Gulal | Movie Review

Anurag Kashyap is an exciting prospect for Indian cinema. In him we have found a film-maker whose regime starts where Bollywood draws its limits. Angst, rebellion and sensationalism symbolize his kind of cinema. After watching both his ventures in the recent past – DevD and Gulal, I felt that through his characters he makes an extra effort to stand out from the crowd. What you get at the end of it all is a set of dysfunctional characters (let me be strong worded as Kashyap himself) who are not exactly real people. But this is what I call cinematic liberty. The same cinematic liberty that sees Yash Chopra create an imaginary Raj or a Rahul. In that sense Anurag is still a part of the same system.

Now coming to the film Gulal. Gulal is an angry film by Anurag’s own admission. He conceived it at a time when his films were facing problems from the censor board and he was listening to songs from Gurudutt’s Pyaasa (he in fact got so inspired from the song Duniya that he decided to use it in one of the songs in Gulal). The anger comes out in the colors chosen for the film. Choosing Rajasthan as the base of the film, Anurag tells the story of a failed Rajputana revival movement in the backdrop of college politics.

As a director Anurag Kashyap delivers. In this attempt he is ably supported by his cast, the music, the songs, the dialogues and the script. He does stay true to the basic premise of the concept – depiction of resentment but it certainly does not depict reality. Most of his characters appear eccentric and look to hog limelight. There is an illegitimate son of the Royalty who doesn’t talk to his father because he did not give him his name and on the other hand does not think twice before using his sister to win over his adversaries. Having said that, I do not hold this against Anurag Kashyap because nowhere does he state that he stands for real cinema. You cannot blame him for exercising his artistic liberty. The best thing about Anurag Kashyap is that through his films he is able to create an ambience that make you become a part of the film itself. So, when you walk out of DevD, you feel drunk and when you walk out after watching Gulal, you carry that anguish he portrays through the characters. The bottomline is that Anurag Kashyap is a thinking director and technically brilliant. His work shows that he is a true blue cinema fanatic. It is only when he tries being too intelligent and experimental with something as abstract as No Smoking that problems surface.

Another problem with his films is the length. A dark film taxes your mind and if it is over 2 and half hours long, you can imagine what you will be subjecting yourself to when you go inside the theater. I refrained from watching DevD and Gulal earlier precisely due to this reason. I finally watched them both over this weekend. That brings me to a pertinent point that I would like to make. You can watch Anurag’s movies only if you are really in the ‘mood’ to. I recently read Anurag Kashyap saying that his films had a lot of unconnected dots and he left it to the viewers to join them. His movies are not the usual run of the mill stuff that you can casually walk through. The result is that despite getting good reviews Gulal might not succeed at the box office.

Veering away from Anurag Kashyap, we come to another strong point of the film and that is the music and the songs. Piyush Mishra (the guy who played Prithvi Bana in Gulal) is the music director, lyricist and singer of a few songs of the film. He is equally important in the context of Gulal. He lends a strong pillar of support to the film through his music that breathes life into the film. Each of the songs is a gem.

The actors cast in the film are also a formidable lot. Kay Kay Menon, Deepak Dobriyal (Omkara fame), Piyush Mishra (Maqbool, Dil Se fame), Aditya Srivastava (Black Friday) and Raj Singh Chaudhary (Sarkar Raj) set the tone for the film and live through their characters. Ayesha Mohan, Mahie Gill and Jesse Randhawa form the female lead of the film and they show that there is space for actresses to perform as well. A welcome change from seeing most of the ‘actresses’ nowadays happy playing decked up dolls and doing item numbers. Another surprise package is the actor playing Rananajay Singh. He reminded me of Irfan Khan in Haasil. This guy exhibits the same level of arrogance and intensity as Ranvijay Singh of Haasil, though the character is far less cunning.

All in all, Gulal is a film that caters to the multiplex audience. Too many profanities would prevent families from watching it and the number of unconnected dots will keep a lot of others away too. The dark canvas would keep off people accustomed to the bright and snowy Swiss Alps as well :)

Watch Gulal if you:

- are an Anurag Kashyap fan

- liked DevD

- like to experiment

- want to spend some time away from the madding world.

- like solving ‘Expert’ level Sudokus

- want to write a review!

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Gulal | The Music Review | Anurag Kashyap’s next Movie

Dev D.’s soundtrack gave me sleepless nights; not that it scored a new high in the purity of music but for the fact that it broke the genre barrier. It got onto me and a lot of other people – its mediocrity were its biggest virtue and it won hearts as well as heads. The movie may have had extreme reactions and opinions – the music surely stood out for reasons that are not very common. There was something about it – which is hard to explain and appreciate but you could for sure sense it if you poured yourself into it.

I wasn’t aware the next from the maverick maniac would come up so soon. So I was pleasantly surprised to know that OST for Gulal was out. Interestingly, Gulal is as original as it gets!

Again the music is not mainstream – which probably is the highpoint. Gulal is an experiment which unfortunately does not happen very often. It is Anurag Kashyap’s attempt to bring Poetry to Cinema. Before we go further, let’s get it right – it’s not your everyday dose of contemporary music. It is honest to what it is supposed to be.

Some research reveals – Gulal is a tribute to the song Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai in the movie Pyasa by the poet and lyricist Sahir Ludhyanwi. Campus Politics is used as the vehicle to drive the story. It has been under production for many years now and the director has had a tough time struggling with the Censor Board.

Talking of the music, Lyrics take the centre stage. The movie has heavy influence of the Chaayawaad era of Hindi Poetry. Apparently the works of Suryakant Tripathi “Nirala”, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Verma and Jaishankar Prasad seems to the motivation behind. The mood is “Veer Ras” or the poetry meant for the battlefield.

I know you are surprised to read all of this in a music review. But I warned you – this is not your everyday dose of music. The music director Piyush Mishra simply weaves magic around his own words and uses the lesser heard voices in Bollywood that score very high in terms of their singing talent. For some reason I think it’s as much his movie as it is Anurag’s. He has acted, given music and written the lyrics for the same.

I know I am expected to talk about the eight tracks (not 18 this time!). But I want you to go out and explore. I am sure I have made it clear beyond doubt that if you enjoy variety in your music – if you like chewing the lyrics of the music that you hear – and if you understand Hindi (read “Bhavaarth”) this is the soundtrack you should not miss. I am sure by now people who want to hear this would have been excited. For the rest, there would always be a lot of pop music- that too just around the corner. Would be happy to see your comments on the Soundtrack! :)

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