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Review - Gulaal: Just go for it
Quick Review
Honestly, I'd be more than happy to have a one-line review here saying - "Go watch the movie! Period." But that would be a lazy woman at work. It's always difficult to point a finger at what you liked in a movie. It also sort-of takes away from the experience by intellectualizing and breaking down something that you enjoyed as a whole. But you gotta do what you gotta do, so here goes.
When the opening credits begin a few minutes into the movie, I was shocked to realize - not once in those 3-4 minutes did it cross my mind that I was actually listening to a character give a political, inspirational speech. The visuals of those were so engaging and Kay Kay Menon's expressions so intense that they completely occupied my senses. For a person who gets bored very easily by monologues that even remotely sound like lectures, this was one big score on the positive side. The effort spent on casting showed in every pick and they performed well too. To name one would be to do injustice to the other and the list is really long. The women might seem a bit off because of their eccentricities but then again that might have been very intentional because they are not your regular 'miss goody two shoes' women-next-door.
And the positives only grew in number after that. Sure there's politics, and there's an undercurrent of romance. But there's a lot more happening underneath. There's dissatisfaction everywhere. The entire chain of power from the fieldworker to the henchmen to the puppet-leader to the chief strategist wants to exude confidence, power and smart-Alecness till the next person higher up comes in. Each one wants to claim superiority and find someone to pull down. Now, this is as true in state politics as it is in home or office politics.
There are many more subtle things which only a second or third viewing can uncover but you somehow sense their existence. And there are of course, what I call the director's eccentricities like the blue-and-red man and the flautist.
Then there's this strong sexual and gender-bias flittering around in this ecosystem. Though Anurag's women all seem to have a fierce sensuousness about them, they don't seem unreal and neither does it seem out-of-place, forced, contrived or any such thing. This I need to mention because I very liberally label an unnecessary expression of sexuality 'gratuitous'.
I always get apprehensive when I begin looking forward to a movie. The last thing anyone should do to themselves is spoil their experience because of their own expectations. But, one thing we can safely look forward to with a Anurag Kashyap film now is awesome and novel music, even better lyrics and perfect use of the compositions.
Too many words to describe something that one needs to get completely absorbed and soaked in. Let me just stop writing here, so you can stop reading and go watch the movie.
Parental Guidance:
- Violence: Goons bashing each other at equal intervals.
- Language: Loads of profanity and sex talk.
- Nudity & Sexual content: Not explicitly shown, but you know the people offscreen are either nude or half naked.
- Concept: College politics with a comment on the impotency of the common man.
Gulaal - Cast and Crew
- Producer: Zee Limelight
- Director: Anurag Kashyap
- Lead Cast: Aditya Srivastav, Piyush Mishra, Ayesha Mohan, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Kay Kay Menon
- Supporting Cast: Mahi Gill, Jessy Randhawa, Pankaj Jha, Mukesh Bhatt, Seema Rehmani
- Story: Anurag Kashyap, Raja Chaudhary, Aparna Chaturvedi
- Dir. of Photography: Rajeev Ravi
- Music Director: Piyush Mishra
- Lyrics: Piyush Mishra
prashant:
AWESOME movie,,,one of the best works in indian cinema,,,,BEATS EVEN "HAASIL "(having similar content),,,deepak dobriyal, piyush mishra , kay kay..... terriffic,,,just terriffic a movie that will blow u ,,out thre!!!!! ANURAG AND HIS CREW ...SHOULD BE GIVEN NATIONAL AWARD!!!!!! i clapped for 10 minutes after it was over!...going to watch it tomorrow again,,
posted 11 months agoNoopur:
bhimanyu singh and deepak dobriyal were just mind blowing...... its hard to be noticed when you have kay kay menon in full form..... but its possible in anurag kashyap's films....
posted 11 months agoShilpa:
Hi Meetu, I am unable to view the reviews directly... When I open the website, the top block which has recent reviews does not load. I have to go through the recent comments and then click on the movie. I cannot check out a review, until there are some comments on the review. Can this be fixed? i am sure many ppl are facing the same issue. Cheers!!! Shilpa.
posted 11 months agoDebojit:
I don't think was a masterpiece. But its a good example of his exemplary writing skills not cinematic.
posted 11 months agoVed:
I could be the 26th yay
posted 10 months, 4 weeks agoPrasoon:
Gulaal was better than Dev D, in fact one of the best in recent times. Watch it and write about it, please. for I want to read what you say. :)
posted 10 months, 4 weeks agoPrasoon:
I rather ask for a never-ending forever-repeat mode for this movie. Yes, one viewing is just not enough to absorb this masterpiece - Kay kay and Piyush Mehra rocked and then the whole story involving power right from that speech in the first 2-3 minutes!
posted 10 months, 4 weeks agoMayur:
One of the best movies ever made in Bollywood.. Period..
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
:) I pretty much feel the same. If not for anything else, at the very least for Kay Kay...
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
I'm sorry you are facing this issue. Could you please give me your Internet Service Provider details. Meanwhile you can click on the 'Movies' tab on the navigation bar. Then you can click on the A-Z bar and search alphabetically or once you are in the alphabetical listing you can click on the latest link to get a reverse chronological listing. Sorry you have to approach this in such a round about fashion. Once you give us the details of your connection, we'll try to figure out what's happening.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
very very true!
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
:)
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agoPushkaraj:
I saw the movie over a week back and it refuses to leave my thoughts still. Not many movies have done that to me. I finally wrote on my blog about it so don't want to repeat it all here. Just one thing - I don't think the blue-red man is not just 'Director's eccentricity.' On the contrary, I felt it provides a reinforcing compliment to Piyush Mishra's character (Prithvi Bana.) Prithvi is a counterpoint to his aggressive firebrand brother Dukey Bana and constantly ridicules him with its scathing wit. I kept thinking that both Prithvi and this character are representing Dukey's struggle with his own impotency, which he is very aware of (but can't show it to anyone.) Dukey goes about spewing venom in his speeches and bashing up Madhuri (Mahi Gill) because he probably knows that he can do little else.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agocinefreak:
Gulaal is a badly written film and all the acting fire power does not compensate for it. Yes, the director has every reason to feel angry and bitter, but then the anger has to come into the script and weave itself into the lives of the characters. The theme of betrayal is sought to be depicted at three levels; betrayal by the nation state, betrayal of one’s rightful status in society, and betrayal in love. Betrayal leads to anger, but it becomes difficult for one to understand how this anger affects and influences actions. Couple this with all the overt symbolisms that the director throws in; the Ardhanareshwari as a counter to male machismo violence, derogatory remarks about John Lennon and another very famous Indian who also wore round glasses and advocated non violence (beeped out in the film), and a nudge nudge wink wink to the failed state through Democracy beer and Constitution whisky! When will this director wake up and stop trying to impress? The living space of Dilip is a post modern kitsch of what a 70’s hippie’s room would look like as seen through a bad trip, and we see clearly how it led to Dev D. Badly etched characters are the chief weakness of the film; and the film sinks under its weight. The women as Dylan sang “come and go, barefoot servants too”! What does the man servant have to do along with the flautist, but to vent their anger? The film is boring and to paraphrase another famous story teller “full of sound and fury signifying nothing”. And at the end we get Duniya; a completely and superficial reworking of Sahir’s song in Pyaasa. You want a scathing indictment of the system, stick to Ardh Satya, and Hazaron Khwaishen Aisi.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
hey...when i say eccentricity, i mean the way it is presented. I actually thought Prithvi Bana and the blue-red man were Dukey's inner voice. Which is why Dukey's wife, his staff, are trying to protect them and are all shattered when Dukey kills the blue-red man, as if he's killed himself.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agomeetu:
extremely interesting comments. But don't you think cinefreak, that this film made you think of all these things is an achievement in itself for Hindi cinema. Just look at what came out that same week - Jai Veeru. Sure, we should look at cinema in absolute terms - but this one just completely engrossed me for its entire length.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agoVed:
Let me begin by saying I loved this movie. I watched the trailer for the first time at the screening of Dev D. I loved the trailer and was eagerly awaiting the release. Gulaal will be many things to many viewers. To me it was a musical composition of conflicts.
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agocinefreak:
No not at all. The movie just did not make me think about anything, because it is more or less like election sloganeering; sound bites and dialogues, all of which are most superficial. And what is the point in comparing it with Jai Veeru, whose maker, I am sure had no other intentions than pure commerce at heart? What really irritates me are these pretentious film makers, who claim to be doing something different, and talking about a change in cinema and cinematic experience, but ultimately end up doing the same things in a slightly more sophisticated way. I would relish an honest film any day. Jai Veeru at least in that sense, is honest, and does not lay claims to “higher purposes”! And what is this achievement bit? If the viewers are morons, and if someone comes along who treats them as imbeciles, is that an achievement? (I am not sure which is higher up in the IQ scale, Imbeciles or Morons)
posted 10 months, 3 weeks agovivek:
Gulaal. At one level, it represents Kashyap's own frustrations as a filmmaker, refers to the days of severe depression when his films seemed to have no takers. More potently, it's all about a vision of India gone sour. "It's about the India imagined by our poets and what we have made of it," says Kashyap. The film pays tribute to the bards in whose imagination the India of our collective dreams has lived and thrived. It laments for the poets—Ghalib, Momin, Faiz, Firaq, Sahir, Mir, Zauk—who seem to have become irrelevant today. The film is structured like a Shakespearean play in which the only sane voice is that of the joker, i.e. the mad poet Prithvi Bana (Piyush Mishra), the brother of power-crazy Dukey Bana. He sports a locket of John Lennon round his neck and puts his posters on the wall. He wonders why the world can no longer appreciate Imagine and why men who wear round glasses (Gandhi amongst them) don't matter any more. "Don't we brand the most sane voices as mad?" asks Kashyap. Most heartening is the way Gulaal brings back the radical, revolutionary poetry of the '50s cinema, a throwback to IPTA and also the street theatre of Safdar Hashmi. Mishra's music and lyrics are the spine of the narrative—at once moving and provocative, inspiring and indicting.There's the inventive "political mujra" called Ranaji where Mishra throws in cheeky references to 9/11, Afghanistan and US occupation of Iraq. O ri duniya is a brilliant contemporary version of Sahir's Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai. The finest is Mishra's variant of Sarfaroshi ki tamannaa
posted 10 months, 2 weeks agomeetu:
Ok...I never get it when a director is called "pretentious"..unless he has named his film "RGV ki aag" or has self-referencing running through the film...and that too would be just for that particular film. How are we as an audience to decide that a particular film-maker was honest or not? Isn't that being pretentious as an audience? Now I might sound like a person who is fashionably supporting all that Anurag does...but these are general questions. >> I am not sure which is higher up in the IQ scale, Imbeciles or Morons I have one question before that. What is the definition of an imbecile or a moronic viewer? I surely hope it is not "a viewer whose tastes don't exactly match one particular person's views." I have an objection to assuming that every viewer should take cinema as seriously as some of us do.
posted 10 months, 2 weeks agomeetu:
Very well put!
posted 10 months, 2 weeks agoVed:
Your views are much valued. Would not mind your views on the rest of my re-views on my blog
posted 10 months, 2 weeks agoVed:
Your views are much valued. Would not mind your views on the rest of my re-views on my blog
posted 10 months, 2 weeks agocinefreak:
Well if people are not willing to take things seriously there is no point in having a non serious discussion is there?And imbecile and moron are well established, validated measures on the IQ scale and it has nothing to do with “subjective” tastes!
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