Showing posts with label Dagdi Chawl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dagdi Chawl. Show all posts
Images: Actor Akshay Waghmare and Arun Gawli’s daughter Yogita wed in Mumbai
8:32 AM
Mihir Bhanage (BOMBAY TIMES; May 9, 2020)
Akshay shares, “We are happy to have tied the knot amidst the people we love. We followed all social distancing norms during the wedding. Yogita and I took off our masks only during the rituals.”
The couple has put their celebration plans on hold due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but when the situation is better, they plan to host a grand reception.
In the last five years, the industry has collapsed. Nobody has a formula-Ashim Ahluwalia & Arjun Rampal
8:08 AM
What happens when a Cannes-selectee and a Bollywood star collide? It’s a chemical reaction that breaks down what most thought was elementary in mainstream cinema
Anshul Chaturvedi and Aarushi Nigam (BOMBAY TIMES; September 7, 2017)
Ashim Ahluwalia, whose 2012
film Miss Lovely was an official selection at Cannes, still refuses to
call himself a part of the Indian film industry. Arjun Rampal, so far
the 'Mr Lovely' of Bollywood, tells him he's mainstream now whether he
likes it or not and to stop being a drama queen. What both agree on
is that their respective 'sides' had wondered if they'd 'sold out' or 'lost it' when they came together. And both refuse to put their film
Daddy in a box either. “It's a gangster film but not what you think that
means.“ “It's not a biopic, but it's definitely not a documentary“. “A
guy from Dagdi Chawl is going to enjoy it, so is a Korean-cinema buff“.
So what exactly is Daddy, the biopic-but-not-a-biopic on the Mumbai
gangster (and briefly, politician) Arun Gawli?
From Miss Lovely, five years ago, to Daddy now, can we finally call you a Bollywood filmmaker, Ashim?
Ashim: This word, I just don't get it. I know when I was making Miss Lovely, it was a thing I really hated because it was very difficult for me to make the kind of films I wanted to make. I think, for me, Daddy is no different from Miss Lovely, in the sense that I take complete ownership of the film. I don't feel like it's a studio movie, or a 'star' movie, which I wanted to do to break into the industry. The only aspect of 'Bollywood' here is the fact that the film is mounted on 'X' scale, and Arjun's an actor from the industry. But I think it breaks all expectations because for me, it's a very real film, and it's made in a way that's unlike anything else. I can't even compare it to any film that exists, including earlier films like Satya.
Arjun: It's a global film. It's not something we can slot as a typical gangster film, which we're used to. When you go into that genre, you have that typical treatment. The story arc is also more or less the same. Which is fair, all gangsters do have that arc, they all end up becoming Robin Hood, they become leaders of certain areas, they make their own rules. Even Gawli's like that. There is the rise of him, and then the fall. The rise and fall of a gangster is that.
Ashim, after being a critic of the mainstream industry, what made you say yes to this?
Ashim: When Miss Lovely was in Cannes, I'd have people ask me, 'so now are you ready for SRK, are you ready for this...', and I was like, dude, I don't get it. If I was, I would have done that 15 years ago. Why would I wait for so long? I clearly want to make a different kind of film. So I am very paranoid of the industry because of the relationship that directors have with it. Directors are very low in the food chain, let's be honest about it.
Lower than writers, even?
Ashim: Well, it's changing. Because the industry is collapsing, it's changing. Writers, directors...Other than the star, the music director, perhaps, then the choreographer comes in, then the action director, and then the director, somewhere near the bottom, somewhere near the spotboy, you know!
Arjun: (Laughs) That's so unfair!
Ashim: No, that's not unfair. I can name five that are not those guys - five. And if you're an intelligent director and you want to have control over the project, you don't put your head in this, right? You just don't. So I think Arjun knew that. And we'd shot a commercial together, we hit it off. I said, this guy wants to do something different, let me read the script that you've written. And I said, wait a minute, this guy's not written himself as a hero. He's written himself as a Gawli-like character, it's a very character-centric story. Because our screenplays are written around the persona of the star. The star plays 20 characters, and all of them you can't tell apart, because it's the star that dominates. Which is fine for a certain type of film. But this film needed him to be that guy. And I was excited that there was someone here who's not going to dominate it and say, let's put a song here, introduce an item number, or cast this supermodel as Asha Gawli.
Arjun, since you produced this film, you were able to do what you wanted to do?
Arjun: Absolutely! If I had sold out to a studio, the control would have gone. It's not a massive budget film, but it's also not an indie film. It's in the middle, but because of our expertise, it is a massive film. You see it in the scale, and in the detailing that Ashim brings to the canvas, it requires a tremendous amount of production support. To recreate that era takes a lot of effort. What I learnt from this film is that all the magic of a film lies purely in the detailing. And Ashim is a master of detail. You could be giving your best shot but he'd be looking at a cup behind your head in the frame somewhere!
This is your first sort of, experimental space...
Arjun: This is not an experiment at all, for me. The film has an audience that can only grow. I know that my audience is that guy in Dagdi Chawl, he has to enjoy the film, and he has to feel that his Daddy has been justified properly. That guy is your main audience, those are the people who gave us our stories. I want the cops to say, 'yes, these guys didn't mince words about something'. I want his rivals to say the same thing. I want every Mumbai guy to say, 'these characters are bang on' the guys who know the story. So it is not an experiment. It is an authentic gangster film, which is a genre I've grown up watching, and is one of the reasons I'm an actor. Seeing Brando, Al Pacino, or Amit ji in Agneepath - those were the performances that were etched in my mind at a young age and I always wanted to play one.
How is Arjun not a conventional producer?
Ashim: Because I said, let's do a biopic. Now, a biopic on Abraham Lincoln will always have his point of view, right? Here, you don't have Gawli's point of view, you have all the other people's points of view. So it's in the form of an investigation, and different people, depending on what their relation to him is, say either he is a great, wonderful, amazing guy, or he is a really dark and scary guy.
In a sense, aren't you making a documentary?
Arjun: No, but that's the whole challenge. How do you make a film that is authentic and you don't go down the propaganda route? Show all the facts, but also make it entertaining? You have to get sucked into it, you have feel what the characters are feeling. You have to feel the heaviness of the world they come from. But not a documentary. The entertainment comes from the masala in his life.
The regular accusation of making a gangster look glamorous, does that work? Because in Delhi, every third crime has a guy quoting a movie, saying I got inspired by this.
Arjun: I think there should just be a law for anybody who says a movie inspired me to do this, that you're going in for 10 years the minute you make that excuse. They shouldn't come after the industry and say you're ruining these people. That's not true. If you see our news channels, they show the goriest, most gruesome stuff all the time, uncensored. And films are censored left and right.
Ashim: The question is, is he aspirational? He is not! After watching this, you don't want to be Gawli.
Arjun: Even Gawli, it took us two-and-a-half years to convince him. It takes a lot for a man to give you those things. Somewhere he realised that this is what will make his story different from all the other guys whose stories have been made in pieces. And he was very brave to give us his story. And he also said, say it in a truthful way, and don't show me as a hero. When he saw the film also, he said, 'tumne mujhe dialoguebaazi diya hi nahi poori picture mein', and I said, 'aap karte ho kahan!' So he kind of understood that the message is, if you live in this world, this is what's going to happen to you.
If this is not a gangster film like people know it, not a Satya, or Gangs Of Wasseypur, or Raees or a Quentin Tarantino film, do you think the audience will consume what they are not used to seeing?
Arjun: But you also have a commercial actor here!
Ashim: But they are not consuming what they are used to seeing! That's why the industry is crashing. That's what people keep doing, keep giving them things they are used to seeing. 'Let's give them a gangster film where the guy wears Dolce and Gabana and walks in slow motion'. You don't want to see it again, you're done with that. The audience has actually grown up a lot, which is why we're in a position where we can make the film. We put the trailer out and we didn't expect the response we got nine million views.
During Miss Lovely, you'd said what the world thought of as Indian cinema wasn't totally representing what was coming out of India. Do you think that is still true?
Ashim: I think it has been a complete breakdown. In the last five years, the industry has collapsed. Nobody has a formula, the blueprint is gone. And for many people, it's nerve-racking. Because that blueprint was there for 50 years. You knew which star got you how much money at the box office. There was a way to calculate the entire returns on your film, based on who's the music director, how many songs and how many stars, who's the girl, etc. Now they can't, because it's just not working. It's not computing. So that's fantastic for me, fantastic for someone like Arjun who wants to do new stuff, fantastic for a lot of people in the industry who want to give it a new lease of life.
You and Arjun are still an unlikely combo...
Ashim: It's a crazy combination, totally crazy.
Arjun: There are a lot of similarities between us. Like he calls me his twin sometimes!
Ashim: An evil twin.
You two working together is essentially saying the whole system has broken down.
Ashim: It's true. In a weird way, this film is a sign of the current state of the industry. In fact, if the two of us can work together, make a film and give it this kind of release, and still not compromise on it, and say that I want people from Dagdi Chawl, I want somebody who loves Gawli, they can watch it. Yet a cinephile, who watches world cinema, who watches Korean gangster movies, is not like, 'boss what is this, why is this guy flying, why is he jumping?' They still respect the other audience.
From Miss Lovely, five years ago, to Daddy now, can we finally call you a Bollywood filmmaker, Ashim?
Ashim: This word, I just don't get it. I know when I was making Miss Lovely, it was a thing I really hated because it was very difficult for me to make the kind of films I wanted to make. I think, for me, Daddy is no different from Miss Lovely, in the sense that I take complete ownership of the film. I don't feel like it's a studio movie, or a 'star' movie, which I wanted to do to break into the industry. The only aspect of 'Bollywood' here is the fact that the film is mounted on 'X' scale, and Arjun's an actor from the industry. But I think it breaks all expectations because for me, it's a very real film, and it's made in a way that's unlike anything else. I can't even compare it to any film that exists, including earlier films like Satya.
Arjun: It's a global film. It's not something we can slot as a typical gangster film, which we're used to. When you go into that genre, you have that typical treatment. The story arc is also more or less the same. Which is fair, all gangsters do have that arc, they all end up becoming Robin Hood, they become leaders of certain areas, they make their own rules. Even Gawli's like that. There is the rise of him, and then the fall. The rise and fall of a gangster is that.
Ashim, after being a critic of the mainstream industry, what made you say yes to this?
Ashim: When Miss Lovely was in Cannes, I'd have people ask me, 'so now are you ready for SRK, are you ready for this...', and I was like, dude, I don't get it. If I was, I would have done that 15 years ago. Why would I wait for so long? I clearly want to make a different kind of film. So I am very paranoid of the industry because of the relationship that directors have with it. Directors are very low in the food chain, let's be honest about it.
Lower than writers, even?
Ashim: Well, it's changing. Because the industry is collapsing, it's changing. Writers, directors...Other than the star, the music director, perhaps, then the choreographer comes in, then the action director, and then the director, somewhere near the bottom, somewhere near the spotboy, you know!
Arjun: (Laughs) That's so unfair!
Ashim: No, that's not unfair. I can name five that are not those guys - five. And if you're an intelligent director and you want to have control over the project, you don't put your head in this, right? You just don't. So I think Arjun knew that. And we'd shot a commercial together, we hit it off. I said, this guy wants to do something different, let me read the script that you've written. And I said, wait a minute, this guy's not written himself as a hero. He's written himself as a Gawli-like character, it's a very character-centric story. Because our screenplays are written around the persona of the star. The star plays 20 characters, and all of them you can't tell apart, because it's the star that dominates. Which is fine for a certain type of film. But this film needed him to be that guy. And I was excited that there was someone here who's not going to dominate it and say, let's put a song here, introduce an item number, or cast this supermodel as Asha Gawli.
Arjun, since you produced this film, you were able to do what you wanted to do?
Arjun: Absolutely! If I had sold out to a studio, the control would have gone. It's not a massive budget film, but it's also not an indie film. It's in the middle, but because of our expertise, it is a massive film. You see it in the scale, and in the detailing that Ashim brings to the canvas, it requires a tremendous amount of production support. To recreate that era takes a lot of effort. What I learnt from this film is that all the magic of a film lies purely in the detailing. And Ashim is a master of detail. You could be giving your best shot but he'd be looking at a cup behind your head in the frame somewhere!
This is your first sort of, experimental space...
Arjun: This is not an experiment at all, for me. The film has an audience that can only grow. I know that my audience is that guy in Dagdi Chawl, he has to enjoy the film, and he has to feel that his Daddy has been justified properly. That guy is your main audience, those are the people who gave us our stories. I want the cops to say, 'yes, these guys didn't mince words about something'. I want his rivals to say the same thing. I want every Mumbai guy to say, 'these characters are bang on' the guys who know the story. So it is not an experiment. It is an authentic gangster film, which is a genre I've grown up watching, and is one of the reasons I'm an actor. Seeing Brando, Al Pacino, or Amit ji in Agneepath - those were the performances that were etched in my mind at a young age and I always wanted to play one.
How is Arjun not a conventional producer?
Ashim: Because I said, let's do a biopic. Now, a biopic on Abraham Lincoln will always have his point of view, right? Here, you don't have Gawli's point of view, you have all the other people's points of view. So it's in the form of an investigation, and different people, depending on what their relation to him is, say either he is a great, wonderful, amazing guy, or he is a really dark and scary guy.
In a sense, aren't you making a documentary?
Arjun: No, but that's the whole challenge. How do you make a film that is authentic and you don't go down the propaganda route? Show all the facts, but also make it entertaining? You have to get sucked into it, you have feel what the characters are feeling. You have to feel the heaviness of the world they come from. But not a documentary. The entertainment comes from the masala in his life.
The regular accusation of making a gangster look glamorous, does that work? Because in Delhi, every third crime has a guy quoting a movie, saying I got inspired by this.
Arjun: I think there should just be a law for anybody who says a movie inspired me to do this, that you're going in for 10 years the minute you make that excuse. They shouldn't come after the industry and say you're ruining these people. That's not true. If you see our news channels, they show the goriest, most gruesome stuff all the time, uncensored. And films are censored left and right.
Ashim: The question is, is he aspirational? He is not! After watching this, you don't want to be Gawli.
Arjun: Even Gawli, it took us two-and-a-half years to convince him. It takes a lot for a man to give you those things. Somewhere he realised that this is what will make his story different from all the other guys whose stories have been made in pieces. And he was very brave to give us his story. And he also said, say it in a truthful way, and don't show me as a hero. When he saw the film also, he said, 'tumne mujhe dialoguebaazi diya hi nahi poori picture mein', and I said, 'aap karte ho kahan!' So he kind of understood that the message is, if you live in this world, this is what's going to happen to you.
If this is not a gangster film like people know it, not a Satya, or Gangs Of Wasseypur, or Raees or a Quentin Tarantino film, do you think the audience will consume what they are not used to seeing?
Arjun: But you also have a commercial actor here!
Ashim: But they are not consuming what they are used to seeing! That's why the industry is crashing. That's what people keep doing, keep giving them things they are used to seeing. 'Let's give them a gangster film where the guy wears Dolce and Gabana and walks in slow motion'. You don't want to see it again, you're done with that. The audience has actually grown up a lot, which is why we're in a position where we can make the film. We put the trailer out and we didn't expect the response we got nine million views.
During Miss Lovely, you'd said what the world thought of as Indian cinema wasn't totally representing what was coming out of India. Do you think that is still true?
Ashim: I think it has been a complete breakdown. In the last five years, the industry has collapsed. Nobody has a formula, the blueprint is gone. And for many people, it's nerve-racking. Because that blueprint was there for 50 years. You knew which star got you how much money at the box office. There was a way to calculate the entire returns on your film, based on who's the music director, how many songs and how many stars, who's the girl, etc. Now they can't, because it's just not working. It's not computing. So that's fantastic for me, fantastic for someone like Arjun who wants to do new stuff, fantastic for a lot of people in the industry who want to give it a new lease of life.
You and Arjun are still an unlikely combo...
Ashim: It's a crazy combination, totally crazy.
Arjun: There are a lot of similarities between us. Like he calls me his twin sometimes!
Ashim: An evil twin.
You two working together is essentially saying the whole system has broken down.
Ashim: It's true. In a weird way, this film is a sign of the current state of the industry. In fact, if the two of us can work together, make a film and give it this kind of release, and still not compromise on it, and say that I want people from Dagdi Chawl, I want somebody who loves Gawli, they can watch it. Yet a cinephile, who watches world cinema, who watches Korean gangster movies, is not like, 'boss what is this, why is this guy flying, why is he jumping?' They still respect the other audience.
Arjun Rampal's nose, forehead came from Italy-Ashim Ahluwalia
7:33 AM
Ashim Ahluwalia on what it took for Arjun Rampal to accurately portray gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli in his new film
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 23, 2017)
Director of Daddy, a biopic on gangster and former MLA Arun Gawli, Ashim Ahluwalia remembers the first time he met the convicted felon in Dagdi Chawl. “I was late for the meeting so no one introduced me. He (Gawli) was seated with a few older gang members and was speaking to Arjun (Rampal) with a few cops lurking around awkwardly,” remembers Ashim, who realised that Gawli seemed a bit disturbed by his presence. Eventually, he turned to Ashim and voiced his concern, “Taping kar raha hain kya?” This is when the filmmaker was officially introduced. “He is so used to watching the door, he’s always got eyes at the back of his head,” says Ashim, who found this “on-edge” temperament an asset to drafting his onscreen avatar. The interaction also revealed that Gawli wasn’t a “proactive don”, but an “observant and reticent one”. “First thing I told Arjun was, you’re not going to be delivering monologues or speeches here. This is a guy who watches from the shadows and you can’t fathom him, he’s impenetrable,” says the filmmaker, who made Miss Lovely in 2012.
Since the film is based on a living convict and the repercussions of
inaccurate portrayal could influence a possible appeal, it makes Ashim’s
job a tough one. But he’s determined. “I’m not doing a propaganda film.
If I were to make a film on Arun Gawli and just show him as a social
worker, it would seem unnatural. I don’t want to judge his life, I only
want to observe what it means to have a vile life for 40 years and
whatever the circumstances may be,” says Ashim, who has consciously
ensured the film doesn’t paint Gawli as an aspirational hero. “Based on
who you speak with, the story will be different. If it’s his mother, she
will tell you how he grew up in poverty and that he was just
unfortunate.”That the biopic was initially backed by a set of producers with a more conventional approach to filmmaking made Ashim an unlikely choice and he agreed only with conditions. “They wanted me to include item songs, cast A-listers and recommended someone for the part of Asha Gawli, who actually looked Norwegian. But I wanted it to be about just Gawli, there’s enough masala there. You don’t need to put him in a Dolce and Gabbana suit. I’ve already had to work with Arjun, who doesn’t look Maharashtrian,” he laughs. Eventually, the promoters backed out and Arjun Rampal agreed to produce the film.
Once on board, Ashim wanted to be immersed in Gawli’s world and interviewed him, his family, former gang members, those from opposing gangs, cops who hated him and even those who loved him. “What fascinated me was the protocol gangsters followed at the time. For instance, on religious holidays, there would be a ceasefire. Then, it was understood that you don’t kill someone who is next of kin or close family. Also, during festivals, members of warring gangs would invite each other into their homes and would sit down over a lavish spread and try to sort out their differences. If it ended badly, they would be back to killing each other on the streets the next day. This was just like how kingdoms functioned, there was so much etiquette,” says Ashim.
That Daddy covers the 62-year-old’s life from various perspectives and spans across decades required depicting Mumbai in the ’80s and Gawli in his youth. Armed with a file photo from Agripada Police Station, shot in 1979 when he was first picked up, Ashim learnt that Gawli, unlike the white kurta-topi wearing politician, “used to be a man who wore shirts with long collars and even flaunted a cool hairstyle”. “Arjun just had to get a prosthetic nose to get the look right. So we got him a nose, cheek and forehead from Italy, based on the archival photographs.” But the transformation also had to be internal and Arjun had to mirror Gawli’s body language. Picking up from video interviews and personal meetings helped, but there was a bit of hesitance. “I’d never seen a film of Arjun’s, except parts of Rock On, when we began working. We got along following a commercial we shot together. He had a paranoia about me that ‘Is this guy going to be super arthouse’ and I was worried that ‘Is he going to turn hero on me’. But when I told him that he was going to wear clothes that I bought from Mahim for Rs 200 and sweat in prosthetic makeup for 14 hours a day, he just said, ‘OK let’s do it’ and then I was assured,” says the filmmaker, who feels his lead has “not had great roles written for him” in the past.
Shot in locations in Kamathipura and also “in parts of Mazagaon, Cotton Green and Sewri in the Eastern belt of Mumbai — the last vestiges of erstwhile Bombay”, Ashim was particular about locations. “I have grown up in Bombay and have seen how police stations, dance bars etc looked like in the ’80s. These are spaces that most Bollywood movies get wrong.” But Ashim’s concerns with Hindi films also strays into storytelling. “Gangsters don’t have families in our films. They only have families when they have to get shot. But here we have a life in crime of a family man in the midst of a gang war.”
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