Kaminey - Themes and Influences

Themes and Influences

According to the Hindustan Times, Kaminey "is the first attempt to deal with reality in a mature, matter of fact manner." Unlike other Bollywood films, in which the heroine is Sita, the hero is Rama and the villain is Ravana, the characters in Kaminey are nuanced humans in "layered and complex" situations. Namrata Joshi from Outlook wrote that Kaminey reflects Bhardwaj's "enduring fascination for underdogs, characters on the margins of society and the morally compromised". In an interview, Bhardwaj said that the film deals with "themes that affect our lives directly", and "is a reminder that we all have a dark side, and often we are not fully aware of that side". A reviewer from The Economic Times wrote, "Bhardwaj presents the two warring brothers with speech defects. In today's world of logorrhea, communication is fraught with many dangers: misunderstandings, paranoias, recriminations, conflicts. Everyone speaks but no one understands. Bhardwaj gave the twins verbal impediments to show that the world has now been so hardwired to convoluted and calamitous communication that it needs silence or a speech defect to hash things out." He continued, "With some glitches, Bhardwaj has almost re-birthed the Hindi film". The film also explores sex and sexuality, which according to The Economic Times was explored in a "radically different and refreshing" way, and the director "daringly takes it a step further". When Sweety becomes pregnant, the couple "decide to carry the pregnancy to term after a bit of hesitation. So she literally pushes her man into marriage." Reviewers also said that, "ad Bhardwaj abjured marriage, it would have been a complete break but the nuptials were essential to the drama of the film". The Daily Beast noted that "for aficionados of the Hindi-language genre, Kaminey is a revolutionary manifesto. It takes classic Bollywood tropes—estranged brothers, a case of mistaken identity, high drama approaching slapstick comedy—and pre-sents them with Hollywood-style realism instead of Bollywood's wink-nudge mix of melodrama and posturing.

Bhardwaj, who is known as the Indian Tarantinto, has been influenced by many directors, including Manmohan Desai, Subhash Ghai, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola, and combines these influences in his work. Rakesh Bedi wrote that "Bhardwaj keeps displaying his vision throughout the film". Reviewers have compared the film's multi-plot narrative to those of several films by Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and the Coen Brothers, who are considered aces of this genre. Reviewers said that the film mostly belongs to the level of Pulp Fiction describing it as Bollywood's first Pulp Fiction. Bedi wrote, "there's Buñuel in the Bengali dons, there's Kurosawa ... in that surreal train car in which Charlie lives, there's Ray in money-floating dreams that Charlie has". The Hindustan Times wrote that the apocalyptical gang war in the climax is reminiscent of Apocalypse Now. The reviewer said that, "Bhardwaj just demolishes the cliches of Bollywood. In ripping apart the stereotype, he gives us a prototype: a Bollywood that deals with alienation, ... angst, ... and atrocity." A review in The Times of India notes that the climax matches to the level of Reservoir Dogs describing it as "absolutely riveting stuff, with the camera going on a hitherto unexplored journey in Indian cinema."