Gulaal and The Future of Indian Cinema
I saw Gulaal today in a crumbling, fading, bleeding ramshackle masquerading as a cinema hall….at least from the outside. Gulaal was sandwiched between two contemporary gems “Dil Ko Churaanewaali” and “Maa Kasam Badla Loonga”. (I would have uploaded the posters as well…but wasn’t entirely sure where PFC stands on this…) The name of the theatre(Bombay Talkies) was emblazoned in massive letters, which were slightly dangly, at best. The balcony seats were the prized possessions, at thirty bucks apiece.
So far so good…..
The tangy aftertaste of “Dev D” hadn’t quite left the palate, and the prospect of another Anurag Kashyap film meant I was schoolboy-on-springheels excited and a bit apprehensive, too… for what if it flattered to deceive?
I’ve seen hardcore Sachin fans solemnly declare that their man is going to smash every record in the book; everytime he goes to bat. I’ve a friend who has more than a thing for Federer….everytime Nadal overpowers the Swiss ace(as he does so often now) my friend declares that this would be undoubtedly the last time such a travesty would take place….
As the marquee started, my thoughts were, this better be good.
150 awesome minutes later, all I could think was, “Which do I like better, Dev D or Gulaal? “ 
Anurag Kashyap said in an interview that Gulaal was his “angriest film”. Sure enough, anger of all sizes and shapes can be found… Kay Kay’s alternating quiet menace and searing blazes, the laidback sarcastic anger of Abhimanyu Singh , who is a revelation as Rananjay “Ransa” , the prince who loathes his royal family and everything they stand for. As he acknowledges himself, he drinks, womanizes and generally is a wastrel, but he has a mind of his own and is sickened by the dinosaur that is his father, His Highness and others of his ilk.
In fact, so good is Abhimanyu that he manages to outshine(briefly) the man from whom we’ve come to expect bravura performances as a matter of course.
By now, it is more or less accepted that it’s humanly impossible to blink while Kay Kay Menon is on screen. Yet again, he captures the imagination, like few others can, as Dukey Bana, the man who is willing to get his hands as dirty as you like, for his dream of a united Rajputana state.
Newbie Raja Chowdhary(who is also a co-writer) plays Dilip Singh, a bespectacled, serious young Rajput, who is initially disapproving of Dukey’s political machinations. Raja looks the part so much that for the most part, we don’t mind his often amateurish performance, which only gains steam in the second half. Aditya Shrivastava, another Kashyap favourite, plays Karan, who is the illegitimate son of the Maharaja, Ransa’s father. He and his sister Kiran(played by newbie Ayesha Mohan) are the alternate power centre to Dukey Bana.
Before the films starts, we are told that Gulaal was inspired from the song “Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye” by Sahir Ludhianvi…… (there is a song of the same name featured in the film)and also the other poets who had a vision of India. They would’ve tipped their hats to Kashyap, I’m sure…..because the writing here is some of the best I’ve seen in Indian cinema. The outrage articulated by these poets of yore has been captured brilliantly by using the idiom of the lost glory of the Rajputs.
In Sarnath Bannerjee’s wickedly funny graphic novel “Corridor”, a character quips, “People are like onions, baba….they have layers and layers.” He might have been talking about Dukey Bana, Kay Kay’s character. Dukey is genuinely outraged about the state of his people, and has seen his family suffer the anguish and the alienation associated with the transition to democracy. To that end, he is ruthless in order to gain the power to reverse this position. However, all too often, he becomes painfully aware of his limitations. Kay Kay’s blazing eyes are pitiless, masterful, holding us all in the illusion of immense power.
Kay Kay’s not-so imposing physique is slyly used here by Kashyap. There’s a scene where Dukey Bana screams in frustration, standing at one of the windows of his mansion. The frailty of Menon’s body is nicely dovetailed with the aggressive instincts of his character, coupled with the natural machismo of the Rajputs in general.
The female characters in the film are a study in contrast. Jesse Randhawa, previously seen in the “Jab Bhi Cigarette” number from No Smoking, plays Anuja, a character which is low on dialogue but high on impact, and Randhawa acquits herself reasonably well. The cool conniving bitch is played competently by Ayesha Mohan, while Mahie Gill, playing Dukey Bana’s mistress, has a couple of songs, a couple of funny scenes and that’s about it. But as I said in the Dev D post, at this point I’ll be happy just to see her at all. She has an intriguing mix of abandon and assertiveness….heady stuff.
Some brilliant supporting hands, by Deepak Dobriyal in particular,ensure that the action never slacks. (Seeing Dobriyal in this film, I couldn’t help but think of Kashyap’s post-filmfare comments about two years ago about how Dobriyal’s performance in Omkara was “*****ing better than Abhishek’s performance in Guru” )
The music of the film has to be commended. Theatre veteran Piyush Mishra, (remember Kaka from “Maqbool”?) has written and composed the songs. He also plays one of the most macabre cameos I’ve ever seen on screen. When I say he’s the boss as far as music goes, I mean that quite literally. For he is the sole character upon whom music is picturised…. A sort of deranged minstrel of reworked folk ditties and patriotic hokum, with a typical Rajasthani bahuroopiya, or masquerade artist, in tow. As the John Lennon-worshipping bard, Mishra is haunting, to say the least.
As things start to get out of hand on screen, Mishra gets more and more manic, becoming a sort of a collective conscience for us. If the use of music in Dev D was innovative, here it’s a masterstroke. In the anthemic chant “Aarambh” Mishra claims
“Jis kavi ki kalpana mein
Zindagi ho prem geet
Us kavi ko aaj tum nakaar do”
Perhaps fittingly, a couple of days back, Anupama Chopra called Kashyap the “Anti-Yash Chopra” !
The cinematography of Rajeev Ravi, who wowed us all with Dev D, is back with a vengeance here. The red coloured gulaal smeared over the faces of the Rajputs like war paint is an image which will stay with you long after the closing credits. Red is clearly the colour of choice here, whether it is the colour of the frequent bloodshed pervading the film, red is the fiery colour of passion……
Gulaal works above all, because of its searing honesty…. a throwback to the times when outrage was still considered cool. Films like this have the richness and the scope comparable to the best of modern literary fiction…. and to my mind few films fit this bill better than Gulaal. Answering my own question earlier in this post, I would say Dev D is still my favourite Kashyap film… but I suppose at the end of the day… I’m just barely out my teens, and the urbane chic “coolness quotient” of Dev D coupled with the natural chutzpah of Abhay Deol is irresistible right now. Perhaps, ten years down the line…..
Seeing how Anurag Kashyap has stamped his authority all over 2009 with Dev D, and now Gulaal, one of my favourite quotes springs to mind. In 1974, Jon Landau, music critic for the Rolling Stone magazine was sufficiently moved to say
“I’ve seen Rock and Roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen”.
Now this is precisely the kind of soppy prophesizing which was in vogue back then…..but Springsteen did become the Boss after all…….
So maybe, I’ve seen the future of Indian cinema after all.
Tags: Anurag Kashyap, Bollywood, Gulaal, Kay Kay Menon
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
So I had the fortune/misfortune to accompany Mr.Jha to Bombay Talkies and occupy the next seat as he kept exclaiming every other instant, partly due to the enticing scenes and dialogues, and partly as he kept reminding himself that its Anuraag Kashyap after all.
And yes I agree to it, the future of Indian cinema is indeed so apparent. It can only get better from here!
Besides, if only someone could post a link/matter for the lyrics of the ballads Piyush Mishra keeps singing throughout, I would be really grateful.
Finally Aditya, I owe you for this afternoon!
could i get that song… sarfaroshi ki tamanna one… it was amazing.. hats off to Mr. Piyush Mishra… amazingly talented man
@ Aditya: hey, which city has this Bombay Talkies? sounds interesting with options aplenty like “Dil Ko Churaanewaali” and “Maa Kasam Badla Loonga”. LOL… wonder whether u managed to listen / hear all the crispy dialogues / songs completely, becoz i doubt if in such an environment, the crowd wud behave too nicely.
but then, watching Gulaal anywhere is worth the effort and pain.
btw, I liked Gulaal better than Dev D, though it was tough choice and a close call.
Jha- I think the city is Kharagpur.Am I right
Aditya?I personally felt the movie had a lot of potential to be called a great movie but falls short of it.Nevertheless its still a good movie considering all the movies coming these days.Great performances & brilliant music definitely heightens the effect.
@Somnath:
Ain’t I a pain? But seriously…it was an afternoon to remember…thanks to you guys…and we’ll have another one very soon….if Bombay Talkies decides, heaven forbid, to screen “Paanch”
@Satyendra Jha: To answer your question first, I am a student at IIT Kharagpur… Kharagpur is your average sleepy town in West Bengal. Regarding the crowd…. I would put the total audience count at about 20… most of them students like us.. so…
@Sethumadhavan: Well, the reason I am inclined to agree with you is a)After Dev D, my expectations were irrationally high…never mind the fact that Gulaal was made earlier
and B) Gulaal does have a few rough edges…that way it is a far less polished effort than Dev D
As I was talking to my brother yesterday, Gulaal was like a Sehwag blitzkrieg, which completely sweeps you off its feet, despite being risky and flawed… while Dev D was like a match-winning flawless Tendulkar ton…
Dev D had too little going on for too long..Gulaal had too many things going on for too little time..Kashyap is stil not the man..Somehow I felt something was missing from both the films..but overall I found Gulaal far better than Dev D..
Gulaal has not been released in my town/city but this morning it got released on my lappy. I have no option but to devour this illegal download after office.
@skd : Yeah, I’d downloaded it, too…. but a friend of mine informed me just in time about Bombay Talkies..
Ahhh… Bombay Talkies… Gone are those days. What about Aurora? Still there? I still remember bunking school and going for the noon shows!
@AMJ, nice write-up. Haven’t seen Gulaal (yet) so can’t comment on the film. Hope it’s as good as it sounds. And yes, I liked your saga of Dev-D on a V-Day!! Maybe we should meet next time i come to KGP … Park or Sahara?
I think people are off their rockers… This movie has too many underdeveloped sub-plots, and then some over developed ones. Too many characters, and little else… and KK hogs the screen too much for a movie like this. The only thing in AK’s defence is the fact that it took a long time in the making and he developed to be THE guy who made Dev.D.
The music was excellent and so the cinematography, but somehow the the whole was woefully short of the sum of its parts.
This isn’t the future of Indian cinema, hopefully, but just a little score that AK had to settle with his past. Ouch you guys were lucky with your 30 rs tickets- I saw it at a PVR.
Nicely written review.. A little biased in my opinion though.
I too enjoyed the movie greatly. But I felt that the second half lacked cohesion and was rushed up. Couldnt really connect emotionally with the second half. And Raja Choudhary is well suited for the role till he plays the meek guy. He hasnt been able to pull the aggressive-manic part of his role well. Piyush Mishra and everyone else has done a great job.
And Anurag Kashyap, please keep making such movies in future. Gives us hope that hindi cinema can also touch the heart.
And as already mentioned in the above posts, if anyone has the links to the ballads, please pass them.. Have already spent half a day looking for them but to no avail.
The high point of the movie is definitely its music and lyrics.
hope this helps.
sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil me hai.
dekhna hai zor kitna bazuve kaatil me hai
waqt aane pe bataadenge tujhe e asmaan
hum abhi se kya bataye kya hamare dil me hai
ore bismal kaash aate aaj tum hindustaan
dekhte ki mulk saara kya tashan kya chill me hai
aaj ka launda yeh kehta hum to bismil thak gaye
apni aazaadi to bhaiya laundiya ke til me hai.
aaj ke jalson me bismil ek ghunga gaa raha.
aur behron ka wo rela naachta mehfil me hai
haath ki khadi banaane ka zamaana lag gaya
aaj to chaddi bhi silti englison ki mill me hai
dekhna hai zor kitna bazuve kaatil me hai
waqt aane pe bataadenge tujhe e asmaan
hum abhi se kya bataye kya hamare dil me hai
sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil me hai.
Piyush Mishra is a genius. can someone tell me where i can find his earlier songs?
@Avik: Aurora’s still alive and kicking….currently showing “Jai-Veeru” the Fardeen Khan-Kunal Khemu starrer…
Next time you are in Kgp, drop me a mail at amj91288[at]gmail[dot]com…. and Sahara anyday!!
@T.O. : When I said I’d seen the future of Indian cinema…. I meant a person, not this film. And yes, I can’t believe my thirty-buck luck!
@Sreekanth: Was about to post this myself… but thanks a million, honestly….this is fantastic..
Simply Fantastic..I loved the movie..This is surely the real Indian Cinema to the next level…Anurag Sir…Too Good
“Raja looks the part so much that for the most part, we don’t mind his often amateurish performance, which only gains steam in the second half”
Agree with u there..
Gulal is truly a gr8 movie. I will be glad if AK who has become a star director will continue doing this gr8 service to Indian Cinema by making movie genuinely for the sake of passion then for commercial interest. with AK i would also like to thank UTV and ZEE for giving him g creative liberties and producing movies like these. To make a gr8 movie you need a gr8 script and actors not stars, when the producer fraternity will understand it perhaps that day will be the first day f new golden era of Indian Film Industry
.
as usual i saw it late! and i was totally moved.Mindblowing film! Anurag it is ur best!
Hi Aditya..
Dude, I totally agree with you that kashyap will be the new face of indian cinema, I think there are people who has something which just takes them ahead, Kashyap has it. His cinema is different, is beyond fairy tales, is realistic, is true reflection of the society and so much more that i can’t describe. I am a die hard fan of Kashyap, have seen all of his works except paanch and short films. I liked no smoking the best, I think thats the smartest movie and way ahead of its time…just like Dev D too is way progressive if copared to the contemporary cinema in India. Black Friday is a f***ing blatant truth too…man! I jus cant stop writing when its about kashyap….return of hanuman…had changed the defination of children movies i think…..ok i stop here.
-Sachin.(gimmehell at gmail dot com)