After watching Gulaal, among the unfortunate things that happen are that you can no longer claim Black Friday or Dev D. were masterpieces. They were good .. maybe really good movies.
Gulaal is Anurag Kashyap’s first movie that comes close to being called a masterpiece. I cannot say for sure if it is one, only speculate that it might be one.
The movie rests on the shoulders of two absolute geniuses.
The first of whom is the Anurag Kashyap of 2001. I say 2001 because after watching this and Dev D., I cannot say that we have finally found a genius, because we might just have lost one. Gulaal took shape when Anurag Kashyap was battling it out with the censor board over his first movie Paanch and was inspired by the song Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye from Pyaasa (check out its video and the lyrics/translation here).
The second is Piyush Mishra. He has written the songs for this movie. I wouldn’t call them lyrics, it is poetry at its best. He has composed the songs. They are not just songs, they are an *inseparable* asset to the movie. At each listen, they will remind you of the movie. He also plays a central character (Prithvi Bana) of almost a sutradhar, but not quite one.
Now about the movie.
Everyone starts their life with innocence and assumes the world is all innocent. But everyone has that one trigger when the rosy picture of the world is shattered forever. Gulaal is about that trigger.
Everyone is after that one thing in their life that they think will make them happiest when attained. Gulaal is about that chase.
Of course, Gulaal is this and more. Depending on how much you think later.
Set in Rajasthan, Dukki Bana (Kay Kay Menon) heads a secret society of the Rajputs who want the Rajputana back for themselves from India. Bhati (Deepak Dobriyal) is his right hand man. Dileep (Raj Singh Chaudhary) is a sincere fresher in Rajpur who has for a roommate the maverick Rajput prince Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh) who wants nothing of his heritage. Then there is the brother sister duo of Karan and Kiran (Aditya Srivastava and Ayesha Mohan), the illegitimate siblings of Ransa craving for legitimacy from their father and society.
This is the setting. It then kicks off a high voltage drama moving from scene to scene packed with action and aggression aided by powerhouse performances from each character without giving you any respite to introspect or judge any character till the end when the stage comes crashing down. That is Gulaal for you.
Each character is grey; and there is atleast one moment in the movie where you sympathize with each one of the characters, irrespective of which side of the protagonist they are on, even the ones that are outright negative. Watch out for the character of Ransa as well as the actor enacting the part. Both are one of the best in recent times.
Acting. I would be making a complete fool of myself if I sat down and judged the performances.
Music. Ditto.
Screenplay/cinematography/art/colors/dialogues. Ditto.
To end, it is a rare movie which you must not miss. Be warned, it will get you thinking. It has been over 24 hours since I saw it and I still cannot get it out of my head.
Yeh Duniya lyrics/translation courtesy theBollywoodFan.
15 comments
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March 16, 2009 at 11:28 am
Prasoon
There is nothing better than Gulaal that Bollywood has given us offlate – agree?
March 16, 2009 at 11:34 am
Geeta
Nice review, & I agree with you on most points. However, the climax was a vast letdown. Implausible and slow. The accompanying song was the only saving grace.
More at http://geetagyaan.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/gulaal-34ths-of-a-good-movie/
March 16, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Debojit
An okay film but with sound music.
March 16, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Ronak
I agree… Awesome movie… KayKay and Deepak Dobriyal were great in their respective characters…
March 17, 2009 at 7:25 am
girish
thoughtful screenplay ,,
excellent cinematography.
March 17, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Hemanth
I agree…nice movie…ending was great but is a little slow, thanks to Dileep’s idiosyncrasy! Here’s my take on the movie…http://hemanthology.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/gulaal-movie-review/
March 18, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Kartikey
Stumbled across here. Now this is not a way to start writing a review. It epitomises the confusions of reviewers/writers and is unfair to the medium of cinema.
After watching Gulaal, among the unfortunate things that happen are that you can no longer claim Black Friday or Dev D. were masterpieces. They were good .. maybe really good movies.
March 18, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Deepak Iyer
@Kartikey: You should also read the Dev D. review to understand why that sentence was so important.
March 26, 2009 at 4:58 am
Anantha
Hi,
I liked the movie a lot, but can not claim I understood it fully, can not claim I understood all the characters fully..
Or is that the way Anurag wants us to understand his characters…
For eg: 1) Is that Ardhanareeshwar [chela of Prithvi Bana] metaphor for some thing?
2) I even did not understand Jesse Randhwa’s characterization. In a scene she pushes away Dileep, when he tries to kiss her naval region. But she wants to stay with him in his hotel. Does she love him / not love him, or is she just frnds with Dileep..? Define the relationship b/w them…
March 26, 2009 at 10:29 am
Deepak Iyer
@Anantha : Some things are never meant to be understood, just interpreted.
The ardhanareeshwar character for eg, it depicts the non-digital human nature using a male-female example. Here, it symbolises the non-digital human nature in terms of good and evil. No one is good, no one is evil; they are just intrinsic parts of us. In the movie, if u observe, everyone is good and evil.
Jesse Randhawa’s character. As I understand, she does love him all along. But you never see her eager to indulge in any form of physical relationship with Dileep. The difficulty in understanding her stems from the fact that she seems modern, smokes and drinks. But should this be ground for us to assume that she doesn’t mind sleeping with Dileep ? Worth thinking, I presume.
But her gesture could be a reason why Dileep drifts apart to someone else who is ready to offer him what he wants.
Just my 2 cents, I don’t claim to be right [:)]
July 14, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Vishwanath
@Deepak: That’s a great interpretation of the Ardhanareshwar character (your last comment). I had always thought he represented the 2 sides of Prithvi Bana-Earlier and Present (since there wasnt much told about him/early life etc..).
Also what are your views on the Karan (Aditya Srivastava) character? I always hear people praising all other characters but him, am not saying others were bad but feel its his role that epitomizes the film. An illegitimate prince (//r to Karan, Mahabharat) plotting and succesfully getting to the throne (unlike Karan, Mahabharat)- is just fantastic character development.
A brilliant movie nevertheless, a Shakespeare meets Tarantino “Bollywood” film. ~Mind Blasting.
PS: Great blog dude, Just randomly came across it… brilliant…big fan. And sorry for commenting on such an old post.
July 14, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Deepak Iyer
@Vishwanath : Firstly, thank you for the comment.
Karan’s character is what epitomizes the movie for me. I would have thought a little less of this movie if not for the last shot of Karan, completely emotionless yet showing emotions, and his sister shedding tears.
That is when the movie comes a full circle, that is when you feel for every character in the movie at some point or the other, including Karan and his sister.
Yes, one of the finest coming out from Bollywoodnd Anurag Kashyap. Dev D doesn’t hold a candle to this movie, though it is more widely appreciated by people.
Oh and brilliant music and lyrics too.
I realize I might be repeating some thing from the post, but it’s been a long time since I wrote it, and I guess I still think the same about the movie.
August 14, 2009 at 9:32 pm
pushpam
gulal, as discbed by people ,such a masterpiece creation of Anurag,can not be denied. however personaly i found both gulal and dev d ,both are an beautiful and apriciable attempt to present women charaeters entirely different from conventional way which really need more attention. hope some comments will come in future on addressing this aspect of the movie.
August 16, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Deepak Iyer
@Pushpam : Almost everyone who has reviewed the movie has mentioned the fact you write about. I just think there are many movies that present real women, so that did not seem a big factor for me.
March 8, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Rajat Jain
And I fully agree with your review!