GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI

Il genere biografico di solito non mi entusiasma. Per quanto una vita possa essere stata straordinaria, la sua rappresentazione sullo schermo risulta ai miei occhi formulaica e fredda. Ma Gangubai Kathiawadi è una biografia in larga parte molto intimista. Con l'esclusione dell'ultima porzione del film, GK è un piccolo capolavoro che coniuga una storia coinvolgente, una sceneggiatura compatta, un ipnotico fluire narrativo, un comparto tecnico all'altezza del marchio di fabbrica del regista Sanjay Leela Bhansali. 

Alia Bhatt arricchisce il suo aspetto da eterna adolescente con un'iniezione di maturità davvero inaspettata, e offre un'interpretazione vulnerabile ma decisa, femminile con una punta di mascolinità. Bhansali tratta il suo personaggio con gli onori e gli oneri tradizionalmente riservati all'eroe. Alia sostiene con vigore la pellicola anche quando sceneggiatura e regia allentano la presa, quando la realtà biografica irrompe frantumando l'incantesimo dell'interiorizzazione della vicenda umana di Gangubai, estromettendo lo spettatore dal suo privato. L'empatia si infrange, il film perde calore. 

Bhansali ha sempre accordato ampio spazio alle sue splendide eroine, non sempre profondità. Con GK mette a fuoco l'ispirazione e si scopre audace: per la prima volta non vi sono protagonisti maschili - i ruoli ricoperti da Ajay Devgan e da Vijay Raaz sono microscopici -, Gangubai è una figura controversa e poco esemplare, il messaggio (anche) femminista. 

Sanjay Leela Bhansali ha consolidato negli anni uno stile personalissimo e riconoscibile, che non ha mai tradito, pur con esiti altalenanti. Il cinema di Bhansali è uno sfavillante universo parallelo nel quale si intuisce il regista vorrebbe trasferirsi. Un universo con connotazioni aristocratiche e volute oppiacee che annebbiano il senso della realtà. È perenne nostalgia di un sogno nel quale ogni dettaglio è studiato alla perfezione, e qualsiasi aspetto acquista nobiltà e bellezza. I set sono elaborate architetture, i corpi sculture, i tessuti tele pittoriche, i gesti coreografie, i dialoghi musica. 

GK è sontuoso quanto basta, privo di barocchismi, con colori crepuscolari per gli ambienti e prevalenza di bianco per i costumi. Visivamente magnifico. Soprattutto emozionante. Confesso: era dai tempi di Black che un lavoro di Bhansali non mi catturava così. 

TRAMA

Gangubai non ha avuto una vita facile. Venduta giovanissima ad un bordello, piega il destino a suo vantaggio con piglio battagliero. È intraprendente, sveglia e coraggiosa. Con decisione, sale tutti i gradini della scala sociale concessa dall'ambiente in cui vive. È anche generosa, è molto amata, e non esita a sfruttare l'affetto di cui è oggetto - o a compiere azioni illegali - per la sua carriera politica. Si batte per il riconoscimento dei diritti delle prostitute e per la loro tutela. Adora Dev Anand, ma è Nehru che accetta di incontrarla.

ASSOLUTAMENTE DA NON PERDERE

* Sono molte le sequenze significative. La mia preferita è una scena brevissima: Gangubai accoglie l'uomo che ama, e copre la fotografia di Dev Anand. Dettaglio delizioso.

LA BATTUTA MIGLIORE

* [Spoiler] Kimli è deceduta. Gangubai impartisce le istruzioni per predisporre la salma per le esequie, e pronuncia un'amara battuta che preferisco non riportare.

RECENSIONI

Mid-Day: ***

'An over-the-top dramatisation of an underworld, in the margins of Mumbai; built entirely inside a studio, mixed with measured melodrama, mujra [traduzione grossolana: danza di cortigiane], and music. This is Broadway-style, mass theatrical entertainment before a camera, in a way that Bhansali has consistently pulled off over two and half decades, regardless of the script. Most directors lose it along the way. As screenwriter, music composer, director, he continues to imbue this scale with a personal/auteur touch still. (...) I see no Indian filmmaker who does this genre with as much conviction, hence as convincingly. (...) You either go with the flow, or don’t. (...) This isn’t quite a “fem-jep” (female in jeopardy) flick, masquerading as feminism. It’s about an ambitious Gangubai, taking life by the horn, and driving it on a fancy car, wherever she likes. Of which I don’t know how much of it is accurate. The bigger issue with merging Bhansali/Bollywood fantasy with fact is that the treatment must allow as much time for the story-telling as well; tightness suffers - making this seem a movie, scene after scene after songs, that’s much longer than it should be. And yet, it’s the aesthetically choreographed sequences - every moment of it - that raise the bar'.

Mayank Shekhar, 25.02.22

Recensione integrale

Film Companion:

'Bhansali is not so much a builder of stories as a maker of moments. (...) Gangubai Kathiawadi has many such moments: each more lyrical than the next. (...) Are these pieces of pleasure enough to indulge a broken puzzle? The answer lies in the kind of story GK chooses to be. (...) Bhansali's uncomplicated spectacle is a tale of two halves. (...) The first half is intimate and specific, with (...) Ganga turning into (...) Gangubai through experiences and people rather than pre-written destiny. Characters (...) start to define Gangubai's evolution. These pieces are strung together not by a journey but a personality. (...) The film flows from one time to another with unfussy transitions, with a fluidity rarely seen in Bhansali's heavy-footed historicals. (...) The second half feels like another film altogether (...) almost as though GK is suddenly reminded that it is in fact a bland biographical drama. After a setup of emotional intelligence and curiosity, this is frustrating. The camera starts to revere Gangubai from a distance. (...) She becomes an ideological figure: someone who knows how and why she will be remembered in the future (...) not who she really is. (...) But [Alia] Bhatt's electrifying turn comes very close to vindicating the film's fractured puzzle of moments. (...) The subtext missing from the script can be found in how Bhatt tempers the hurt of her voice and eyes. (...) The casting did feel like a gamble. But everything that was supposed to be a fatal flaw - Bhatt's frightfully young face, diminutive frame, urban gait - becomes a triumph in Gangubai's performative armour'.  

Rahul Desai, 25.02.22

Recensione integrale

Cinema Hindi: *** 1/2

Punto di forza: Alia Bhatt, la magnificenza estetica (****).

Punto debole: la parte finale del film è meno coinvolgente. Inoltre avrei preferito un approfondimento del ruolo di Raziabai.

SCHEDA DEL FILM

Cast:

* Alia Bhatt - Gangubai

* Indira Tiwari - Kamli, prostituta e migliore amica di Gangubai

* Seema Pahwa - Sheela, tenutaria del bordello

* Shantanu Maheshwari - Afshan, sarto e amante di Gangubai

* Ajay Devgan - Rahim Lala, gangster 

* Vijay Raaz - Raziabai, rivale politica di Gangubai

* Huma Qureshi - visualizzazione del brano Shikayat

Regia: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Sceneggiatura: Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Utkarshini Vashishtha

Colonna sonora: Sanjay Leela Bhansali. La colonna sonora è di quelle grandiosamente tradizionali come non ne ascoltavo da tempo.

Fotografia: Sudeep Chatterjee

Montaggio: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Anno: 2022

Award:

* National Award: diversi premi, fra cui miglior attrice protagonista, miglior sceneggiatura non originale, migliori dialoghi e miglior montaggio (aggiornamento del 24 agosto 2023)

Trailer

RASSEGNA STAMPA (aggiornata al 20 agosto 2022)

* Alia Bhatt on Gangubai Kathiawadi and becoming 'The Sanjay Leela Bhansali heroine', Anupama Chopra, Film Companion, 12 febbraio 2022:

'I remember all those adjectives that he would use when he was describing [my character], they would never be without the opposites: 'strong but vulnerable, humorous but has anger and tension in her eyes: this but that.' There was always a 'but' to everything. (...) Even in the performance, he wanted two layers to come out. She's saying something, her eyes are saying something else. (...) Her body language is this, but she's actually feeling that. It was extremely challenging but also what I enjoyed the most. (...) 

Not everybody knows about Gangubai's story. (...) But what I enjoyed about it was that there was a point A, B and C. (...) She came to Bombay, (...) gave a speech, (...) met (...) Nehru. But what's interesting is (...) what made her get to those points. Why did she come to Bombay? She wanted to become a heroine. That helps you to carve the personality: was there a filminess in her? Was she a little dramatic or dreamy? (...)

He [Bhansali] draws out of you. He doesn't tell you what to do. He pushes you to find it. (...) He gives you adjectives and wants you to think about it and your body to start feeling it. (...) He likes the unpredictability of performing and creating as well. There are no rules. (...) He is looking for magic at every point. He wants it to hit it in the heart. I don't think there's anybody who is more interested in your ability and potential of really pushing. He is not satisfied, because if he knows that you have it, it will be push until you have really given it all'.

* Sanjay Leela Bhansali on how Alia Bhatt became his Gangubai Kathiawadi, Anupama Chopra, Film Companion, 2 marzo 2022:

'I didn’t want to take her [Alia Bhatt] there [Kamathipura] because somewhere, for her, as a character, when she goes there and sees the world for the first time, it should reflect on her face. I wanted her to explore. (...) She understood that I lived one lane away from Kamathipura, so for me, that world was something that I have absorbed for 30 years. I think we had a great chemistry. She understood exactly what I wanted. There was a little bit of discomfort that she faced on the first day, the first time she did a dialogue scene. She wasn’t understanding what I was trying to get in terms of the attitude because it was a very hard world. It was [about] a very hard, solid woman who speaks with an attitude. That’s how she controls the area. But after that first day, we never looked back. Then she was just flowing and feeling every bit of it.

Initially, when we would discuss the scenes, she would observe my tonality, attitude, what happens to my eyes. Besides that, I would make her participate, asking her about her take on a situation. Suddenly, she started contributing to how she wanted to do a scene, where she would want to do it. I cannot tell you how to do it; I’ll give you some text, I’ll give you the ideas, I’ll talk about stories from the past which has some relevance. Those are the things you give to an intelligent actor - a great actor - like her. When she started becoming Gangu completely, there was very little exchange. When you give an actor the freedom to think, to contribute, to become that person, because finally in front of the camera, it is her who was standing and saying the lines. It’s important that she contributes. That contribution is very valuable too. I improvise a lot, so after a point, she stopped memorizing the lines and play it my way. She never questioned it. If I said, ‘Alia, jump from here to there,’ she would jump with that conviction with which I would want her as an actor to. No questions asked. It was just her belief in the director and my belief in the actor because I know when she’ll jump, there’ll be something special that she will do to it. Every time I throw an ace at her, I’d get two aces thrown back at me. It was a great experience of working for 150 days with an actor who is just there, without the excess baggage of being a star. (...)

The whole idea was that a 16-year-old girl gets trapped into this business, discovers this sordid world and gets up and says, ‘No, I have a voice, I have my rights.’ I wanted that passion in the eyes. This girl [Bhatt] has very powerful eyes, there’s a certain amount of vocal power that she has when she explodes. There’s a scene in the film where she talks to her mother and explodes on the operator. Look at that. When she was preparing for that scene, she was sitting on a chair and I wanted a certain atmosphere. Suddenly, I saw some of my staff were laughing or giggling. I presume that they were laughing at me and I exploded. The whole atmosphere on the set became quiet. It was my way of making those vibes reach to her, of feeling the nerves, of calling the mother, of getting that anger filled and at what note it should explode. I have never told her [about this], even to date. As a director, I don’t like to give direct instructions to people because it limits the actor’s imagination. An actor like her should be given briefs of a certain way where you create what the audience has to feel, but how do you do it has to come from you. I feel that’s the kind of belief that I had in her. When she exploded on the phone and emoted, I said, “My choice was right.”

It took a lot of time for the people to [realize this]. When they saw her on the screen for the first time, that’s when they realized. I was having the last laugh. I believe that you have to look at an actor and say, “I can make you do this.” It is the job of the director to make you realize that, ‘Alia, you have so much potential. You can go global. You have that potential to make India proud. Leave those things that you’ve done, you have done very good films, but this is hardcore. This is a piece of my heart, of all the grime, grunge, humiliation and everything that I have witnessed in my life. I’m now going to let those demons flow out. Be a part of it’ - without having to say these words. She just went along with me and started discovering something about her. I saw this actor blossom. She found the full potential of what Alia Bhatt is all about'.

* How the sets of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Gangubai Kathiawadi recreate 1950s' and ‘60s’ Bombay, Anita Horam, Architectural Digest India, 24 aprile 2022: 

'The art and production design in every Sanjay Leela Bhansali film is a whole mood in itself. Whatever the setting or the story, audiences have come to expect that signature look - dripping with rich detail and the maximal use of Indian textile, artwork, colour and texture. His latest, Gangubai Kathiawadi is no exception. Visually, it plays out almost like a painting come to life. But it goes a step further, in that this is probably his most personal work yet. (...) Till he was almost 30, Bhansali lived with his family just one street over from where he sets the film. His school route to and from took him past the brothels and all the characters who inhabited that world every single day. So while the film, its story, the architectural structures and key characters are based on historical facts, what he has done with the look and art design is a homage to some of his earliest childhood memories. The way he tells it, the lane was dotted with six (now derelict) theatre buildings (...) which formed a carousel of assorted impressions that he internalized. One such was the Art Deco design details he soaked in from those buildings, as well as that unique hand-painted movie poster art that began to be developed around Indian cinema in the 1920s. This was a kitschy, over the top way to get people into the cinemas that were made instantly recognizable by the images of enticing cleavages, vixen red lips, lurid colours, broad visible brush strokes and an almost 3D-style typography. (...) 

The other strand that runs through both the story and its cinematic representation is the idea that even a ruin can and must have dignity. Architecturally, Bhansali is obsessed with space. Or perhaps the lack of it when he was growing up. He admits that he often made up a parallel reality where he could literally push out the walls of their tiny family home to something larger, grander. This manifests in every film set he has ever had constructed. He is also deeply fascinated by the idea of beauty in distress. In this film, the production design team gives literal expression to these preoccupations, especially in the detailing of the brothel walls - peeling, faded, broken - as well as to all the elements and distressed textures in the rooms, which include artefacts, textiles and practical props like utensils that would have actually been used in his own home at the time. From a treatment and design perspective, the maker admits that he has chosen a romanticized expression of a tough neighbourhood, and a dark and often fearful time in his own formative years. Using his craft, he prefers to show his audiences an artistic interpretation rather than the oppressive reality, and in that process has his own cathartic moment that in a way helps set right the world his five-year-old self once inhabited'.

* Aila, Alia!, Mayank Shekhar, Mid-Day, 20 agosto 2022: 'With Gangubai, Bhatt reveals about Bhansali being the performative inspiration: “I took so much of Sir’s personality and put that into Gangubai’s character - the way he speaks, thinks, has a certain attitude. (...) Because it is in his head. Film is the director’s medium. And then it’s the written word. The actor has to collect all those things and place it in front of the camera”.'

Vedi anche Gangubai Kathiawadi al Berlin International Film Festival 2022. GK è stato proiettato in prima mondiale alla Berlinale 2022, alla presenza di Sanjay Leela Bhansali e di Alia Bhatt. Il testo include una rassegna stampa/video e una ricca photo gallery.

CURIOSITÀ

* La vera Ganga Harjeevandas scappa dalla casa dei suoi genitori, in Gujarat, in giovane età, per recarsi a Bombay, dove viene venduta al giro della prostituzione dal suo corteggiatore, Ramnik Lal. Diventa un'influente tenutaria a Kamathipura, il quartiere a luci rosse della città, ed intreccia legami con la malavita locale. Incontra Nehru per perorare la causa delle prostitute e migliorare le loro condizioni di vita. Fonte Wikipedia.

* Il saggio Mafia Queens of Mumbai. Stories of women from the ganglands, di S. Hussain Zaidi (con la collaborazione di Jane Borges), pubblicato nel 2011, racconta le vicende reali di tredici donne criminali. Un capitolo è dedicato a Ganga Harjeevandas. Secondo gli autori, Gangubai proviene da una famiglia di buon livello sociale e culturale, e desidera intraprendere la carriera cinematografica. A 16 anni, lei e il fidanzato Ramnik Lal, 28 anni, scappano a Bombay. I due si sposano, ma poco dopo Rumnik vende la moglie per mille rupie ad un bordello. In poco tempo Gangubai gestisce diversi bordelli. Incontra il gangster locale, Karim Lala, dopo essere stata aggredita dal malvivente Shaukat Khan Pathan. Lala le accorda il suo aiuto, e Gangubai lo considera un fratello. In seguito Pathan viene affrontato con violenza da Lala. Zaidi ha scritto anche Black Friday. The true story of the Bombay bomb blasts, da cui Anurag Kashyap ha tratto il film omonimo, e Dongri to Dubai. Six decades of the Mumbai mafia, da cui è stato tratto il film Shootout at Wadala. Fonte Wikipedia.

* Il dialogo scambiato da Gangubai e Afshan sulle varie tonalità di bianco riflette una conversazione reale avvenuta fra Bhansali e il costumista.

* Riferimenti al cinema indiano: Dev Anand, Madhubala.

* Film che trattano lo stesso tema: Rajkahini (bengali).