Paanch

Paanch (English: Five) is a 2003 Indian crime thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap in his directing debut, starring Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Vijay Maurya, Joy Fernandes, and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The film is "loosely" based on the 1976–77 Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders in Pune.[1]

Paanch
Theatrical poster
Directed byAnurag Kashyap
Written byAnurag Kashyap
Produced byPadmini Kolhapure
(presenter)
Tutu Sharma
Jaydev Banerjee
StarringKay Kay Menon
Aditya Srivastava
Vijay Maurya
Joy Fernandes
Tejaswini Kolhapure
CinematographyNatarajan Subramaniam
Edited byAarti Bajaj
Music byVishal Bhardwaj
Production
company
Padmini Films
Release dates
Running time
130 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi

The film never got a theatrical or home-video release. The Central Board of Film Certification objected to the film's violence, depiction of drug abuse, and bad language. After some cuts, the film was cleared in 2001.[2] However, it could not be released as the producer faced problems. It was later made available through torrent websites.[3] The film was then screened at several film festivals after released as webseries.

Plot

Kidnapping plot gone wrong when four friends plans to kidnap their own friend who accidentally got killed.[4]

Cast

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film features music composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyrics written by Abbas Tyrewala. The album was released by BMG Crescendo in May 2002,[5] and marked the entry of the music publisher into the Hindi film music market.[6]

No.TitleLength
1."Main Khuda" (performed by K.K.)6:06
2."Ye Kaisa Hai Shaher" (performed by Dominique)4:22
3."Paka Mat" (performed by Hariharan and K.K.)4:38
4."Paanch Theme" (performed by Dominique)2:49
5."Ankhiyan Chipki" (performed by Ustad Sultan Khan)4:20
6."Jism Hai" (performed by Asha Bhosle)3:31
7."Tamas" (performed by Deva Sen Gupta)4:31
8."Main Khuda" (performed by Sunidhi Chauhan)4:36

Production

In September 1993, while Kashyap stayed at the St. Xavier's Boys Hostel, he used to hang out with Adam Avil, Eddie Avil, Luke Kenny and Ulysses Veyra the members of a band—Greek (later Pralay). He took copious notes on how they lead their lives—forty pages of a small notebook, and began writing the script—"in bits and pieces"—for a film that he called Mirage, but which would later become Paanch. Kashyap had seen ex-VJ Luke Kenny in a Vikram Kapadia play, and approached him with an incomplete script, but nothing came out of it.[7] Anurag Kashyap Interview Excerpts from the interview (in Hindi) conducted by Pravesh Bhardwaj and Ajay Brahmatmaj[8] Later on, while working with Nair, he came across files related to the Joshi-Abhyankar Serial Murders that took place in Pune in 1976.[9]

"Five very ordinary college kids viciously murdered nine people. I got what I needed to finish my script then."

He had also seen a film, Fun (1995), about two mentally unstable girls murdering an elderly woman. Kashyap says—

"There was a structuring in Fun, which you will also see in Paanch. There was something in Fun. When I began looking for it, I saw a pattern in Last Train to Mahakali, in my own film Paanch and in Auto Narayan. All three films had a similar formula. I am able to analyze it because I have.[7]

Film festival premiere

Paanch was screened at Filmfest Hamburg in 2003,[10] Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema as closing film in 2005,[11] Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2006[12] and at Jagran Film Festival in 2016.[13]

References
  1. "Total Recall". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  2. "Censor clearance, for Paanch". The Times of India. 3 December 2001. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  3. Aniruddha Guha (1 February 2009). "Anurag Kashyap is jinxed no more". DNA.
  4. "Paanch". IMDb. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  5. "Paanch - music review by Mandeep Bahra - Planet Bollywood". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2010.
  6. BMG Crescendo Makes A Debut In Hindi Film Music
  7. The 'Pahli Seedi'
  8. Audacious, irreverent, yet refreshingly original
  9. Total Knockout: A Censor Punch For Paanch
  10. "Here's Bollywood, uncensored: The Times of India". Zee News. 16 July 2003.
  11. Kumar, Anuj (2 August 2012). "On the mark". The Hindu.
  12. Chatterjee, Saibal (8 April 2006). "LA film fest to fete Naseer". Hindustan Times.
  13. "Naseeruddin Shah inaugurates 7th Jagran Film Festival". Mid-Day. 2 July 2016.
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