Some thoughts on Anurag Kashyap's Ugly

While the offbeat and art film circuit and enthusiasts have been raving about Anurag Kashyap, this was my first film with him at its helm -both as the screenwriter and director. Dark, unsettling, often upsetting, the film lived up to the expectations that Kashyap's brand of cinema usually carries with itself. At its surface, the film is about kidnapping mystery, but at its heart, it is a disconcerting, gritty tale about the underside of the one-upmanship battles of the characters against each other. As the mystery deepens, the conflicts between its characters unravel and come to the fore. The entire web of double crossing and deceit becomes so intertwined, that it becomes a circus - which is made apparent in a scene where a boy waiting tables performs a seemingly bizarre act with small bells.

Tautly edited, the film is a bit indulgent at places, especially in the scene where Rahul, the father of the girl who has been feared kidnapped and his friend cum colleague Chaitanya go to register a complaint at a police station. The scene is long drawn out, but is a tastefully written one nevertheless. What is a thrilling chase by the duo to nab a man who seems to have a hand in the kidnapping, ends in a macabre accident and is followed by this long scene with the cops, who keep asking unnecessary questions about Chaitanya's profession and cracking trivial jokes when time is running out for the lost girl. Police apathy might have been a theme behind it; however the sudden shift in tone, serves as a prologue to what is to follow in the rest of the film. The girl, who has disappeared without a trace, becomes secondary as the characters get busy in settling old scores with each other, which makes the end hard-hitting and gut-wrenching, reminding us of what the film was originally about. As would be true of any gritty film with such kitchen-sink realism, it eschews black and white characterizations and the viewer oscillates between sympathy (and aversion) from one character to the other. Ronit Roy's Shoumik Bose comes across as a menacing, corrupt cop at first only to be shown as a victim of ragging in college later.

One can visualize Kashyap smirking, when the film takes a subtle dig at mainstream commercial bollywood and it's item numbers in a rib-tickling scene between Shoumik and a subordinate cop (Jadhav) investigating the case. It also touches briefly upon the child trafficking industry, when Jadhav comments that fair-skinned girls find a better price in the market and when a few other girls are rescued in the investigation, but does not delve further into it. One can quite understand why this is so- when there is so much filth in what should be normal interactions and relationships, who needs to go into the criminal world? The performances are brilliant with Vineet Singh and Girish Kulkarni delivering nuanced acts. Highly recommended, but is best skipped if one is looking for a light-hearted entertainer for the New Year's.