts in Mumbai. He has succeded in creating some morally grey heroes (and antiheroes) in neo-noirs like Ugly, Raman Raghav 2.0, and his most recent effort Kennedy (which still awaits an Indian theatrical release as of now).
In each of these cases, Kashyap gets drawn from actual crime cases and tries to dig deeper into the mentality of the criminals as well as the authorities. This results in some of the most nuanced crime thrillers and character studies in contemporary Indian cinema.
Surrealist Bollywood experiments
Merely stereotyping Anurag Kashyap as an arthouse director will be redundant to his multi-genre work. But still, it’s undeniable that Kashyap was toying around with surrealism at a time when it wasn’t that mainstream in Bollywood. This would explain some of his movies that were unanimously considered to be too ahead of their times.
A prime example is No Smoking which starred John Abraham in one of his most unconventional roles as a nicotine-addicted insomaniac who goes down a cerebral path of deaddiction. The Kafkaesque thriller also proves how Kashyap gets inspiration from anywhere and everywhere. No Smoking is an adaptation of Quitters Inc, one of Stephen King’s lesser-known short stories.
Dev.D, Kashyap’s tragicomic take on the classic Hindi novel Devdas, similarly offered a bizarrely fresh take on the tale of a self-destructive, heartbroken drunkard. The Abhay Deol-starrer doesn’t just showcase Kashyap’s tendency to create unforgettable brutes for heroes but also his ability to experiment with music. Amit Trivedi’s psychedelic soundtrack for Dev.D, complete with the strange breakdance routines that accompany it, was equally influential in making it a cult classic.
Why Gangs of Wasseypur is Anurag Kashyap’s best movie?
Released in two parts but conceived as a single entity, Gangs of Wasseypur is quintessential Kashyap. The premise of warring factions in the titular North Indian town could have been formulaic but in Kashyap’s hands, it turns into a compelling family saga that has a fair balance of jarring violence and chuckle-worthy humour. Offering career-best performances from Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Gangs of Wasseypur struck a chord between the most mainstream Bollywood audiences as well as the niche film festival crowds. Forget everyone, even Kashyap’s own idol Martin Scorsese loved it!
Where can you stream Anuraug Kashyap’s filmography?
Some of Anurag Kashyap’s movies like the pandemic thriller Choked and his segments for Lust Stories and Ghost Stories are Netflix originals while some others can be streamed on Lionsgate Play and ZEE5.
