Who is Mukul S. Anand? (Part 1)
Who is Mukul S. Anand? Tragically, this is often asked when I put out his name as one of the most creative visualizers and one of the best known painters on a cinema canvas.
The Indian movie industry (Hindi, Southern, Eastern et all) today has a fistful of talented craftsman who can capture beautiful, breathless shots on the big canvas. But Mukul Anand (MA) was one of the first few who pioneered the art of telling a story captured with strong pictorial and mouth watering images, scenes, shots and concepts. Tragically Anand died very young in 1997 while working on his last movie Dus. A tremendous loss to Bollywood cinema, we had just started to see Anand gain power in this industry to make films in the way he wanted to without any outside pressures.
MA’s story starts in 1984. His first movie. Inspired from the 1962 class starring Gregory Peck – Cape Fear. The movie MA made was “Kanoon Kya Karegaâ€, starring Suresh Oberoi as the upright lawyer with Deepti Naval as his wife. And after a long long long time, MA brought to forth on screen what this actor was born to do, and he did in his initial movies, but his talent got lost and wasted by the typecasting theory perfected by Bollywood producers. Yes, I’m talking of Danny Denzongpa. MA brought back Danny from the dark pits of villianish type casted roles which he had now been doing for a decade. Danny again acted the smart, cunning villain who can’t digest the fact that Oberoi has sent him to jail. It is one of Danny’s most powerful and hardhitting performances perhaps rated next only to his debut film – Gulzar’s ‘Mere Apne’.
One of the first movies to bring forth the concept of “stalking†– when there were no such laws to prevent it and a hapless Oberoi along with the commissioner (Iftekar) can do nothing but verbally warn Danny to avoid doing just that. Kanoon kya karega clicked on various levels. Story and tight script. Strangely MA in his entire career would face this drawback of tightly binded story, but his first was just perfect. The other positives in KKK were the powerful performances by the three lead actors – Oberoi, Naval (his wife) and Danny. People say that Nana Patekar and now Irfaan click with the audience because of their portrayal of a cool – yet supremely powerful guy on screen. Danny in KKK is just that and perhaps more. Notice the scene where he kills the family bodyguard on the shore (Sharat Saxena), swims to the house boat and enters the kitchen looking straight into the eyes of Naval – and says very calmly “I had told you once, I will hear your voice from very close…†– Danny’s powerful body holding Naval close to him and saying that dialogue in the devil may care cool attitude hits you hard and sends a chill down your spine.
With KKK, the critics and audiences got up from their slumber of watching “Tha thaiyya†movies of those years and wondered who this director was….they were not disappointed – there was more to come.
1985 was buzzing with the arrival of Rahul Rawail, JP Dutta, Punkuj Parasher and a few others. There was another buzz. A humming of a song actually. A ghazal – “Kissi Nazar ko terah, intezaar aaj bhi hai†– it was around on tv and the radio. It was from the movie – MA’s second – Aitbaar. I don’t remember the original English movie it was inspired from. But the remake again in English was called “A Perfect Murder†starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow. Aitbaar dealt with a husband’s suspicion about his wife having an affair and he plots to get her killed, but in the end his plan gets so messed up in the web he had spun, it ends up consuming him. Aitbaar starred Raj Babbar as the husband with Dimple Kapadia as the wife. Suresh Oberoi as the lost love Kapadia had before her marriage and the oh he never ceases to amaze me – Danny Denzongpa as the detective investigating Kapadia’s death. Again MA gave Danny a complete change as the middle aged detective who on purpose projects himself as a dumb cop but always having those ever watchful sharp eyes looking for the guys under suspicion to falter. The famous key under the doormat concept is one of the best suspense mix ups in Bollywood cinema which throws the audience off. How many suspense movies today can keep the audiences on the edge? Aitbaar was one of the last of such movies which actually did.
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MA then made two to three movies. Again in each his individual style of film making was completely visible. His next was “Main Balwaan†(1986) – not much to boast about, and then came “Sultanat†(1986). I think in Sultanat, MA found what he was meant to do – paint for the movie canvas. Beautifully capturing the desert and one of the best battle scenes done in the history of Indian cinema – Sultanat though faltered at the script level. I stood for 4 hours in line, battled people who would try to get inbetween, fought the theatre people who were beating the mad rush to get in line, and ultimately I won my 3pm show ticket for Sultanat in the blistering Bombay May sun, to come out 3 hours later completely disappointed and with a headache. Perhaps I had faltered in my judgement. MA was just another guy with a few ideas which were nice but not those which showed a genius in the making.
MA proved me wrong.
1987. Come back of Vinod Khanna. He chooses the movie called “Insaaf†– director Mukul S. Anand. Insaaf was a classic case and one of the first examples of enticing and intoxicating the viewer through breathless shots, scenes and pictorial concepts. MA had arrived. Script level still not good. But MA brought back Vinod Khanna and did this. On screen he made the personality and presence of Vinod look as that of the presence of an emperor. And MA burst back with captivating shots – a genius at that, and ofcourse his patent – playing with the color white. Shot : Pier at Madwa. The bridge from the road ends into the ocean. Suresh Oberoi in a white suit with his back towards the screen, stands at the end of the bridge watching the ocean. On either side of the bridge are Suresh’s henchmen, you guessed it wearing white. Enter Khanna’s car, who gets out and starts walking towards Oberoi, and as he is walking past the henchmen, they start turning and walking behind him. With the clear blue sky, Khanna dressed in white and the guys following Khanna – its one of the best shot of those times ever captured with an equally captivating background score. “Insaaf†also brought to fore the comedy of Shakti Kapoor (yes the now infamous one) in the shape of Inspector Bhinde. MA would virtually act each shot to show Shakti the mannerisms of Bhinde and Shakti would simply ape what MA was doing. Insaaf was a hit and a relief for Vinod Khanna – that inspite of all these years of absence, the audience had readily accepted him.
Again after “Insaaf†MA fell into the rut of making “timepass†movies (Izzataar, Maha-Sangram). But it was soon to end.
In a few years he shook hands with Amitabh Bachchan and made three movies beginning with
Agneepath (1990). Discussing the movie after watching it, with another movie buff, I was told – which I had completely overlooked – was MA’s unique shot taking technique. Example - Scene – a young Bachchan is dragging his father’s dead body on a wheel cart which sinks into the mud and he tries hard to take it out, while doing this Danny’s (again looking young and handsome in those opening shots) car whisks by splashing muddy water on the young kid. This whole scene was taken in 6 or 7 shots. Shot 1: kid pulling cart; Shot 2: wheel of cart sticking in mud, Shot 3: Anguish on kid’s face, Shot 4: kid pushing wheel, Shot 5: Danny’s car with Danny looking out of the window, Shot 6: Tires of the car splashing water, Shot 7: Splashes hitting the kid’s face.
It was not only the shot break up but two important techniques. The shots above were crisp, short and cut immediately to move on to the next. Second. The camera didn’t move. Punkuj Parasher and others like him on the other end were moving the camera, on the shoulder, jumping, running around etc. MA stuck the camera where it was. Instead he used multiple cameras, static in movement to capture a scene and then integrated the shots from each of those cameras to give an entirely different dynamic motion to an ordinary scene! Again – the brushes of MA painted beautifully. Watch Bachchan standing on the boat sailing to meet Danny, or the car he’s driving has a chopper coming up from behind from nowhere – leaves you gasping for more, the shot where Bachchan and his thugs break into the slums running through the narrow lanes to rescue Bachchan’s sister – again a beautiful portrait in MA’s favorite color – white. Agneepath gave Bachchan his first (?) National award. But Agneepath wouldn’t have been Agneepath without the creative input of another brilliant but under nourished actor – Mithun Chakraborthy. Acting a Tamilian (or was he a Malayali?) who sells coconuts, saves Bachchan’s life and becomes his fast friend. Agneepath clicked and laid the path for the second movie - my favorite amongst the Bachchan – MA trilogy which was….
To be continued…
March 20th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Thanks for this Oz.
Maha sangraam is not a time pass movie IMO. It was a decent flick, much better than what bollywood was churning out those days.
And Izzatdar was not directed by Mukul anand it was directed by Bapiaah.
SULTANAT: I watched this First day first show. I was 8 years old then.