Paanch

I saw Anurag Kashyap's Paanch at the Cinefan Film Festival, 2002. It was clearly one of the best movies of the festival, on par with movies like Hero and Osama.

The story depicts what ambition, immorality, greed and angst, unmistakably the products of urban life, can do to an ordinary person. A little mischief for the sake of success leads a group of 5 wannabe rock stars to get entangled in a gory web of murder and betrayal.

What follows is a shocking thriller of a story, supported aptly by some great performances, the best coming from Kay Kay Menon and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The movie has a great musical score by Vishal Bhardwaj. The songs, most of which Kashyap interestingly uses up in the first 15 minutes, are brilliant. So is the background music. Another high point of the movie is the cinematography, which impresses upon the viewer an aura of fast-paced urbanity juxtaposed with dark, ruthless bloodshed. If there's a low point in the movie, it is the few minutes after the interval where which seem ineffective and dragged. However, they are easily outweighed by the compelling tension and gloom that permeate the movie.

Clever, brilliant, yet utterly pessimistic, Paanch is strongly recommended.

7.5/10

I had heard so much about this movie for the last 5-6 years that I thought this would be a letdown. Usually over-hyped movies are such that you feel that you were letdown by it. I finally got hold of it and I can say that Paanch is arguably one of the best crime thrillers the Hindi film industry has produced.

I cannot fathom the reason why the government would ban this, (probably because this movie would attain cult status and dissuade the youth of today to smoke and drink and waste their time....) but in this movie we have one of the greatest acting performance by an actor, one of the best soundtracks ever made in the history of Bollywood, and one helluva movie. The movie theme will remind you of Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting, only Paanch has a thriller plot apart from based on the systematic destruction of human morals.

The plot is fairly simple. Its about 5 people who are struggling musicians. They play at nightclubs and concerts for cheap cash, but most of it is spent on marijuana, drugs and booze. They are all college dropouts and have almost no connections with their relatives. They live under one roof, practice in a vacant garage of one of their friends(their only friend!!).

The movie continues at leisurely pace until they have an idea to kidnap their friend and ask for a fat ransom from his rich dad. But all goes haywire when one of them in a fit of rage kills their friend. Things turn for the worse when to cover up one murder they go on a killing spree. In the end, all five of them are behind bars, and in a gradual degradation of all morals.

This movie, if and when it comes out will primarily be remembered for the immensely powerful acting performance of one Kay Kay Menon. His performance is bound to remind you of Brad Pitt in Fight Club as the legendary Tyler Dyrden. K.K's music will make you take a jacket and go out to the nearest music store and buy the Original Soundtrack of this movie ASAP!! Paanch is the movie where one can say Bollywood came of age and we had proper rock music.

There are only three songs in the movie, one a bluesy track "Kya din kya raat" one that will remind you of the classic jazz of the 40's, the psychedelic themed "Tu Jaa Maat" meant to remind you Cobain and the rock track "Khuda ke Liye" which will remind you of "Rock On!!" only it was 5 years earlier.. Even The Doors' "Roadhouse Blues" was an awesome addition!!!

The acting performances have been superb. Kay Kay Menon was brilliant as "Luke" as I mentioned earlier, and he has been brilliantly supported by the very impressive Aditya Srivastava as "Murgi", Joy Fernandes as "Joy" and Vijay Maurya as the hilarious "Pondy" Even Tejaswini Kolhapure as "Shiuli" the only chick in the movie does a decent job. Sharat Saxena is also impressive in his short role as the Police Inspector.

Lastly, Mr.Anurag Kashyap!!! This was his very first attempt behind the camera. It was his brainchild. He being the producer and writer as well. But kudos to the man, for giving us yet another cinematic pleasure. Thank you sir, and I hope you make more of similar movies and keep us people who are fans of non-mainstream movies satisfied.

A truly well deserved 10/10 !!!

Saw Paanch at Osian's at Siri Fort Audi no 4 in 2003..hop and skip distance from my erstwhile home.I,along with others in the Audi witnessed something that could and should have changed the landscape of Indian cinema had it released in its stipulated period.Period!

As the opening credits rolled I started to feel overwhelmed by the visuals..expectation began to rise.It had been a long time that so much of effort had gone into the start of a movie.It sets the tone for what is to come.This movie is real and still not in your face.The characters,dialogues and scheme of things are so spontaneous that you start to think yourself being a part of the film/scheme/plot as a mute character/spectator.

Lets talk about the characters/actors:

Luke(K.K. Menon): I have no words to describe him.One actually can see the Devil/Lucifer/Belial in him in certain scenes (Esp Bus and Conductor).He manages to do it so much panache.That fleeting madness in Luke makes you gawk at him with sheer disbelief.Murgi(Aditya Shrivastav):Brilliant silent performance.He talks away the cake at times from KK and Vijay Maurya(Pondi).Such restrained performance is hard to find.What talent!!Pondi(Vijay MAurya): Amazing timing.I am actually tired of eulogizing every actor and character but cannot help but they are so frigggin good.Joy(Joy Augustine) has his own style and does bring a different dimension to the movie with his presence.I like Shiuli's role (Tejaswini)..very strong character portrayal.

This movie deserves to be seen by all.It should see light of the day!! Had the movie been made at this day and age,we could have witnessed mayhem,carnage,silence,evil,ideology,mania,spontaneity,reality...in best ever celluloid form till date.

Must Watch(8.5/10)

At the outset, it'd be in order to mention that this is the well-known theatrically unreleased film that was in the news (in 2003 and afterwards) over the ethical exceptions that the Censor Board of India had taken to it while denying it permission to release. It held that the film "glorifies violence; it shows the modus operandi of a crime (killing of a police officer); it shows excessive use of drugs; it has double meaning dialogues (with sexual undertones); it has no positive characters; it does not carry a social message".

That episode resulted in further intensification of the lasting antagonism that marked (and continues to mark) the relationship between iconoclastic brigands of Indian cinema (with director Anurag Kashyap at the vanguard) and the government-appointed sentinels of public morality who run the Censor Board. It was primarily through p2p torrent networks and file-hosting sites like Dingora that 'Paanch' trickled into the audiovisual precincts of movie aficionados and elicited reactions that spanned the spectrum from disturbing/disgusting to captivating/thrilling. It has since then developed a sort of cult following among fans of the 'psychological thriller' genre.

The movie itself is a story of unapologetic evilness and unfettered debauchery and most of all a psychological revelation that unfolds as a chaotic sequence of events in the entangled lives of five individuals... who live on the fringes of social morality and discover (with delight) in violent sadomasochistic self-destruction an accessible means of self-realization.

In giving up, treacherous step by treacherous step, the social fiction of goodness and embracing ruinous crime they discover a seductive freedom of the soul… a primal condition that allowed for (and indeed drew forth) a most authentic, albeit disturbing, response to the fact of existence in a hostile world of urban ambitions, transient fame and chronic estrangement. The protagonist of the movie (Luke - played by KK Menon) is one of the most convincingly frightening and psychologically well-constructed characters in all of Hindi cinema. The script is cogently carried forward by the development, definition and motivation of this character. The plot consists essentially of Luke's psycho-socio-pathology and his domination of the will of the four other characters… a domination that eventually sucked all of them into a spiral of heinous crime and moral degenartion that kept their existences constantly hinged on the edge of egregious bloodshed (and frequently precipitated the same). To think that the times they had together as drug-stealing socially-shunned impecunious musicians were the actually the best they ever had is to betray some sign of how dark their lives were. Amongst the secondary characters, of particular note is Shuile (played by Tejaswini Kohlapure) who discovers a taste for evil most serendipitously… but goes on to unhesistantly accommodate seduction, manipulation, intrigue and cunning in her repertory of sin.

I have to say though, the denouement of the drama suffers a debutant directors' capitulation in face of the conventional need to impose a closure on a story that might have been better left open-ended. The movie ends on note which is somewhat redemptive and life-affirming but mostly a clear reflection of the makers' desistance to sink further into the dark recesses of human psyche which have otherwise been prodigiously explored more intrepidly than ever before in modern Hindi cinema. Anurag Kashyap is genius. He employs the visual medium in its fullness and enhances the cinematic literacy of the viewer. The soundtrack is awesome too. A gem of a flick that ought to have released theatrically and celebrated for its contribution to the coming of age of Hindi cinema.

(see the original review at http://www.voxmentis.com/search/label/Movie%20Review )

There are hardly any films that stand the test of a year these days, let alone 8 years. Paanch was shot in 2000, but has yet to see a mainstream release in India due to strange business problems (which continue complicating the world rather than simplifying it). There may be cinematic moments in Paanch that have been replicated in later (and far lesser) films, but the whole here is far greater than the sum of its parts. And that whole is driven by a tone of seething intensity that is too individual, too real, to not be the author's personal voice. Films with personal voices are rare in these times, and that is what makes the film special. Whether Paanch is seen now, or 10 years later, it is this tone that will always give it a distinctive voice.

Despite not having a remarkable plot or even a thought-provoking narrative thrust, and despite a few (no doubt, forced) nods to commercial viability, the film's visceral energy still gives it a very compelling quality. The performances are almost uniformly excellent, and the "realness" of atmosphere can make you smell and taste the time and place – qualities Hindi cinema badly needs to incorporate in its thought process.

This is not a film about music or musicians, but about dark mindsets in people who happen to be musicians. The music (with very distinctive Indian rock songs – Vishal Bharadwaj and Abbas Tyrewala at their best) is just a backdrop but it has a force that makes you forget that it is just a small plot point in the overall scheme of things.

The director of Paanch – Anurag Kashyap, has moved on with a highly accomplished film (Black Friday) and a very personal one (No Smoking), but Paanch will always be special for the new voice that emerged in 2000. Whenever the film is seen.