Three Movies | Satya, Shool And Kaun | Under Lens

In a comparatively short span, Bollywood witnessed three path breaking movies from duo Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap. When they first collaborated for Satya, RGV was an established name and Anurag was yet to settle in industry. Infact, RGV didn't trusted Anurag for dialogues of Satya and roped in Saurabh Shukla, a veteran who later played an important role in the movie. Satya is perhaps one of most realistic take on underworld till date. This was attested by many people from mafia. Success of Satya led to foundation of many gangster based movies to follow up including cult Company, D and their innumerous cousins.

This Director Actor duo brought a new concept to Indian cinema by making Kaun. With just three characters, Anurag created a story set in a bungalow with numerous twists and turns. It had that Alfred Hitchcock feel. However, not every good movie is well received. Despite of critical acclaim, Kaun failed to achieve huge BO success and did an average business. Ability of Anurag as a storyteller came to fore. The style was hailed by critics and film students. It also heralded a new beginning of suspense and thriller genre in Bollywood.

Between 1997-99, Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap explored places Bollywood conviniently ignored. Along with E. Nivas, RGV and AK worked on Shool. Shool was a blunt take on politician-criminal nexus. An honest cop Samar, who follows law in letter and spirit, takes on a criminal turned politician Bachhu Yadav. One can see influences of movies from 80s and hard hitting parallel cinema. Having said that, Shool attained cult following for hard hitting dialogues, realistic cinematography and small town sensibilities. Shool influenced many movies which followed making Bihar as subject. Shool was perhaps Anurag's nursery for Gangs Of Wasseypur.

Interesting trivia is that in all these three movie, Manoj Bajpai plays an important role. Maybe he is not the most successful actor around, but is definitely one of the best thing happened to Hindi Cinema in 90s.

Written By: Sujoy Ghosh