Gandu (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Trailer-30 + for Accent Entertainment
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	82:30 (Case: 85)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Qaushiq Mukherjee
Studio Distributor	Accent Film Entertainment	Starring	Anubrata Basu Joyraj Bhattacharya Rii Kamalika Banerjee
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Five Little Indians

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English (Burned In)	Smoking	Yes, constantly, and drug use
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Gandu (Anubrata) is an aimless young man in Calcutta, living by stealing money from the wallet of his mother’s sleazy lover while the couple are having sex. Gandu spends his time in an internet café watching porn and playing action games, buys lottery tickets and dreams of being a rap star, composing songs and lyrics in his head to compensate for the humiliations of everyday life. Following a chance meeting he becomes friends with Rickska (Joyraj), a Bruce Lee obsessed rickshaw driver who introduces Gandu to smoking heroin. The pair journey to an ashram in the hills and after a hallucinogenic experience Gandu’s fortune changes. He wins 50,000 rupees in the lottery, has intense sex with a beautiful red haired prostitute and is on the verge of becoming a rap star. But is this reality, or a drug fuelled fantasy?

     In Gandu writer / director / producer / cinematographer / editor / production designer (and musician) Kaushik Mukherjee (or Qaushiq Mukherjee), otherwise known as merely Q, has made an Indian film unlike any you may have seen before. Indeed, although the DVD cover states that Gandu “straddles a line between Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void”, Gandu is actually quite unique. The film uses amateur actors who improvise most of the dialogue, it is filmed mainly in black and white but with one important colour sequence, and it utilises split screens, jump cuts, interviews direct to the camera and hallucinatory segments with jumbled images to give a sense of energy more like a video clip. In addition the sound design varies from almost silence, to the sounds of the streets of Calcutta, to loud rap music. The subtitles also vary in size, the rap lyrics occur all over the screen including vertical, and while most of the subtitles are white some are black and one a glaring red!

     This is audacious filmmaking, energetic and exciting. What can one make of a film in which the director appears at one point making a film about Gandu, where one actress (Rii) plays the roles of the woman in the internet café, the goddess Kali and the prostitute, and where there is one very intense and very explicit sex scene which is the only coloured sequence; can one ever be quite sure what is real and what is fantasy? Certainly the ending of the film offers no clues.

     Gandu was banned in India, one imagines due to the explicit sexual content, which, plus the drug use, earned the film a deserved R rating in Australia. But despite the subject matter and the reference to Trainspotting, Gandu is not a bleak or depressing film. Indeed the energetic music, the natural performances, the reality of the streets and tenements of Calcutta, the inventive camera techniques, the essentially positive outlook of Rickska with his Bruce Lee impersonations and the intriguing plotting result in a film that is quite invigorating and entertaining.

Video

     Gandu is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

     The principally black and white print is sharp and clean except in sequences, such as the hallucination scene, where it is deliberately soft. Blacks are absolutely solid, although this is often a dark print where shadow detail is indistinct. The colour sequence is very bright and vibrant with a little colour bleed, but nothing serious. Brightness and contrast is consistent.

     There was occasional motion blur but no marks.

     English subtitles are burnt in. They are error free and mostly in a white text, although black and red also occurs. The subtitles are part of the film experience – some are quite big for emphasis and some occur at diverse places on the screen, including vertically.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a Bengali Dolby Digital 2.0 at a high 448 Kbps.

     Dialogue was minimal but seemed clear although the rap lyrics could be obscure. The audio was surround encoded and while the surrounds were silent on occasions, they were used extensively for the music and lyrics, and did add ambient sounds such as running water, voices and street noise. There was good separation, and my sub-woofer did provide support to the music.

     The score is credited to Five Little Indians and the songs were lively and an essential part of the film.

     I did not notice any lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

     On start-up there were trailers for Ritual: A Psychomagical Story, The Hunt, Q, Little Thirteen and Bedways that collectively run 10:14. A total of 30 trailers for Accent Film Entertainment releases can be selected from the menu - most of the start-up trailers are repeated and there is a trailer for Gandu included. There is a “play all” option.

     The Region 1 US release of Gandu includes a behind the scenes featurette (33:48) that is reported to be interesting, a couple of music videos, a Berlin Film Festival featurette and a 12 page booklet. These extras would make that release the better option.

     Gandu is quite different. It is audacious and energetic filmmaking, with exuberant music, natural performances, inventive camera techniques, Bruce Lee impersonations and intriguing plotting. If you are looking for something different this may just be the find of the year.

     The video and audio are good. Trailers are the only extras and we miss out on what is available in Region 1.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall