Dhurandhar - More than just a masterpiece

• I love 'The Godfather' for the intense drama and explosive dialogues that escalate unpredictably.
• I love 'Game of thrones' for it's power politics and it's portrayal of betrayal, alliances and opportunism.
• I love 'Breaking bad' for the character arc, situations that transform the person between rising stakes.
• I love Bahubali and RRR for the grandeur in vision, scene construction and giving a high every 10 minutes.
• I love Sandeep Vanga's movies for the rawness in conversations and characterization of spiraling down anti-heroes.
• I love Imtiaz Ali's movies for the progression of human emotions and saga of self-discovery.
• I love Quentin Tarantino's movies for aesthetic glorification of violence, retro music placements, pop culture references and immersive non-linear narratives.
• I love David Fincher's movies for the discomforting suspense aided by terrific background music, shot composition and shot division.
• I love Martin Scorsese's (and earlier RGV) movies for showing the other side of gangsters and anti-social protagonists as humans with wide range of emotions.
• I love Chris Nolan's movies that make audiences work to comprehend the layers in each scene.
• I love Spike Lee's movies that came out of his own pain, suffering and lifelong trauma.

Did I expect all these flavors and styles to converge in one single movie ? No

Did I happen to watch one  Yes. Dhurandhar (Second part to be specific)

So much is already spoken about the movie, scenes, dialogues, music, characters, memes that repeating those all over again is unnecessary. But I would want to pen down my notes as how the movie affected me as a regular movie-buff, a conscious observer of world affairs and a hobby filmmaker in three different ways.

Dhurandhar & Movie Buff in me

There are many trendsetting movies but there are very few generation defining movies like Sholay, Satya, Dil Chahta Hain, Bahubali that break the status quo and make audience realize that they were fed sub-standard non-sense until then. 

I loved 'Animal' for all the style, performances, breaking many cinematic rules and many other reasons but when I saw that again after D2, I was appalled at my own senses and then realized a certain Aditya Dhar increased my viewing standards and decreased tolerance levels for anything lesser. 'RRR' is a masterpiece for all the reasons but the very dramatization of Rajamouli's scenes I loved looked a bit melodramatic and hero-worship inducing after Dhar made a perfect character driven meets plot driven extravaganza.

I already watched D2 twice in theatre but recollecting some scenes and shots tempt me to watch it again for all the hidden layers, easter eggs and 'peak detailing' prowess at full display. This was not just a movie but a rude awakening to my mind which was conditioned for relatively inferior content.

Sometimes I feel awkward for simping over a movie that doesn't add any value to my life. But I can't resist and neither can the entire country and diaspora that are so engulfed in the dopamine tsunami created by Dhurandhar that nobody appears to bother about impending IPL or the recent world cup win. I witnessed the euphoria around blockbusters earlier, but this is mass hysteria. 

The movie that is banned in 7 countries is also the most pirated movie that garnered cult following in Pakistan. It's not surprising as the gang wars and political landscape of Lyari reminds many of Satya that once showed that gangsters could be humans too with their own vulnerabilities, love life, friendships and emotional turmoil. By that yardstick, Dhar gave Pakistan their own Satya. 

The gore and violence is a bit uninhibited but when the stakes are ramped up, emotions are stoked, violence appears tolerable because humans experience emotions vicariously. A bad guy tortured could relieve and tame our internal demons. Violence is despicable only when it is catered to salivating incels with potboilers like Hit 3 and a string of ill-cooked wannabes post 'Animal'.

It could be just me but all the retro nostalgic parade of 90's songs brought out a child in me as my friends and I grew up with those songs. The concept of placing retro songs, curated BGM for action episodes is sheer genius for the audience subjected to stock dishoom dishoom sounds when a hero punched 20 people who fly in the air like mosquitoes.

Dhurandhar is one movie that not just broke the so-called Bollywood's monopolized crap but also broke the genres making it the only Spy-Gangster-Geopolitical-Semi fictional-Patriotic-Revenge-Family-Musical Drama that combined both character driven and plot driven styles of filmmaking.

As much as I love Ranbir Kapoor for all the intense roles he delivered, I thought Ranveer Singh nailed it the way nobody could be imagined in his shoes. Kamal Haasan was claimed as thespian of actors but I only felt he was decorated because of the variation in his roles and never saw the intensity of a Ranbir Kapoor or an Amitabh Bachchan in him. Now Ranveer Singh with his chameleon like variation across Gully Boy, Padmavat, Bajirao, Rocky Rani and now Dhurandhar - proved to be among the greats of Indian cinema. 

Dhurandhar & Geopolitics Enthusiast in me

Since I was ten years old, I have been disproportionately enthusiastic about current affairs, news and geo-politics. I vividly remember every impactful incident since Rajiv Gandhi was the PM of India. I lived to witness how Babri demolition, Bombay Stock Exchange blasts, Dawood Ibrahim being at large, BJP's revival, AB Vajpayee and Kargil War, Godhra burning of train and the subsequent riots, 2008 Mumbai attacks and the rest shaped today's India. I had voracious appetite for news concerning terrorist and counter-terrorist machinery.

Watching all the incidents in a semi-fictionalized version in a well concocted piece of art was like traveling through a time machine. The director gave a canvas and colors to my own small imagination in a way that my entire childhood and youth were exported into 4K now. This movie feels like a personal victory.

Talks about propaganda are unavoidable but if we analyze keenly, the entire infiltration of Hamza, intelligence of Sanyal spanned from 2002 to 2016, the eras ruled by both Congress and BJP. The incidents reconstructed did actually happen, terrorist attacks did happen, governments did take action. So how did connecting all these real incidents with a fictional protagonist turn into propaganda ? 

Moreover if the detractors of the movie claim that counter-terrorist actions build credibility to BJP, it's their tacit approval that BJP is synonymous to counter-terrorism. The way the detractors and some random Youtube celebs equated patriotism with BJP could cause more harm to the opposition. Even if some dialogues are pro-Modi, the veracity of the incidents can't be denied. May be amplifying it could have caused some heartburn for few.

Aditya Dhar belongs to a Kashmiri Pandit family that was hounded out of their houses and towns. His harboring grudge is reasonable but his conviction of making an ensemble two part movie of almost 8 hours within an year and releasing them in a span of 4 months shows what all can a man with grudge in his heart, mission in his mind, courage in his actions could do. 

With 8 hours of content, he could have made 4 movies and made twice the money (and that's thousands of crores), but he chose to wrap it in 2 movies of almost 4 hours each thus also reducing the number of shows per day, without hiking the ticket prices. He forfeited thousands of crores to mass invigorate lakhs of people so they all could align with his mission and expose the ideology that caused him trauma. 

May be that was all about Honsla Eendhan Badla. 

After being pushed out of home town, he was booted out of Indian cricket selections by nepotistic selectors, he was pushed into fringes of film industry by opportunistic filmmakers who stole his scripts to make hundred crore grossing movies. But he did not turn bitter and anti-social. He just maintained his composure, rebuilt himself and waited for a right time, while being dyslexic all through.

May be that was all about Nazar aur Sabr.

May be he was Ghatak because he was Ghayal.

May be the reason it was named dhuran'DHAR'.

May be the movie was about himself that he wanted to be but could not be. But he won at the end.

Dhurandhar & Filmmaker in me

I'm such a hopeless movie buff that the first thing I designed when we planned to build a new house was the home theater. Those who know me would know that I am a hobby filmmaker but not for the fame or money or other perks but for my penchant to give life to the stories I create in my mind all the time. Every place I visit, every experience I face would invariably plant some idea in my mind and I spend months and sometimes years to marinate the scenes, conversations, characterizations. 

In my pursuit of discovering the entire filmmaking lifecycle from ideation to scriptwriting to pre-production to directing to filming to music to editing to promotions to release - I made one movie with iPhone and another with a DSLR. My friends always ask me if I would make more.

While I'm not as harmed or troubled as Aditya Dhar and neither am I supremely talented or resourceful, I conceived and wrote an English movie story set in a world political landscape that spans decades. The story is based on 20 years of my learning from world politics, human behavior and international cinema. Those few handful of my friends and associates whom I've narrated the story motivate me to begin the work but I know that would be a multi-million dollar project that could suck my emotions and energies in a never before way but would also bring the utmost satisfaction to me among anything I have done or will do in my life. 

Dhurandhar has stoked that fire and courage in me to invest money, time, efforts, pain to make my own small magnum-opus that would remain my legacy. Something people will remember me for long after I'm gone. Thank you, Aditya Dhar.