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Bombay Velvet, a love story set in post-Independence Bombay opened in theaters May 15. It portrayed a city undergoing dramatic change within the much broader canvas of a nation experiencing rapid urbanization through its crime-ridden, mafia driven underbelly. It drew heavily both from the old black-and-white Indian cinema and period Hollywood gangster don movie genre. Director and co-producer Anurag Kashyap, openly acknowledges these influences in the making of what some consider a new trend in Indian cinema – a subtlety that challenges the ordinary Indian movie-goer to exercise her/his imagination to interpret connections and deal with complex characters and anti-heroes. It also reminds us that India was a global marketplace long before globalization became a sexy metaphor for today’s world. The two-and-a-half hour saga is riveting for Hollywood goers schooled in complex, cameo plot twists, less so for Bollywood fans. Reactions at the theater ranged from “This is a different kind of movie,” “Not as good as Anurag Kashyap’s other movies like Gangs of Wasseypur.”
Kashyap’s film is based on Princeton University history professor Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables. Stars Ranbir Kapoor as Johnny Balraj, Anushka Sharma as Rosie Noronha, Satyadeep Misra as Chimman, Balraj’s loyal childhood friend, and Karan Johar as the suave but crooked mentor, were superb in their lead roles. Kay Kay Menon, the police inspector, Manish Choudhary as Jimmy Mistry, a newspaper magnate, Vivaan Shah as the taxi driver, and Siddhartha Basu as the Mayor, executed well-formed and nuanced supporting roles. Characters with humble beginnings get caught up in the underworld as they strive for fame and fortune. Johnny Balraj aspires to become the “big shot” in the big city he saw in an old James Cagney movie, an unscrupulous killer but also an ardent lover of Rosie Noronha, the girl from Goa who becomes a jazz legend. Through all the twists and turns in the plot, Bombay remains the main character – the emerging megalopolis that determines the fate of the little people.
Box Office receipts for the movie totaled Rupees 5.2 crores on opening day and Rupees 5.10 crores the next day. The film cost around Rupees 120 crores to make. Some would call that a failure.
“It needed more zing,” said one Indian Express review. An “unadulterated beauty on celluloid,” one critic said in India Today magazine. Another described the visual experience as “jaw-droppingly brilliant” even if the storyline meandered and got lost. “And therein lies the problem of the film. It suffers from the spent-so-much-time-on-everything-else-that-lost-sight-of-the-story syndrome, which seems to affect Bollywood every once in a while these days,” it said. But most acknowledged Bombay Velvet “is a film much larger than the sum of its flaws.”
The Hindi press was kinder. Dainik Jagran, the widest circulating Hindi paper, gave it a 4.5 stars out of 5 rating and showered praise on the movie as part of an emerging trend in Bollywood storytelling. “In Bombay Velvet we see Anurag Kashyap’s vision and creativity in several aspects,” said a reviewer on Dainik Jagran, adding, “Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet will be counted among the best films in Hindi cinema. In this film he has achieved a high level of creativity. He has taken Hindi cinema to a new level.”
Desi Talk spoke to Professor Gyan Prakash about his Bollywood experience.
Q: What do you think of the reception Bombay Velvet received from critics?
A: I’m actually disappointed reviews are so mixed because the film was trying to do something different in terms of its storytelling. Unlike the usual Bollywood movie, we thought the audience should be able to connect the dots; that everything doesn’t need to be spelt out. It seems that hasn’t worked, at least for the critics (in English media).
Interestingly, talking to members of the audience, there seems to be a gap between the critics’ views and the general filmgoers I spoke to. Critics seem to feel it’s a big film with big stars and we should have a normal love story. But here we have a main character who is certainly not good, and the heroine is not virginal. It muddies up the critics’ views of the film, and they (pan it) with such glee it’s a little shocking. Almost as if they want the film to fail. Some of it has to do with Anurag Kashyap’s contentious relationship with the industry and media. Hindi reviews on the other hand, have been very positive.
While I take it for granted that there are flaws in the film and something or other could have been done better, nothing like this has been attempted before in Bollywood. And I’m very happy. And reviews and opinions from other countries show the film was well-liked.
Q. How much was your original script changed?
A. Going by my original script which I handed to Anurag in 2009, and the current film, Bombay Velvet has all the characters which were in my script. The basic plot is still there. The dialogue has changed. Anurag Kashyap told me that if we were to go with my original script it would have required four hours in the telling. Some side-roles have been trimmed in the movie.
He streamlined the story and the love story became the anchor. The idea was to show how the big changes in the city affected the lives of the protagonists, their life in a way, fights against these changes, and fails.
Q. How much did Hollywood affect the script and the portrayal?
A. Anurag tried to show how Hollywood affects and impacts even the ambitions of the protagonist (Johnny Balraj). The effect is not only in terms of how the film is made but also in inspiring the characters. In the film-making, it is obviously affected by (Martin) Scorcese. Anurag is very much influenced by cinematography and a global craft. He is not bashful about taking or incorporating from the West. Here it is acknowledged.
Q. This movie-making is a significant departure from your teaching life though you have incorporated Bollywood in your courses. What has Bollywood taught you?
A. The foray into film-making has taught me the importance of popular culture. In my teaching I incorporate it far more than I used to earlier. I include large bits on popular culture when I teach Indian history – how film affects everyday life. In a way, because I was writing about the city, I became aware of the importance of “visuality” – the signboards, the shop windows. Capitalism is aestheticized in the big city. The surface becomes very important. When writing about the city, I was struck by how new immigrants experienced the visuality even in the late 19th century and later. So it was not such a large jump to move to cinema. I could see how cinema becomes part of the urban experience. On the surface it seems like a big jump, but if you think of the work I was doing on Mumbai, it was not. My book is actually a history and not fiction or semi-fiction, but people tended to give it a novelistic interpretation.
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