Gangubai Kathiawadi Movie Review: The Kamathi-opera!

Gangubai KathiawadiDir Sanjay Leela BhansaliCast Alia Bhatt Ajay Devgn Indira TiwariRating 35Really when was the last time you saw practically an underworld film as a feminine story or indeed the mafia as a feminine genre Which explains a largely women audience in the first day first day show FDFS of Gangubai Kathiawadi in the theatre Irsquom at And thatrsquos rareSurely there was Godmother 1999 similarly inspired by a Gujarati mafia queen Santokben Jadeja starring Shabana Azmi More recently Vidya Balan as the tough head of a brothel protecting it from the world outside in an equally period film Begum Jaan 2017Neither matches the sheer scale of Gangubai of course And you sort of knew this before stepping into the cinema That even for its minimalist setting it was going to be Shyam Benegalrsquos Mandi 1983 raised to the power of Sanjay Leela Bhansali SLBmdashan overthetop dramatisation of an underworld in the margins of Mumbai built entirely inside a studio mixed with measured melodrama mujra and musicThis is Broadwaystyle mass theatrical entertainment before a camera in a way that Bhansali has consistently pulled off over two and half decades regardless of the script Most directors lose it along the wayAs screenwriter music composer director he continues to imbue this scale with a personalauteur touch still Enough to dedicate this film among others to his late dog with a picture Lady Popo That frame onwards of course itrsquos up to youmdashSLB world mein rahunga mein ghar nahi jaaonga mein Or the oppositeEither way I see no Indian filmmaker who does this genre with as much conviction hence as convincingly Even the general ward of a government hospital looks like you wouldnrsquot mind moving into The Falkland Street isnrsquot only grime either You either go with the flow or donrsquotThe only difference being unlike Bhansalirsquos filmography thus farmdashand the partfable Padmaavat 2018 doesnrsquot quite countmdashGangubai Kathiawadi is based on a real person Adapted from a 30page doublespaced chapter The Matriarch of Kamathipura in the book Mafia Queens of Mumbai by journalists S Hussain Zaidi also associate producer here and my superwriter colleague Jane BorgesI intentionally didnrsquot read that book in case it unnecessarily messes with the movie experience That said there is a legit debate to be had over how much you can fictionalise a more contemporary life without changing namesEven while Gangubai from the 1950s60s appears as herself the don who was her mentor at the time Karim Lalamdashsomewhat immortalised by Pran in Zanjeer 1973mdashshows up as lsquoRaheemrsquo Lala Ajay Devgn behaving a bit like Malik from CompanyAttributing a film to a true account even if it isnrsquot altogether adds a totally another layer of authenticity for an audience in a way that nothing else can At least the major events from Gangubairsquos biomdashthe explosive speech delivered among social workers of a hypocritically polite society or meeting the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to represent the cause of sex workersmdashare indeed widely reportedNow Irsquom not gonna match the image of the actual Gangubai with a large red bindi in the centre of her forehead with Alia Bhatt who plays the ldquojagat jorurdquo universal wife on screen wholly shouldering the film along with the business and politics of Mumbairsquos redlight district in this KamathioperaTo be fair Bhattrsquos frameface doesnrsquot look like one as hardened by the passage of graceless time The desidaru derringdo brashness is slightly understated She does come into her own with sufficient screentime thoughmdashenough to remain an able conduit to the story being toldWhich is quite straightforward if you ask memdashof a girl from Gujaratrsquos Kathiawad thrown into a Bombay brothel at young age under the pretext of starring with Dev Anand in Bollywood Thereon this isnrsquot quite a ldquofemjeprdquo female in jeopardy flick masquerading as feminism Itrsquos about an ambitious Gangubai taking life by the horn and driving it on a fancy car wherever she likes Of which I donrsquot know how much of it is accurateThe bigger issue with merging BhansaliBollywood fantasy with fact is that the treatment must allow as much time for the storytelling as well tightness suffersmdashmaking this seem a movie scene after scene after songs thatrsquos much longer than it should be And yet itrsquos the aesthetically choreographed sequencesmdashevery moment of itmdashthat raise the barWhether itrsquos the petite Bhatt introducing herself to an empathetic reporter Jim Sarbh ldquoYou journalist me prostituterdquo Or the old brothel ldquogharwalirdquolsquomadamrsquo Seema Pahwa lying in bed filling up the screenAs with similarly simple conversational moments that through framing alone look equally larger than life Or some crisp dialoguewriting on a brothel being next to a schoolmdashif the latter hasnrsquot had any influence on the former why would the reverse be trueBehind of all this is a deeply liberal worldview on respect for people and their professions even if itrsquos the worldrsquos oldest Everyonersquos selling something anyway In the front of it is a pleasure that almost wholly matches your expectations

Gangubai Kathiawadi Movie Review: The Kamathi-opera!

Gangubai Kathiawadi
Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn, Indira Tiwari
Rating: 3/5

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Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / Gangubai Kathiawadi Movie Review: The Kamathi-opera!

Gangubai Kathiawadi Movie Review: The Kamathi-opera!

Gangubai KathiawadiDir: Sanjay Leela BhansaliCast: Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn, Indira TiwariRating: 3/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Gangubai Kathiawadi
Dir: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn, Indira Tiwari
Rating: 3/5