Washington, Jan 16 (IANS) Indian director Anurag
Kashyap's award-winning epic "Gangs of Wasseypur" is India's answer to
"The Godfather" and "Oldboy" and India's coming out party as an
international storytelling powerhouse.
So says Adi Shankar,
Kolkata born Indian-American filmmaker who at just 29 has created his
own counter-culture 'brand' with critically acclaimed R-rated violent
feature films and superhero "bootleg" films like "The Grey" and "A Walk
Among the Tombstones."
"Outside of the Indian population in the
US, there is a growing audience for 'arthouse genre' films," Shankar, US
presenter of the Indian crime saga, told IANS in an email interview.
"It's
unabashedly violent action and crime films for the 'thinking person,'"
he said calling the 'Gangs' India' first entry on the list of films like
"Oldboy" and "I Saw the Devil" from Korea and "Drive" and
"Nightcrawler" from America.
Part 1 of the film charting 70 years
in the lives - and spectacular deaths - of two mafia-like families
fighting for control of the coal-mining town of Wasseypur, India, will
be released Friday for an exclusive one-week-only run at several AMC
theatres across the US.
Part II will release in the same theatres
the following week on January 23, also for one week only. In New York
City, the full film will play at the prestigious Lincoln Centre opening
on January 16 for one week.
Shankar said he considered it his
"civic duty" to help get Gangs a mainstream US release because the
success of a movie like "Ek Villain", "a clear unlicensed rip off of Kim
Jee Woon's 'I Saw the Devil'" is "shameful and not only hurts the
creditability of the Indian film business, but also reflects badly on
India as a whole."
"We are better than that, we are a nation of
smart, innovative and creative people who have interesting stories to
tell," he said. "We must defy the status quo of the vapid consumerist
mosh pit India has become."
"This is why Gangs of Wasseypur is
great. It's our answer to 'The Godfather' and 'Oldboy', but it's not a
rip-off, and if I can help it find an audience internationally, I have a
civic duty to do so," Shankar said.
Describing Gangs as "India's
coming out party as an international storytelling powerhouse", Shankar
hoped to draw the NRI film audience to the theatres with a simple
strategy he calls "guilt tripping".
India had a "robust domestic
film economy," he said. But "unfortunately, when it comes to making a
global cultural impact India's films have either been lacklustre due to
being reactionary to global cinematic trends instead of setting them or
in the case of 'The Lunchbox', buried due to asinine politics."
"With 'Gangs of Wasseypur' we have something to be proud of," Shankar said.
He
does not think that at 319 minutes, Gangs is too long noting that "True
Detective", "Breaking Bad", and "Game of Thrones" "were much longer
than 319 minutes and held audience's attention just fine when binge
watched."
"We simply don't like to be dictated the terms of when
and where we have to consume the content we love," he said suggesting
"Gangs will find its greatest success on VOD (Video on demand). It's the
ideal film for the VOD generation."
Turning to his own work,
Shankar said he was inspired to make the kind of films he makes by films
like "Road Warrior", "Robocop", "The Warriors", "Escape from New York",
"Judge Dredd" and "X-Men: The Animated Series."
But his films
don't have a USP as such. "I just make stuff that I want to see. This
'brand' I've built for myself wasn't by design."
Shankar said he
would "love to" make films for the Indian audiences. "I have a project
in mind, it's effectively 'Die Hard' on the Mumbai bridge. It's a hard
hitting action thriller that much like 'The Grey' becomes philosophical.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)