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Review

Wildly ambitious and taboo-busting, Calcutta-based director Q's Gandu is a film of almost unimaginable fearlessness. Combining a variety of different aesthetics, Q weaves a tale of a young street punk called Gandu, Hindi slang for asshole, by almost everyone who knows him. Gandu dreams of lifting himself out of the squalor of his mother's apartment through a rap career, but mostly does drugs and angrily rants about his lot in life to his friend, Ricksha. The story that follows isn't always clear, but narrative is clearly not what Q is concerned with here.

Shot overwhelmingly in high contrast black-and-white, many of the film's images are strikingly beautiful, almost as if Dreyer or Bergmann had taken their cameras to a Calcutta slum. The framing of certain shots can only be described as haunting and stunning. However, Q isn't content to merely show beauty and often throws his film into split screen or extreme close up, always keeping viewers off-balance. While Gandu is often reminiscent of Neorealism, Q's willingness to channel Gandu's rage through editing and music evokes American punk cinema of the late '70s and early '80s. There are also philosophical musings, drug-inspired hallucinations, several quasi-music videos of Gandu's punk-meets-hip-hop in Bengali music and a meta-cinematic moment that nearly turns the already disorienting film on its head. To say that Gandu is the work of a restless mind is quite the understatement.

Equally fearless is Q's incorporation of sex into the film. Gandu's mother supports them by prostituting herself to the local bigwig. Gandu repeatedly sneaks into her room as she fornicates in order to steal money from her client's wallet. Gandu also watches quite a bit of pornography and is shown graphically masturbating. In a later sequence that's possibly a fantasy (and the only color cinematography of the film) Gandu has sex with a cat-like woman who is shown in various states of undress and performs unsimulated oral sex on him. With all of this coming from a country where kissing is still taboo in mainstream cinema, it's no wonder Gandu has been banned in India.

It would be impossible for Gandu to live up to its vast ambitions and certain elements won't work for some viewers. Many of the songs featured seem a bit cheesy and story/plot fanatics will certainly find themselves frustrated. But, in today's cinematic landscape where ambition is so rare and most films are afraid to be anything more than what viewers expect them to be going in, Gandu is a stunning, groundbreaking film that's a must see for fans of bold, original cinema and those who appreciate a busted taboo.

 -- Daniel Reed