Month: January 2013

By Joe Bendel. For three criminal clans in India’s coal country, life is defined by family and their vendettas. The two are not mutually exclusive in Anurag Kashyap’s epic Gangs of Wasseypur (trailer here), which screens in all its 320 minute glory at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

The family tradition began with Shahid Khan, who robbed British trains while masquerading as an infamous Muslim dacoit Sultana. Expelled by the real Sultana’s clan, Khan toils in the Dhanbad coalmines, working for the ruthless Ramadhir Singh. After independence, ownership of the mine is transferred to the super-connected Singh, who hires Khan as his chief muscle-man. Mindful of Khan’s ambitions to replace him, Singh arranges his murder, but the foreman’s young son, Sardar, is rescued by his father’s cousin.

As a boy, Sardar Khan swears vengeance against Singh. As a man, Khan the budding crime lord is in a position to take it. However, Singh is shrewd enough to call a temporary truce, while forging a secret alliance with the heir to his father’s old nemesis, Sultan Qureshi. Distracted by the demands of an increasingly complicated family, consisting of five sons from two wives (and no divorce), Khan effectively defers his vengeance to the next generation.

In part two, there is a changing of the guard within the Khan family. Leadership duties will fall upon Khan’s hashish-addicted second son, Faizal Khan. Nobody expects much from the spare heir, least of all his mother, but when he starts killing, his ferocity makes everyone sit up and take notice.

Frankly, Wasseypur is truly light years removed from Kashyap’s last film to find American distribution, The Girl with Yellow Boots. Spanning three generations and seven decades, it is a big film by any measure. Part one is a bit slow at times, because of all the grudges and betrayals it must establish. A dark brooder punctuated by moments of grandly operatic violence, the tone of the first half could be described as a provincial Indian Godfather.

However, the second part segues into Scarface territory, as Faizal Khan goes medieval on everyone standing in his way. In fact, Wasseypur steadily builds momentum throughout its daunting five and a half hours, culminating with two spectacular action sequences, including a hospital shootout that could hold its own with John Woo’s Hardboiled.

Adding further depth, Wasseypur offers some intriguing social context, such as the post-Raj cronyism and corruption Western audiences rarely see reflected on film. It is also fascinating to watch Singh use trade unions and his political office to build a criminal syndicate. Likewise, Wasseypur clearly attributes the Pashtun Khan organization’s local popularity to their willingness to stand up to the bullying Qureshi Muslim establishment. Although there are no traditionally splashy musical numbers in Wasseypur, Kashyap shrewdly uses era-specific Bollywood hits to help delineate the passage of years for Indian audiences.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s feral, drug-addled Faizal Khan is all kinds of unsettling. Many viewers will find themselves actively rooting against his protagonist during the second half. Still, that kind of strong reaction means he is doing something right. Reema Sen is also quite the domestic femme fatale as wife #2. Yet it is Tigmanshu Dhulia, better known as a screenwriter and director, who delivers the most nuanced supporting turn as Singh.

Wasseyrup would be impressive simply for its ambition, but Kashrup rises to the challenge, staging some distinctly stylish action sequences and cogently telling a richly intricate story, based on historical events in the region. It could even lay a claim to being the Great Indian Crime Story, encompassing multiple generations, ethnic groups, and religions in its nefarious dealings. Enthusiastically recommended for fans of high-end gangster films, Gangs of Wasseypur screens again tomorrow (1/24) in Park City and Saturday (1/26) in Salt Lake as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A- (B for Part I, A for Part II)

Posted on January 23rd, 2012 at 10:17am.

By Joe Bendel. Photographer-filmmaker Tim Hetherington never considered himself an artist. Nor could he be dubbed a partisan—his work was far too honest. The terms “photojournalist” and “war correspondent” sound insufficient, but they might have to do. It was in such a role Sebastian Junger met his late friend and collaborator, whom he profiles in Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Hetherington is best known for co-directing the Academy Award nominated Restrepo with Junger. Following a platoon’s fifteen month deployment to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, Restrepo is widely considered by both critics and veterans to be the most accurate depiction of what war is like on a day-to-day basis. Yet Junger clearly suggests it was his time spent in Liberia that most shaped Hetherington’s professional approach. After his name-making series was published, Hetherington stayed in the West African nation for another two years. If anyone could be considered the opposite of drive-by journalism, it would have been Hetherington.

Hetherington and Junger showed similar commitment in Afghanistan, becoming perhaps the most deeply embedded journalists ever. Logically, the Korengal period factors prominently in Front Line, including footage and interviews with veterans of the platoon that will surely interest viewers familiar with Restrepo.

Junger also interviews Hetherington’s colleagues, parents, and the woman he was planning to start a family with. However, Junger saves the last word for himself and he makes it count. As a result, one can see Front Line as a tragically fitting sequel to Restrepo.

Sadly, Hetherington accepted one assignment too many, dying from shrapnel wounds during the Libyan Civil War. (Lest the State Department jump to conclusions again, it should be noted this happened over a year before the Innocence of Muslims protests.) It was a terrible loss, as viewers can judge from the ample selection of Hetherington’s photos illustrating his work. Despite his protestations, Hetherington’s work shows a remarkable sense of composition. He had an eye. Junger presents it well in a moving tribute to his friend and comrade. Highly recommended, Which Way is the Front Line from Here screens again tomorrow (1/23) and Friday (1/25) in Park City and Saturday (1/26) in Salt Lake during this year’s Sundance.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on January 22nd. 2012 at 11:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. In 1944, by a confluence of fate, the leading lights of the Beat movement assembled together around Columbia University, including Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Lucien Carr. There is a reason you might not recognize the latter name. Poetry and scandal mix freely in the Beat origin story dramatized in John Krokidas’s Kill Your Darlings, which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Allen Ginsburg is certain that poetry is his calling. His certainty about sexuality is another matter. Arriving at Columbia, his Jewish background automatically sets him apart as an outsider. His resistance to aesthetic orthodoxy, however, establishes his credibility with Carr, the campus literary rebel. Soon Ginsburg is visiting jazz clubs, sampling Benzedrine with their mutual friend Burroughs, and pining for the androgynous Carr.

Ginsburg is not the only one carrying a torch for Carr. Former professor David Kammerer appears to exert some sort of malevolent emotional hold on his ambiguous friend, which Carr increasingly resents. Since Darlings starts in media res, viewers realize this will all end in tragedy.

Known to a scruffy handful of fans for a series of British films about boarding school students dabbling in the occult, Daniel Radcliffe is serviceably nebbish as Ginsburg. At least he looks like a confused kid. However, Ben Foster is almost worth the price of admission by himself, nailing not just the Burroughs drawl, but also his eccentric cadences and precise demeanor. Unfortunately, Jack Huston’s Kerouac is 100% meathead and 0% poet. Still, even though he looks like he stepped out of a fashion commercial, Dane DeHaan is convincingly dissolute as Carr.

Darlings is a decent period production, featuring some swinging tracks from Vince Giordano. Frustratingly, music comes dead last in the closing credits, well after the caterers and the drivers, even though it contributes far more to the overall viewing experience. What would Ginsburg and Kerouac say about that? However, the colorless underscore is a truly baffling creative decision. David Amram is still at the top of his game and has considerable experience scoring films; had Darlings brought him onboard they would have had an apostolic connection to the Beat Generation. That’s his music in Pull My Daisy, after all. Instead, they opted for the light classical approach.

Indeed, Darlings represents a series of missed opportunities. Foster is terrific and the mid-1940’s New York vibe is appealing. It even has Sledgehammer!’s David Rasche as the Dean of Columbia. Nonetheless, the film’s lurid preoccupation with Carr’s sex life becomes tiresome. More music and more poetry would have made it a stronger work. Mostly of interest to earnest Ginsburg and Burroughs fans, Kill Your Darlings screens again today (1/22), tomorrow (1/23), and Friday (1/25) in Park City as part of this year’s Sundance.

Posted on January 22nd, 2012 at 11:57pm.