Gulaal - Review

The first time I had heard about Anurag Kashyap was when Black Friday had run into controversy and later I watched the print which made way to the Black market itself. It was a brilliantly made movie and so was the soundtrack. Then came Paanch and yet again the movie was not released. However it also had a good soundtrack. So it was a build up, towards something special expected from a filmmaker (who had a very crafty brain above the passionate heart for his art) when No smoking finally hit the screen. But what that movie did was to transform his image from brilliance to unexpected. No Smoking can be a separate debate altogether with extreme reactions ranging from cinematic assault to outright stylish. But this piece is about Gulaal.

First frame to last frame, stamped (with authority) is Anurag Kashyap. Be it the props like “Democracy Beer” (which just add that extra touch to a pleasurable movie experience) to the helmet that the protagonist wears in the end. The detailing has to be called the hallmark of Anurag Kashyap’s style of movie making (if I may call it so, within the domain of Bollywood – we know there are many in Hollywood to do that).

Next point that becomes very evidently apparent is the ease that the actors feel in his film. It just seems to effortless on their part that you do wonder how the director gets them into that zone (I’d keep Ayesha Mohan outside this domain for the time being coz honestly she was the weakest link in acting I suppose). When a movie is speckled with immaculate performances its tough to choose the winners. But in this assortment, Abhimanyu Singh and Deepak Dobriyal stand out without doubt.

Technically the movie is again very in your face kind with all the colours and hues being saturated to the maximum perhaps. The cinematography is wonderful and brings out the best of the backdrop. However, the editing could have been better perhaps, particularly in the second half. In the hindsight, the script could have also been a little tighter perhaps and the concept per se be hinged on a different premise than the struggle for “Rajputana”. At times the script seems to be dictated by the need of characterization rather than the other way round. This could perhaps be an individual choice, what comes first, the character or the script?

That brings us to the best part of the movie, the songs and the lyrics. For an audience that is used to music as breaks from scenes, this movie actually has a soundtrack with songs that are the omnipresent character. As already discussed in my previous post, Piyush Mishra has done a phenomenal job with the music. Can’t forget to mention Rahul Ram and Indian Ocean. They just keep adding feather in their caps.

Hope to just see more radically different stuff from Anurag Kashyap. Keep it coming.