Producer Anurag Kashyap, whose long dream project and directorial debut Paanch (2003) was banned because India’s Censor Board deemed it too dark and vicious to the country’s moral definitions, finally gets to fulfill his dream through “Shaitan.”[break]
Known mostly for critically acclaimed Indian cinemas like No Smoking, Gulaal and Dev D, Kashyap’s Paanch was a film about a group of hard drinking, pot-smoking, wannabe Rock stars who decide to turn rich by kidnapping one of the richest friends among themselves.
Shaitan shares the same storyline and the plot but with different characters, a better screenplay and with better execution and editing.
When it comes to identifying the differences between Kashyap’s Paanch and Shaitan, the only difference is that in Shaitan you don’t get to see bodies chopped off into the pieces, packed inside plastic bags.
Psychologically disturbed Amy (Kalki Koechlin) moves to Mumbai with his NRI father and stepmother. She befriends a gang of young brats, all of them living their lives just for the moment. In the group, KC (Gulshan Devaiya) is the most carefree guy, Dash (Shiv Pandit) is a drug peddler, Tanya (Kirti Kulhari) is a model and aspiring actress, and Zubin (Neil Bhopalam) is a slacker.
All of them come from posh but dysfunctional families, getting them into cocaine, speed driving and ambitionless lives.
While it seems like everything is going great between the friends, one doped and hit-and-run episode changes the structure of their lives for forever.
A corrupt cop asking for a huge ransom and a suspended police inspector (Rajeev Khandelwal) investigating the case gradually add further tensions.
What gives the film its shape is the characters in the film which first-time director Bejoy Nambiar introduces.
What were these young boys doing so far and where were they? You keep asking yourself this question as you get fascinated by this young bunch of actors, most of them new to the celluloid business.
There’s a remarkable work by the characters who badge down the main drama with their dead-on imposture of people you must have never desired to meet, but have faced somewhere in this hustle and bustle of modern reality of life.
One of the strongest points in recent films is the madness of the outdoor locations. Shaitan overwhelms you with the tension of people on the run. The camerawork is constant all the time. The street scenes are very realistic while the sound editing compliments the anxiety that the film develops gradually.
Nambiar also provides enough space for the soundtracks to fit in while he makes sure that they don’t sound exaggerated.
Different issues like that of home, family, young fetishes, anguish, greed and indulgence are explored through the eyes of the five young characters, each of them standing out in their respective ways.
Even teleserial actor Rajeev Khandelwal spares no space to get you the chills and thrills through his one another breakthrough performance.
Some of the scenes are deliberately designed to convey the terror of over-indulgence. But again, the editing has been done so carefully so that nothing seems to you elaborated and unnecessary.
The pace of the film fluctuates with the scenes changing from hypertension to lighter moments. But this does not distract you from the story because there is never a continuity drift as such in the character.
Cinematographer R Madhi and Editor Sreekar Prasad need a special mention for making the cinematic world look real enough, breaking the conventional way of shooting Bollywood cinemas.
Of course, Shaitan is not a film for young audiences, as some of the scenes in the film are too violent, abusive and against the moral fiber.
It’s also not for the dhinka chika lovers. Keep Dev D in mind before you decide to go for the film.
Screening at QFX Cinemas.
The writer is Program Officer at Indian Cultural Centre
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