[Contains spoilers, many of them.]
The most fascinating aspect of Shankar Ramen’s directorial debut, Gurgaon, is its examination of how violence shapes its characters. In a scene at a pub, just before a full-fledged brawl is about to break out on the crowded dance floor, a man, instead of hitting the other, punches the woman he’s dancing with. The woman is understandably traumatized by the incident and wants to leave, but her companion begs her to stay. She doesn’t. In a later scene, he’s in a bathtub with a prostitute in a seedy hotel. Given his reaction to the incident (he batters the other man until he is stopped), we might have thought he is someone who doesn’t like violence to be perpetrated against women. But, unfazed, without batting an eye and without warning, he suffocates the prostitute with a picture of the other woman. We were clearly mistaken.
It does not end here. In a flashback, his father is about to commit murder by taking a pickaxe to his victim. When the axe is brought down in a rather dreadful moment, the father’s blood-caked face carries the same stony determination as his son’s. It’s an interesting moment; it’s the coming-of-age of both father and son in two different eras, but both through murder.
In many ways the characters of Kehri Singh and his son, Nikki, are similar. Kehri Singh is a man who made his bones by killing his kin and grabbing land that did not fully belong to him; Nikki is someone who wishes to do the same. He wants his adopted sister, Preet, clearly the apple of her father’s eye, out of the way. He yearns to become a somebody but he lacks the education and magnetism. She is more sophisticated and measured, letting out secrets to only those she absolutely trusts. He is reckless, craving for a place in the spotlight; she wants to stay out of it. He wants to open an upscale gym on his father’s property, but she casually points out that he got the spelling of ‘powerhouse’ wrong in the pamphlet he made as a sales pitch to his father. He has everything, but he has nothing too. So he spends most of his time driving around with his younger brother and his friend, betting on cricket matches and visiting pubs. His sister, an architect by qualification, spends this time working on a massive real estate project for her father in her office on the property Nikki wanted for his gym.
If Gurgaon’s real estate is a big pie, then Kehri Singh has the biggest piece. The very invocation of his name is enough to seal deals; in one particularly revealing scene, Nikki is about to bet a large amount, but the bookie only accepts his bet when his friend mentions his father. Nikki is living in his father’s shadow and he is looking for ways to get out of it.
This is not the first time a family as dysfunctional and volatile as this has been brought to the Indian screen. We last saw one such family in Kanu Behl’s terrific Titli, a tale about a family of carjackers with tempers who eke out a living by committing petty crimes. Gurgaon's family is wealthier, but they understand violence. The women are rational; the men unreadable, forever in pursuit of power.
And then there’s Gurgaon itself. But in this case it’s not the place that makes the men who they are; it’s the men that make the place what it is. Ramen’s bleak realization of the place lends it an alluring quality. It has a shiny surface but a murky underside. There are people who have everything, and there are also those who have nothing. In one scene, a man who has been hired to kidnap Preet inspects the layout of her project and asks her how she intends to supply the property with water. In an earlier scene, that same man stood in a long queue for water that was brought to his neighborhood in a tanker. It’s an ironic moment where the two worlds within Gurgaon collide in the dark; Preet imagines an upmarket park where the rich will haves their homes and offices, but she encounters a man who thinks progress means a steady supply of water, nothing more.
Like Titli, Gurgaon explores the themes of patriarchy and ambition, and how violence irreversibly seeps into the lives of its characters. Then there’s the violence that none of the main characters inflict, but it’s very much part of the lives of Gurgaon’s residents. In a deeply unsettling scene, we see a tollbooth attendant being taunted with a can of beer. The perpetrator’s face is never seen nor is the attendant’s. A minute later, the hand that carried the can of beer brings out a gun and fires. The killing is as cold as it is impulsive. Ramen uses it to give his world a certain mood. Anything can happen. And ‘anything’ does.
The central characters are developed beautifully. We are revolted by their actions, but are also eager to know what they will do next. Ramen doesn’t oversimplify things; he gives us enough time and background to unravel them ourselves. Nikki doesn’t like the fact that his adopted sister, whom he leaves no opportunity to remind came from a ‘gutter’, will be the heir to their father’s empire. He believes that he’s entitled to that fortune. And as time passes, he finds it increasingly difficult to control his overblown ego. He ticks off a guy who dared to touch his sister. It’s not out of love for her; he simply cannot accept that someone doesn’t fear him enough, as people usually do his father.
Gurgaon slips just when the story needed tidying up. Had it ended fifteen minutes earlier, it would have been a much, much better film. Alas, it doesn’t. It goes on, twisting the story and hammering it out of shape. A character-driven mood piece would have made more sense, and one would have believed it was slowly inching toward it, but Ramen brings the familiar urgency of a thriller to the last fifteen minutes of a film that was, for a large part, a quiet examination of what greed does to the power-hungry. As a result, it leaves us with a feeling that we may have seen this before, and it’s a disappointing feeling. I expected more, but in this case, less.
But it doesn’t take away from the fact that Gurgaon is a stellar debut. With its world-weary characters who have cynicism for a companion, how gently tension is handled here, and an eye for atmospherics, it makes a strong case for the talent of its cast and crew.
[Not For Reproduction]
It does not end here. In a flashback, his father is about to commit murder by taking a pickaxe to his victim. When the axe is brought down in a rather dreadful moment, the father’s blood-caked face carries the same stony determination as his son’s. It’s an interesting moment; it’s the coming-of-age of both father and son in two different eras, but both through murder.
In many ways the characters of Kehri Singh and his son, Nikki, are similar. Kehri Singh is a man who made his bones by killing his kin and grabbing land that did not fully belong to him; Nikki is someone who wishes to do the same. He wants his adopted sister, Preet, clearly the apple of her father’s eye, out of the way. He yearns to become a somebody but he lacks the education and magnetism. She is more sophisticated and measured, letting out secrets to only those she absolutely trusts. He is reckless, craving for a place in the spotlight; she wants to stay out of it. He wants to open an upscale gym on his father’s property, but she casually points out that he got the spelling of ‘powerhouse’ wrong in the pamphlet he made as a sales pitch to his father. He has everything, but he has nothing too. So he spends most of his time driving around with his younger brother and his friend, betting on cricket matches and visiting pubs. His sister, an architect by qualification, spends this time working on a massive real estate project for her father in her office on the property Nikki wanted for his gym.
If Gurgaon’s real estate is a big pie, then Kehri Singh has the biggest piece. The very invocation of his name is enough to seal deals; in one particularly revealing scene, Nikki is about to bet a large amount, but the bookie only accepts his bet when his friend mentions his father. Nikki is living in his father’s shadow and he is looking for ways to get out of it.
This is not the first time a family as dysfunctional and volatile as this has been brought to the Indian screen. We last saw one such family in Kanu Behl’s terrific Titli, a tale about a family of carjackers with tempers who eke out a living by committing petty crimes. Gurgaon's family is wealthier, but they understand violence. The women are rational; the men unreadable, forever in pursuit of power.
And then there’s Gurgaon itself. But in this case it’s not the place that makes the men who they are; it’s the men that make the place what it is. Ramen’s bleak realization of the place lends it an alluring quality. It has a shiny surface but a murky underside. There are people who have everything, and there are also those who have nothing. In one scene, a man who has been hired to kidnap Preet inspects the layout of her project and asks her how she intends to supply the property with water. In an earlier scene, that same man stood in a long queue for water that was brought to his neighborhood in a tanker. It’s an ironic moment where the two worlds within Gurgaon collide in the dark; Preet imagines an upmarket park where the rich will haves their homes and offices, but she encounters a man who thinks progress means a steady supply of water, nothing more.
Like Titli, Gurgaon explores the themes of patriarchy and ambition, and how violence irreversibly seeps into the lives of its characters. Then there’s the violence that none of the main characters inflict, but it’s very much part of the lives of Gurgaon’s residents. In a deeply unsettling scene, we see a tollbooth attendant being taunted with a can of beer. The perpetrator’s face is never seen nor is the attendant’s. A minute later, the hand that carried the can of beer brings out a gun and fires. The killing is as cold as it is impulsive. Ramen uses it to give his world a certain mood. Anything can happen. And ‘anything’ does.
The central characters are developed beautifully. We are revolted by their actions, but are also eager to know what they will do next. Ramen doesn’t oversimplify things; he gives us enough time and background to unravel them ourselves. Nikki doesn’t like the fact that his adopted sister, whom he leaves no opportunity to remind came from a ‘gutter’, will be the heir to their father’s empire. He believes that he’s entitled to that fortune. And as time passes, he finds it increasingly difficult to control his overblown ego. He ticks off a guy who dared to touch his sister. It’s not out of love for her; he simply cannot accept that someone doesn’t fear him enough, as people usually do his father.
Gurgaon slips just when the story needed tidying up. Had it ended fifteen minutes earlier, it would have been a much, much better film. Alas, it doesn’t. It goes on, twisting the story and hammering it out of shape. A character-driven mood piece would have made more sense, and one would have believed it was slowly inching toward it, but Ramen brings the familiar urgency of a thriller to the last fifteen minutes of a film that was, for a large part, a quiet examination of what greed does to the power-hungry. As a result, it leaves us with a feeling that we may have seen this before, and it’s a disappointing feeling. I expected more, but in this case, less.
But it doesn’t take away from the fact that Gurgaon is a stellar debut. With its world-weary characters who have cynicism for a companion, how gently tension is handled here, and an eye for atmospherics, it makes a strong case for the talent of its cast and crew.
[Not For Reproduction]
