Gulaal: Finding the Mole beneath the Mountain
Gulaal starts with a rabble-rousing speech from Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon). Bana complains of treachery at the hands of the post-Independence Indian governments. The Rajput kings gave up their estates and royalties in support of a united India and in the process lost both power and wealth. And now the same political class that took away their powers is mismanaging the country. So to save the country (at least their part of it) it is imperative to form a separate Rajputana state. It is this regional variety of patriotism that is being witnessed by Dileep Singh (Raja Chaudhary), a na'¯ve man who has come to Rajpur to study law.
Dileep Singh is the proverbial fence-sitter but gets dragged into the murky world of campus violence when some senior students beat, undress and lock him up with a woman lecturer, Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), facing similar predicament. Dileep’s house-mate Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh, in a terrific performance) comes to his rescue. A cynical prince rebelling against the debauchery of his father by living an even more decadent life, Rananjay provides an ideal counter-point to the adolescent character of Dileep and the hollowness of macho-sounding Dukey Bana. He accepts to stand for the post of General Secretary (GS) in the college elections (whatever happened to the Presidents in a Union?), while Dileep hangs around him and gets introduced to the dark world of campus politics. Once Rananjay is bumped off before the end of first half, we get frequent narrative shifts – from college to Rajputana to household to “kotha” politics – that is tad disorientating and you start looking for the narrative points.
The marriage of campus politics with the fight for Rajputana results in an unconvincing drama. Dukey Bana calls for separate state but never leaves the dungeon where group of men in gulaal-covered faces gather listening to his speeches. That the erstwhile royals depend on siphoning off the local college’s annual festival funds to fight the Indian state seems an outlandish idea. Nonetheless, serving the director’s purpose of combining the college and Rajput politics is a brother-sister duo – illegitimate children of the local Maharaja (and father of Rananjay). The sister (Ayesha Mohan in a confident debut) runs for GS in college while the brother (Aditya Srivastava) is a contender for the post of Senapati (presently held by Dukey Bana) in the Rajputana struggle. Though convenient and contrived, the brother-sister coup through sex and violence is the most interesting part of the second half of the film.
The stories of college and Rajputana politics do not gel together well (did I say that before?). Also, the politics behind the Rajputana claim is questionable. Dukey Bana argues that ‘sometimes loving one’s country means going against its own government’. But Dukey’s is actually a separatist call where patriotism is limited to one’s community and not one’s country and the government-in-power is illegitimate and thus not one’s own in the first place. Another problem I faced was in identifying with Dileep Singh. The film’s inspiration is credited to the song from Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai. Still I feel it was a slip-up to model Dileep Singh’s character after Guru Dutt’s. Dileep’s poker-faced naivette and the dogged stupidity about himself – as against intellectual detachment or cynicism – fails to get sympathy when he is cheated by his comrades and girlfriend. This character invites being a ‘natural victim’ of university ragging, masochistic politics and betrayals in love. One is not surprised when our protagonist is surprised by the worldly ways of the ‘adults’ around him. Ironically, in a classical la Devdas self-pitying moment (Kashyap here eschewing the modernity of Dev D.), the dying Dileep drags himself to Anuja’s doorsteps who truly loved him.
There are half-a-dozen other characters who justifiably attract your attention for their fine performance and/ or presence (Deepak Dobriyal, Jyoti Dogra, Mukesh Bhatt, Mahie Gill [she does look like Tabu, without her baggage], among others). There is often a mix of surreal (characters from Ramayan walking out of men’s hostel, a mute ardhanareshwar, a lone house in the middle of nowhere), and psychedelic imageries (courtesy: Rajiv Ravi’s camera and Wasiq Khan’s production design), with gritty & realist style (violent ragging and gun-dominated politics on the campus). The psychedelic, surrealist and the realist keep alternating for the length of the film. All of these elements render the film with a very interesting palette but also fill the story with lot of clutter, chaff and banter. This treatment is puzzled and complicated rather than complex and studied. And there is the Shakespearean ‘fool’ (Piyush Mishra) who keeps telling the audience the truth. As a one-act piece, Piyush Mishra is in excellent form singing away the story of disenchantment in post-independence India and also the wider world. But the film’s narrative seldom rises to the ideas he versifies.
It might seem Anurag Kashyap had too many things and ideas on his mind and for some reason felt compelled to put it all in one film.
- Padmaja Thakore
Tags: abhimanyu singh, aditya srivastava, Anurag Kashyap, Ayesha Mohan, deepak dobriyal, Gulaal, Guru Dutt, Jesse Randhawa, Jyoti Dogra, Kay Kay Menon, Mahie Gill, Mukesh Bhatt, Padmaja Thakore, piyush mishra, Raja Chaudhary, Rajiv Ravi, Wasiq Khan
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
quite rightly put. it had interesting cast but not a good screenplay to back them, and somewhere the story took a backseat and characters ran amok.
Most balanced review I have read so far. Totally agree with you.
The politics in the film is limited to making fiery speeches and manipulations are all done by using sex as a weapon. Easy way out.
dialogues, acting, camerawork, songs…everything was brilliant…inspite of all this film falls short :(
sex is a friendly weapon. it backfires sometimes but stereotypin, its like a r rahman music. ppl end up liking it.
I believe the review below which i read on site is the best review so far of Gulaal. And also it tells Anurag where exactly are his weaknesses not only in Gulaal but in general. I want him to read this and not necessarily comment. It goes like this
Review
*****************
It all opens to a drumroll and sedate voice of a man laying out the historical and political context of the Rajputana before us. We see the map. Drenched in sepia but lit by a gold hum. A voice thunders. It is the leader of the revolutionary brigade of Rajputana, one Mrityunjay Singh, but known around as Dookey Bana (Mr. Menon). This man, we observe, is a tremendous orator with quite a forceful presence about him. He is standing on a stage, addressing a gathering of men dressed all black and face covered in vermillion. Gulaal. Addressing would be a wrong word. Raging would be more like it. The frame is still drenched in sepia. The gold hum is still providing for the brightness. To the walls in the background, which at once look from another age. There’re no lights save the flames in the hands of each of the men. Revolutionaries, we learn later. It all seems a throwback from a different age than the present. From somewhere in the past, maybe? Yes, it is. Because this widely respected Bana, this man whose word is the final say, is a relic from a time where democracy was the very visible grass on the other side. Surely not from around now, for we have a little Bana delivering grocery products everyday. By grocery, I mean the regular – Maggi packets, Chips, Biscuits. You know the drill.
The setting is a fictional town in Rajasthan by the name of Rajpur, which makes for a convenient enough battleground for Mr. Kashyap to let loose a political dogfight. Ideologies – liberals, authoritarians, conservatives, democrats (pseudo), and neutrals – all exist here. The dogfight though goes beyond, beyond mere plot-level details which for various purposes is only a ruse. An excuse, a convenience for Mr. Kashyap if you might call it to enable to push his personal beliefs, for these men being supposed believers of their ideologies also happen to be something else – masculine and feminine. This allows Mr. Kashyap to create a patriarchal world, one given traditionally to the masculine order. One that has run smooth until now. And as is the age-old reason with most of our battlegrounds (again a masculine territory) – the Mahabharata, The Trojan War, Ramayana – a feminine force walks into the midst and causes utter imbalance and utter chaos into this world, where ideologies and qualities unravel into a climax brought about by the unpredictable force of a revolutionary who knows nothing better than to destroy everything around in absolute nihilism. And from its ashes rise, what Mr. Kashyap seems to profess, the true politicians. One who know no ideology, no allegiance and one who seemingly belong to no one but themselves.
But one got to wonder. To have the courage and ruthlessness to use one’s feminine qualities, the pawns at one’s disposal, and to wreak havoc through them doesn’t really call for the feminine label, is it? Isn’t it masculine enough, to be so strong? I’m reminded of a little political story I read somewhere that happened in Madurai, if my memory serves correctly. And in the same breath I say, I might err on some details. You know, I’ve this condition. Ah, never mind, let us be back. The cause was a Panchayat election, and a sister asked her brother to back off. The brother didn’t, and the sister hired folks to rape the two daughters of her brother. To a guy like me, predominantly brought up in the safety net of the urban world, that was pretty damn cold.
But then, aren’t you dear reader, someone brought up to believe in supposedly liberal sensibilities, whereupon such incidents shock us and make us cringe, and if they do not they should. Tell me, after a moment of introspection, doesn’t your natural inertia prevent you from assuming anything else than a neutral and safe stance on matters immediate to your vicinity, be it anything (conservative/liberal), but a predominantly liberal stance on matters far removed from us? I might be sounding slightly cynical here, and maybe I’m only preparing you for the cynicism that is in store for you at the hands of Mr. Kashyap, in whose eyes even a scene as potentially true as a brother remembering to bring a string to replace the broken one of his sister’s guitar and her eyes filled with love and gratitude, is a scenario whose intentions ought to be doubted. In his eyes most people are pretenders. Almost everybody. In some or the other facet of life. On some or the other layer.
Consider for example the top dog, Bana, who is a staunch authoritarian. One should note that Mr. Kashyap doesn’t really overestimate his audience and occasionally throws big obvious hints and cues so that we’re able to gather what he is trying to say. That Bana is an out-and-out authoritarian is apparent, but the filmmaker chooses to include a moment where the elder brother, Prithvi Bana (Mr. Mishra), a convenient liberal, one who’s endlessly mocked and cursed throughout the film and even considered a eunuch for his neutral stances (I would come back to the inherent contradiction later), chooses to salute the Bana Nazi-style. We see that he is also the alpha male around. The numero uno masculine force. One who mocks the wussy Dilip, played by Mr. Chaudhary, upon whose original idea and story this film is based. Dilip the common man, embedded with all the feminine features possible, falls for a conniving Kiran (Ms. Mohan). Dilip the weepy, who pushes himself deep under the safety of a woman upon the murder of his friend. Yet Bana does the same, and falls for the same woman. What is the director-screenwriter arriving at here?
The problem is that Mr. Kashyap is arriving at nowhere. His film is a big ideological mess. Most of his characters would rather be someplace else, than here. As he displays it early on, and an awful too unimaginatively for my liking, Hell here. The son of the king, Ransa (Mr. Abhimanyu Singh) of the land lives in a bar, a haven of the western world, but he sure does mock his own father for being a sycophant to western women. Ransa has no ideologies. Bana sure does, but he would rather be sleeping with his mistress than his wife. There’s Prithvi Bana who wears a John Lennon locket, has John Lennon posters, and only speaks of in terms of music. He is supposedly the wise man, but what use is wisdom if you cannot act upon it, and if you cannot cause catalysis.
That way, the film pans out, it seems it wants to be someplace else. Maybe it speaks of Mr. Kashyap, who after fighting an uphill battle with the censor board, might relish the opportunity of making films in a different industry and maybe even a different audience. Which ever way it is, there is little doubt that there’s no particular ideology the film’s adhering to, apart from criticizing every which one. Mocking every which one. He suspects the revolutionaries as folks who’re only jolted into action when their personal lives are ruffled; otherwise they’re pretty common boneheads with a born-to-lose tattoo on their chests and foreheads. He smirks at the liberals, and considers them capable of only inaction. He would rather label the authoritarians fascists. He would call the republicans/democrats scheming power mongers.
I’ve got to admit here, I’ve been writing very fast until now, and as I take a break and skim through whatever drivel I’ve dished out, I fear if I am making much sense? Practical sense that is. It is for you to decide, and if I’m not I choose to believe the film isn’t either, and vice versa. Either way, it seems, me and the film seem to be a chip of the same block – theorists who know nothing better.
Or maybe not, because for all his limitations as a narrator, and Mr. Kashyap is a real tacky one with serious issues concerning the clarity of conveying what’s on his mind onto the frame, he is got a terrific and a rare gift to provide for a frame that is brimming with life in its every moment. There’s so much of it that one doesn’t really mind to watch it twice just to clarify residual doubts Mr. Kashyap’s narrative leaves behind. Even the lesser characters, and even the lesser moments seem taken from life. Consider the terrific scene where Karan walks to a funeral and is stopped in his tracks by Baata (Mr. Dobriyal). Look at the acting here, look how the scene plays. It is a lesser moment but there’s so much of it drenched in life that it stays. Or for one of the film’s finest moments, an example of great acting where we find Baata at a tea-stall not uttering a word but replying only in nods. It is the kind of scene which provides the kind of depth a script can never achieve, something that could only be attributed to an actor and a director.
I learn that the film has been seven long years in the making. It shows in the way it shrinks its battle, and takes it into a whole different level. Intellectual or not, it has the energy of personal filmmaking. In the way he judges his characters, in the way he chooses them as the superior of the lot and labeling them the desired species fit for evolution. He might use preposterous developments in his script to achieve those ends, and I do not necessarily mind for it makes for fascinating filmmaking. I just wonder what it would take for Mr. Kashyap to envisage a battle where the last man standing is actually a woman.
It is some other site not www.passionforcinema.com
@feroz : next time plz copy-paste the link instead of the entire article. ur copy-pasting the article may not be of much help because its so un-readable. good enthusiasm though, thanx
‘It might seem Anurag Kashyap had too many things and ideas on his mind and for some reason felt compelled to put it all in one film.’
Influence of Wong Kar Wai’s Chunking Express may be one ?
Whatever flaws discussed, the movie is extremely rich in style and explosive character performances, unforeseen to Hindi cinema intelligentsia, hitherto.
Cheers!
~uh~
@Padmaja
The GS/President thing is (AFAIK) more location based.
In Kerala – GS is considered a more prestigious post (since most of the actual work is carried out by the GS). While in UP (at least in Lucknow), the President is mostly top dog.
And while the stealing of college funds seems petty – we have to remember that it was to cover shortfalls in funding the kranti. And decades of being weaned on thousands of crores and general opulence in cinema might cause us to loose track of 10 lacs.
I would still like Anurag to have brought out more meat into the campus politics angle – and a University President in UP/Bihar yields power similar to an MLA/MP (and roam around in cavalcades of beaconed vehicles).
Maybe the future where Gulaal is set does not have all this – I guess most of the reviews are ignoring the fact that Gulaal (at least in my memory) was supposed to have been set in the future. I guess the makers underplayed the fact to be spared from people who would have gone to watch the movie expecting flying cars and pink haired women.
@Sunny Lalany
I like ur name man…
criticisms and well some more…
“tumhaari hai tum hi samhaalo ye duniya”
It’s new cinema, brave cinema even if not perfect cinema.
I would rather appalaud than criticise.
And the smoke rises only in one direction that it knows.
Up.
spot on!!
Gulaal? Magic realism? Wow! There’s another one! Please tell us, you were being sarcastic
“Magic Realism” ! Did i read it correctly? Really? Please say that you were kidding.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez might have restless nights after he learns out that people are saying Gulaal is about “Magic Realism”.Let’s not start treating this nice movie as if it’s a lynchian puzzle of a movie or “waking life”.
On a more serious note,i totally loved this article,it gives a pretty unbiased review of the movie and i totally support it.Great Revu.
Cheers,
~Neeraj
With the kind of detailing and layers of characterisation that Kashyap does, I think, his movies will work even if there’s no story! BF, Dev D. and now Gulaal, all have well detailed out characters, with multiple layered personalities for some. Characters that we cannot forget, though we have/ will forget the story/ screenplay in some time. But his characters are simply unforgettable.
@ raza
thank you, well my real name is Amir Aly Lalany.
still like it?
Feroz
That review you posted is a very good analysis of GULAL. Where did you find it?
It should be a separate post.
I loved the movie. Saw it twice and would like to add my own views to all that is being said and written about the movie.
very informative.
I loved those psychedelic effects reminded me of ramlila when to dramatise certain sequences one guy would put these colored cellophane papers in front of lights.
Loved the lyrics and the fact that piyush used so much harmonium and tabla one doesnt get to hear it often these days now i think synthesiser has taken over these. (I also think it was good of amit to use a brass band in emotional atyachaar)
I think this was one movie where when a character died the death scene seemed very authentic as in no over dramatisation. They looked real and believable.
By the way since we are on death scene when ransa was shot the hole on his shirt seemed to say that ransa was shot from front and in later scene karan is shown shooting from top. just wondering about the trajectory of the bullet!!!! By the way that guy (rannsa)was awesome in movie.
Ohh and one more thing in the opening scene when duki banna is giving his speech there is no kajal in his eyes and rest of the movie he is shown wearing kajal. Also when the same scene is repeated later when is removes his jacket and subsequent dialogue he is shown wearing kajal.I think duki banna wud have looked more in character if he was wearing kajal in the opening scene. Somehow he would have looked more of a raging lunatic if the kajal was there. I just have a thing for noticing absurd things :(
Deepak dobriyal rocked in the panwaala scene , in fact he was a delight to watch in every frame. Keep it up guy.
Mahi gill’s mujra’s didnt have any energy nor chutzpah.
Feroz great comments
All in all good effort AK. Keep it up
Pooja
I think we can ignore continuity of Kajal on Duki Bana when it took the director seven years to finish the film.
dialogues, acting, camerawork, songs…everything was brilliant…inspite of all this film falls short – Exactly what I thought.
Yet,a must watch..
I didnt know it took him 7 yrs in making . i thought he made the movie and then he had problem releasing it or some problem with censors. I just noticed it and was wondering if anyone noticed.
Deepak Dobriyal..Paan wala scene was superb..I also liked Aditya Srivastava..He is one of those actors who can act with his eyes…Raja Choudhary was pathetic especially 2nd half..Don’t blame him when he is surrounded by such great performers like Kay Kay,Deepak and Adithya..
My friend wrote a review and sent it to iView but was rejected for unknown reasons. Just wanted to share it….
Gulaal: Three Passionate people and a Mouthpiece
Contrary to many critics of bollywood movies, who believe that Gulaal is the most accessible movie by AK yet, I think Dev.D was the most accessible movie by AK. I am not saying Dev.D was not a layered movie. Typical of an AK movie, Dev.D and Gulaal are multi dimensional. It is just that the first layer of Dev.D, which a normal moviegoer could see, was fun, different and refreshing. However, Gulaal’s first layer is quite abstract, chaotic and starts several serious issues but leaves many of them high and dry. But, once you see beneath, you begin to unravel its true colors (along with the most obvious RED).
***Spoilers***
This movie is not about college politics, ragging or even Rajputana!! This movie is about the lives of three passionate people and how they fail pursuing their passion. Dilip, Kiran and Dukey Bana are those three protagonists who are passionate about three dangerous and addictive things – Love, Power and Revolution. The movie is about how they get sucked into it and get corrupted after going after them and eventually falling for them. All three of them are very passionate about their goals and can do anything, go to any insane extent for achieving them.
Dukey Bana (Kay Kay) is a strong headed person dreaming about an independent Rajputana and heads an underground revolution for it. He is so passionate about it that he can go to any extent for it, taking down all obstacles that come his way. His character is neither white nor black. It has shades of grey as does everyone in the movie. He first manipulates Rhansa (Abhimanyu Singh) and then Dilip so that he could get resources and manpower for his revolution. His lust towards women also adds more darkness to his character.
Dilip (Raja Choudhary) who is 28 years old but still not settled and relying on his family for everything is an introvert (chashmish) and gets ragged pretty badly. He craves for some love/friendship in this ajnabee town. The scenes like his advances towards Anuja (Jesse) initially, his bonding with Rananjay (He says to Anuja that he can’t do anything without Rhansa after his death), his fatal attraction towards Kiran (Notice how he almost comically begs kiran not to dump him) show his desperation for love. He doesn’t seem to see beyond this. Like in the scene where he is adamant about just talking to Kiran and nothing else would satisfy him. Eventually upon not getting his love, he goes bizarre and does things not expected of him, which explains the rather indifferent ending.
Kiran (Ayesha Mohan), character rather complex, appears to be completely black, as the one who manipulates a lot of them (mainly Dilip) to get Power, but actually pretty grey. Notice how she hesitates when her brother Karan (Aditya Shrivastav) instructs her to patao Kay Kay or her reaction when her father dies or her tears at the end, realizing her guilt. Eventually she gets what she has desired for (Power) but how she got corrupted in her pursuit and how she fell.
The song Duniya is beautifully shot, which aptly shows the result of the pursuit of Love, Power, Revolution, their downfall. Though the ending did not gel with me initially, it made a lot of sense to me later when I realized that such an ending was required to show the downfall of the protagonists.
Piyush Mishra is the jaan and soul of the film through some of the most amazing songs with equally powerful lyrics that Hindi cinema has seen recently. He also comes up a beautiful cameo uttering John Lennon’s dreams and mind blowing poetry (like Sarfaroshi ki tamanna, Maachiz one). He, I believe, is AK’s mouthpiece in the film, AK says it all in this film though Piyush Mishra. The scene in which he is searching for something (Rajputana map) is just awesome!! The ardhanareshwar is cleverly used in the film showing the hypocrisy in us, highlighting the double standards we have in every issue.
Many people have complained about the lack of more rajputana scenes or more of student politics, but these are just backdrop of what is essentially a mad, insane pursuit of Power, how it corrupts and eventually leading to the downfall.
Performance wise, the “Power House” Kay Kay has the best dialogues in the film and he packs them with a punch which surely will knock out everyone. Just his glaring eyes, his ever so subtle facial expressions just blew me off, were brilliant!!
The real dark horse for me in the film was Abhimanyu Singh who plays Rananjay, has a very strong screen presence. Both his opening scene (his laundiyabaazi dialogue) and his ending scene (the withdraw dialogue) are some of the most remembered scenes in the movie. Abhimanyu Singh did real justice to his short but powerful role. I would certainly like to see more of him in the coming years.
Dilip Singh played by raja Choudhary (also the script writer) as an introvert character does a decent, neat job but not as convincing as one would have liked at the end though. Kiran played by Ayesha Mohan has done well for a debutant and shows promise. Deepak Dobriyal has an excellent role and he more than lives up to it (remember the paan scene?).
The only place where for me the film did not work was the way in which Aditya Shrivastav was used or rather under used in the film. His talent about which AK says as the most under-rated actors in the country remains under used in the film tooL. Just notice his face at the end and you will realize how underutilized he is in the movie. Without opening his mouth, he summarizes the entire plot he hatched. He certainly is one of the best actors of India.
AK on his part has done a superb job overall like use of beautiful music in the film, his choice of shots, the way it is shot. Part of the acting credits should I believe go to AK as well, more than this you have to give it to him just for having sheer conviction and guts to do this brave film. Though personally I place this film below Black Friday, No Smoking, Dev D (haven’t seen Paanch and Return of HanumanL), this is indeed a superb cinema we need to be proud of!!
I will neither give it stars nor give a thumbs up sign as I am not Rajiv Masand but I would certainly say, “See it to experience the different shades of Gulaal”.
@Mohan
Even I have written reviews and articles which have been rejected ,in fact I am eagerly waiting for my next iview article to be published ,but that doesn’t mean I start publishing my posts in the comments section, there is a reason comments section is called comments section and we should respect that.
This can be a dangerous trend just as some people have recently made PFC a place for posting their resumes in the comments section to get the attention of film-makers on this forum.
@Vineet
I agree with you that comments section shouldn’t be abused. But, one should note that I haven’t put resumes here. I have put a review that I found very good and would qualify as a comment to this post. I believe comments are moderated and if a comment doesn’t qualify, moderators won’t allow it.
spot on Vineet. this write-up has already seen two such attempts, and this trend must be discouraged at all costs.
seconding ur view, i am also an iView author, and some of my posts have not been published. does it mean i put it on a conveniently related post and let myself be read ‘at all costs’?
@ Mohan; please dont give fuel to this phenomenon.
Agreed. But, the point is one should leave the decision of a comment being not relevant or abuse, to the moderator of comments section.
I am not trying to spam here. I thought this review (not by me!!) is a good comment(albeit a long one) to this write-up.
@Mohan
I know how the moderation in PFC works ,it has a word-press backend ,which means that admin rights do not belong to any individual rather a group hence moderation belongs to all the authors here.
Now comments unlike posts come in droves of hundreds hence I don’t think people go through comments as rigorously as they do through posts ,hence it’s quite possible that comments which are not up to the mark also get posted here ,so as the person who is commenting it’s also our responsibility that we take care while posting comments.
Every story is a bit autobiographical…
A particular character more often than not does represent the writer him/herself.
Interestingly, in Gulaal every worthwhile character seems to have a bit of Anurag in it.
offcourse, I don’t know him personally, but ya I have known myself to judge(and farely accurately at that/)books even in pitch dark.
So what character Do I think is closet to Anurag in real?
I think its “Bhaati”.
What do u say ?
@KC
WRONG !!!
GK
Thank you Padmaja for a film review that is exactly only a film review
Padmaja: one of the most sane and sober reviews i’ve read on gulaal. thanks for this.
*
Kathi Mahesh Kumar @ 15: “magic realism …. is used to narrate aberrations that exist in present day politics, life and society.” that’s one very interesting take on gulaal. not sure about the magic realism, but i thought i found traces of ionesco’s absurdism in the movie. to each their own, perhaps? anyways, mate, i’m interested hearing more on your theory. could you possibly elaborate and post it as an iview?
Agree with the review 100%. The film does fall short at many points. AK’s most of the films run like a documentary(more like surreal).
Characters speak in mono syllables and there is lots of REDD everywhere :D. I found the movie failed to create the political tension and motive of KK completely. Also, some scenes reminded me of Omkara(KK attending a havan ala Naseer in havan in Omkara). Srivastava was good in his performance.