Gulaal : Why It Will Not Do Well
I watched Gulaal on the very first day it released and I wrote a review as well. I put-up one of the first reviews of the movie on PFC, which was not my reaction or some heartfelt writing but just the basic plot-points and the characterisation. The review can be found here. I received quite a few feedbacks stating that I gave away too much, though I would not like to believe so. Anyways, the movie was good, no doubt, but it was good only in parts.
I followed a few other posts on Gulaal and found that quite a lot of readers did put in the comment accusing authors of being Anurag-bhakts and other names. They went on to say that the movie is being blindly praised and no one has the guts to write against it, but I beg to disagree. In fact, quite a few posts on Gulaal have said the contrary. Some movies are universally accepted as good, but most movies are left to individual tastes and opinion; and Gulaal is one such movie. If people really do think that PFC is not the place for mainstream cinema and only dark movies or Anurag-backed movies get websapce, then I beg to disagree again.
I am sorry for digressing a bit, but this is important. If anyone wishes to air their opinion, and have something valid to say then please write an article to Projekt_iView and it will get published. I have myself on numerous occasions written about mainstream cinema and my affinity for the Yash Chopra and Karan Johar movies. Dostana and Dasvidaniya released on the same day, and you would think that people in PFC would print pro-Dasvidaniya and anti-Dostana articles. But, I submitted Projekt_iView article on why I watched Dostana and not Dasvidaniya and it was published here. Later, I even submitted a Projekt_iView on Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and why I loved the movie, that can aslo be found here. So, instead of writing vily comments and scathing remarks, please take time-off and write an entire article praising/bashing a movie, about its merits/de-merits, but with facts/data/analogies. If the article is good and factually correct or opinionated well without biases and sweeping generalizations, it will get published and your opinion will get a wider audience. Till that moment, please do not make snide remarks and ridicule anybody.
Back to the movie, Gulaal is not a historic movie as some people have made it out to be. But, its a very good movie and a brave attempt, a terrific watch. Gulaal may not not be the torch-bearer for Indian cinema, but it definitely lights the lamp of hope for story-telling and characterisation in movies and its gutsy portrayal. Last year, 2008, saw some great story-telling in movies like Aamir, Mumbai Meri Jaan, A Wednesday, Dasvidaniya etc, and Gulaal only furthers their cause. The movie is technically brilliant, except for the shoddy editing. The dialogues were great, especially the sleazy lines spoken by Ransa[Abhimanyu Singh], the mind-blowing speech by Dukey Bana[Kaykay] and words of wisdoms dropped here and there by Prithvi Bana[Piyush Mishra]. The movie’s high-point was, ofcourse, the lyrical ballad of Piyush Mishra, he was awesome. But he was grossly unutilized, and I thought he should have had a bigger part to play in the climax. His non-utilization was poetic injustice to the movie as well as to Piyush Mishra.
Vishv ki pukar hai ye, Bhagwat ki saar hai ki
Yud hi to veer ka praman hai.
Kauravo ki beedh ho ya, Pandavo ka need ho
Jo lad saka wohi tho mahan hai.
Despite all these, the movie will not do well simply becasue it fails to connect with the audience. While student politics may go down well with the northern belt, people down south could not relate to it at all. I am quite sure that even the multiplex audience will be feeling left-out, as I was, among the handful of people who were watching this movie on the opening day itself. Also, the movie was way too long, it should have been much shorter. The second half just dragged on with Dilip holding every collar possible and asking for Kiran.
The movie has its crests and troughs, but the crests were few and far-in-between. The first half was promising, but the second half was a let-down. Everything that could sizzle was taken off the tandoor in the first half itself. The lamp that lit the room was blown off early on, I am talking about Ransa. After his departure, it should have been Piyush Mishra who should have propelled the movie forward, but everytime he spoke he was silenced by Dukey Bana. Dilip was such a sucker, they did not let the character grow, not even towards the end. Holding a gun and going bang-bang does not a hero make; watch Bhati[Deepak Dobriyal] and you will know what I mean.
I thought the women leads in the movie were again on the extreme end of the spectrums. While Dukey’s wife was a doormat and Dukey walked all over her, his mistress Madhuri[Mahi Gill in an extended special appearance] was no less than a hand-towel. Both of them got used and abused. For a moment I expected Kiran[Ayesha Mohan] to pull the strings, but soon came the realisation that she too was a puppet. It was quite sad to see such weak women portrayals, and the only place where their presence was felt was in the cuss words; because no cuss word is complete without invoking femininity. And Kiran proudly saying the she slept with Dilip without having any emotions was such a farce in the name of aaj ki naari being liberated. Has she heard of contraceptives for women, she went on accusing Dilip for getting her pregnant, and sucker that Dilip was, he just kept listening to all this bullshit. This is women empowerment in 2009, get real guys.
This movie suffered from the same problem that Delhi-6 suffered from, but in an equal and opposite way. While Delhi-6 went into the details of trying to explain every metaphor; this movie did exactly the opposite – it left all the metaphors for the audience to interpret/decipher/realize. Now, in a land where Singh is King, Welcome, Golmaal Returns become hits, how can we expect the audience to decipher fantastic metaphors like these:
1. the ardha-niri : not many people have been able to decipher it, I am still trying. I think its represents the duality in all of us, concomittant presence of good and bad, ignorant and awakened, innocence and deceitful; its only how we view it. That could be the reason Dukey was always kicking it out because it irked him no end while Prithvi groomed it because he is in peace with it. As I said, I am still trying to decipher.
2. john lennon’s locket : not many people recognized this as well. Quite a few people in the theatre thought that it was a photo of his purwaj hanging by a thread on Prithvi’s neck. They did not know that it was Lennon speaking down Prithvi’s throat about borderless countries, world peace, jiski thokar pe hai zamana, making a call to the US President etc
3. nihilism : what was such a complicated word doing on the blackboard. If we type this word in wikipedia, this is what we get – is the philosophical position that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented.Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not exist, and subsequently there are no moral values with which to uphold a rule or to logically prefer one action over another. No doubt, this provides a window into Anuja’s life after the nerve-wrecking experience she had.
4. ranaji song : people just enjoyed this mujra without even understanding what it meant. It was black humor, disguised as an anti-American song. As I have written in my previous post, its an anti-authoritarian song against someone who takes autonomous decisions and its consequences; in this case it happened to be US.
5. najibullah : where people hardly understand what’s happening in our own country, how the hell did an Afghan president’s mention make it to Indian screen. Yes, very soon we were shown the relevance, but people still did not get it. They did not understand that the movie was talking about how an autocratic body passed a judgement and Ransa turned out to be the victim of such apathy.
6. karan/kiran : this was again something I mentioned in my review but let me take it further. We had an inverse proportion of numbers here, when compared to the Karan of Mahabharat. While Pandavs were 5 and Karan was all alone in his battle of existence, here we had one Ransa against two opponents – Karan and Kiran. Not only were the numbers reversed, but also the fate. While the Karan of our mythology was daan-veer-shoor, righteous and just; the modern-day Karan was extremely the opposite-cunning, opportunistic and wicked; while the former Karan was wronged and killed by deceit, the latter Karan wronged others in his quest for legitimacy; while the former Karan was ready to lead a life where his origin/birth would be a kept secret forever, the latter Karan was trying so hard to announce to the world that he has royal blood too. So extremely opposite were the two Karans and the credit for bringing this out so well must go to Aunrag Kashyap and the co-writer Raj Singh Chaudhary, who played Dilip.
7. ram-leela : first Delhi-6 and now Gulaal uses this age old theme to speak about good versus evil and showed Hanuman running around to burn Lanka.
8. lighting on Dukey’s face : there was always a neon light on Dukey’s face, but of differing colors; most of the time it was red. The lighting played a great part in building his character.
9. hail Feuhrer: in a mocking way, Prithivi does a hail Feuhrer to Dukey.
10. gulaal : of course, the grand meeting where everyone’s face was smeared with gulaal. And Dukey in his speech says that if you have the guts, then come forward and show your true face. In the entire meeting, the only person whose face was not gulaal-ified was the Senapati, Dukey. And that’s what Karan aspired to achieve. In fact, the last sequence showed him wash off his face and come forward, the nemesis.
Let me just finish by stating that the movie, although good in patches, fails to reach the viewers at large. The story was complex, but the dialogues and the poetry made it even more difficult for the people to follow. Although I enjoyed the movie, but was left high and dry at the end because there was neither a message nor an unsaid unrest within me, neither entertainment nor despair, neither was I persuaded nor was I dissuaded, I was just about neutral humming this line … Jeet ki hawas nahi, Kisi pe koi vash nahi; Kya zindagi hai thokaro pe maar do. I think this is what the movie is about.
Tags: abhimanyu singh, Anurag Kashyap, Dasvidaniya, Dostana, Gulaal, Mahi Gill, piyush mishra, Raj Singh Chaudhary, RNBDJ
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
applause.
but lets hope yar k chal jaye.
they have put in a lot of effort.
yes, i hope too tat the movie does well and encourages other film-makers to tread the unforseen paths; we need such movies as well apart from the regular entertainers. i wish it does well for piyush’s sake, else his poetic ballad will be lost :(
Rals, from what i hear, the movie seems to have picked up by WOM, and should do well enough. Regarding doing well in the South, problem is not just the language, but also the context, though i am a Southie, having spent time in Delhi, and having Northie friends, helps me to differentiate the accents, as also understand the political dynamics better. But for people down South, who have not had much exposure to North, it would be hard to understand. I recall watching Dilli-6 with my family, and my Dad could not understand even one bit of it. He found it so hard to follow.
And its same the other way around also, only people who have an idea of the Dravidian movement, MGR, Karunanidhi, can really appreciate the context of Iruvar. So i guess that divide will always be there.
yes, i read that too on indiafm.com. they said tat it started-off slow but has picked up. but i still think it will not do well. maybe, just about recover its cost…tats all
I am so glad for this review. Almost exactly my sentiments. I think Gulaal was a half good film. It really disappointed me in the second half. All your points and analysis are nicely written. I appreciate the effort but I also hope the makers realise where they went wrong. I believe in Anurag the filmmaker but I just hope he doesnt get carried away. He has in him what many others dont. He just has to keep himself from getting carried away.
..
Yes, Gulaal was half good but overall disappointing. ANd yes, like you pointed out, it failed to connect.
Ummm… I haven’t seen it till now.
But this review reminds me of No Smoking when many people accused Anurag of indulging in self-gratifying film making.
Yaar, Zee Limelight ka bhi to socho. Unko bhi to paisa banana hai ki nahin.
the more ‘I’ in an article, the less interesting it becomes. Especially for a community blog like Passion for Cinema why the whole cause, effect and reason at the intro.
And it’s not just for this particular post; lately a lot of PFC authors seems to follow similar lines.
Good post… I wish you had written it earlier.
oh cmon deres a hell lot of difference between gulaal nd no smoking…
Gulaal makes a lot of sense…its realistic..its logical…nd its very much wats happening today….
The story is told beatifully…. if there had been a subject of Practical/contemprary cinema den ANURAAG WOULD HAVE BEEN THE DADDY OF IT.
excellent, well paced.,…..power packed performances….superb music..
Piyush mishra’s double whammy……fantablous music and acting.
songs like …ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to…..nd even that ranaji song,
way too good.
anuraag has done so well that ….earlier directors like prakash jha…who made gangajal and apaharan….appeared quite ordinary in front of gulaal
Kudos Anuraag nd piyush mishra…..
@Crazyrals: The laundry-list of metaphors is spot-on… might I conjecture to answer some of them:
The ardh-narishwar: Dukey Bana was constantly kicking this strange effeminate character because it kept reminding of his own weakness and his growing helplessness to see his cause thorough to its proper conclusion.
The Lennon locket: At first I thought this was an extension of Dukey Bana’s rejection and loathing for the West…. but then I realized it was probably a sarcastic rejection of pacifism…an angry rant saying that peaceful methods were just not good enough in the world world.. remember how Piyush Mishra says “Iska bhi gol chashma hai… aur mera bhi… hum dono ki koi nahi sunta… ”
Shouldn’t read too much into the fairly straightforward Karan and Fuehrer metaphors… haven’t really racked my brains over “Ranaji” either…. Mahie Gill’s to blame for that
Can someone elaborate on the gulaal methapor? I didn’t quite get it.
brilliant post
Rals..thanks for making people understand about writings..and Iview..means a lot.You are one of the few who have become an author after some exceptional articles via iView..
About the success of Gulaal, i dont think it was meant to gross heavy on the first weekend. There was hardly any publicity of the movie. There was just one trailer out in the market. With this, we cannot expect Gulaal to make large amounts of money ont he first weekend. The sucess of Gulaal will depend on how it maintains itself over the course of one or two weeks. But, i have heard everyone say its a good movie..can watch..type comments…so there is still hope.
Excellent honest true article!!
How can u like RAB NE BANA DI JODI. Its ver pathetic movie who shows that heroine can’t identify her husband if he put moustache…. how stupidity is shown in RAB NE BANA DI JODI….
Just go to small towns in India then u will understand the real democracy and India…Just try to explore real India…sitting and watching movie in multiplex does mean u know about India…
@pankaj garg : if u can accept tat in ‘golmaal’ [which had amol palekar] ram and lakhan can be differentiated then this is just an extension of tat. plz read my article, i have provided the link as well. moreoever, its a personal opinion so take a chill-pill.
@crazyrals,
[ if u can accept tat in ‘golmaal’ [which had amol palekar] ram and lakhan can be differentiated ]
In Golmal- Utpal Dutt sees Amol Palekar without moustache and he very much suspects that he is actually Ram Prasad working in his office. Thats why Laxman, twin of Ram Prasad, a man without moustache comes in to the existence for him (Utpal Dutt). He and Bindiya Goswami are made to believe by a well woven plot that Ram and Laxman are actually two different people, who are twins.
What is the similarity with RNBDJ in this case?
@Rk: yaar, tum seedha story mei ghus gaye! i was just trying to say tat the same guy plays dual character in golmaal, and its the same in rnbdj…tats all. if we can accept tat, then accept this as well. moreover, just tat 1 factor shud not dissuade u from the movie or make u dislike it. the movie had gr8 songs, fantastic dialogues and the innocence of suri. plz do not digress further, we r not discussing rnbdj…tat was just a passing reference to somebody’s comment.
@crazyrals,
That was an odd comment to read hence poked my nose. Its still odd to search common ground between Golmaal and RNBDJ, as in the film/s we see the characters and plot which justifies the doings of characters and not the fact that same actor has played both or all the roles.
Golmal justifies a thing which is not justified in RBNDJ and recenly released OLLO. One may dislike few elements of a film and still can like it. nothing unusual in it.
Please continue whatever you were discussing before.
@Rk : since u have brought it up, let me tell a few more common things abt the 2 movies. in golmaal, amol was helped by deven verma and in rnbdj srk was helped by vinay pathak. in golmal, bindia goswami cud not differentiate between ram and lakhan, so also anushka sharma cud not differentiate between suri and raj. utpal had a hunch, alright…but his doubts were soon laid to rest. and finally, the justification was there…suri trying to dress up as raj wanted to approach taani from the friend angle to whom she can interact freely without having the burden of a forced marriage. i have mentioned these things in my other post as well.
Honest Comment – Bakwaas review hai yeh
@Kaafir : plz expand on it. mujhe bhi tou batao ki isme bakwas kya hai ??
@Rk and crazyrals
rediff ki kafi junta idhar aa gayi hai….don’t bother too much…..
Now Rals(I guess thats the name of the reviewer-Read: Critic)
This movie connects and it does that big time. The ones who dint decipher ‘it’, just could not understand the show. Its a landmark movie, of course, and all credits to the whole team(Kashyap is just a part of it.. call him a TL) From Piyush to Ransa to Dilip and till Dobriyal, it been an impeccable show. Rals criticism on the editing is again a bleak comment. Technically (taking in regard this movie was being made over 4 years), the movie is as sound as any good movie in “world” cinema. If slumdog can win Oscars, then we need better awards, to honour this flick. North Indian, South Indian, “Westindian” and all the Indians …not to miss the foreigners will understand it and relate it too. Brains are meant to understand complexeties. So just do it.
@Sri: u have said everything tat i have already written. i have mentioned tat its technically brilliant, but at some places there are editing glitches. plz watch it again and u will notice how some scenes have been abruptly cut and a new scene begins. i have also given due credit to all the guys involved, i haven’t pulled down anybody from the cast and crew.
as far as ‘connecting’ goes…its very subjective. i am glad u could feel the connect, so could i and tats why i have gone into the details. my grouse is tat the movie will not get its due because of a few portrayals not being to the mark and lotsa metaphors not being explained to the audience. all movie-goers are not as discerning as u and me, i was writing on behalf of the larger audience out there.
the most balanced and insightful commentary on Gulal. take a bow !!
Brother all i can say is AK expects intelligent audience along with dumbers n he is trying f’in hard to speak what he believes in his movie…
i know movie wont be a commercial success bt sure it will find a place in collection of sensible movie watchers
@Ankit Verma : yes, i have written exactly tat in my other review of ‘gulaal’ … its a mature movie for a mature audience
@Rk: imagine ‘dashavtaram’ mei kya haal hua hoga logon ka…10 kamal hasans in 10 diff avtars. imagain ‘naya din, nayi raat’ … 9 sanjeev kumars in 9 diff vesh-bhusha.
its all acceptable yaar. once u get over the looks, u will enjoy the movie. dil ko dekho ji chehra na dekho….chehron ne laakhon ko loota
@crazyrals,
have not seen “dashavtaram” so dont know if all ten or two or more Kamal Hasans come before the CHARACTERS of the film at same time and I guess rather believe that Kamal Hasaan, being perfectionist might have taken a good care of make up to differentiate between all of his avtars like he had done in Chachi 420.
In Naya Din Nayee raat also, great make up was the good support. It was a different story and different treatment. It was not intimate love story where characters are living in close space.
In real life people search even little resemblance between two people, if they see one, its human nature. Whole casting work for period films or bio pics is depenent on resemblance.
Have no objection on acceptance of anything. Its subjective thing dependent entirely on an individual.
its tough to see dil initially, its better to see in to the eyes. aakhon se jo utari hai dil mein
Ransa’s exit was heartbreaking. It was the strongest character of ‘hope’. It was shocking.
‘Despite all these, the movie will not do well simply because it fails to connect with the audience. ‘ Definition of ‘audience’ is the key here, I guess. Definitely not the Audience for Singh is King & Golmaal returns, as you said:)
Awesome post (though contains spoiler), I agree on the metaphors, the overdose of masculinity, Deepak Dobriyal, Dileep’s artificiality with the gun.
The paan-shop scene with Deepak before Jadhwal is beaten, showcases Deepak’s power of ‘acting’. I just can’t forget the scene. Similarly that spoof song of Sarfaroshi ki tamanna….
Aajkal ki launda yeh kahta
Hum to bismil thak gaye
Apni azadi to bhaiya laundiya ki til me hain
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna aaj hamara dil mein hai
Aajka jalsa mein ek gunga ga raha
Aur behro ka wo rela nachta mehfil me hai
Hath ki khadi banana ka zama lath gaya
Aajkal to chaddi bhi silti Englisho ki mill mein hai…
Everything said & done, thanks to the breed who dares to make such movies and gives us something deeper (than the cleavage of the heroine, I mean) to carry out of the auditorium. Gulaal reminded me of the Bengali movies made during Naxal revolution, it reminded me art house Bengali movies like Pratidwandi & Chopper, dealing with regional political issues through symbolism. It’s not important whether people from South would be able to relate or not, important is whether people would understand the language of such cinema. In India most of the cine-going janta does’nt even look upto cinema anything more than nacha-gaana-enetrtainment.
Btw, has any commercially successful movie have received a cult status? Ever? If anyone can though some example it would be good.
Whether Gulaal will do well or not ? In Gulaal’s language- mujhe jhaant fark padta hai, it will be a cult anyway.
Cheers!
~uh~
@~uh~ : cult status and cult following are subjective. sholay is one movie tat created cult status for almost every character, the movie itself is a cult. raj of ddlj achieved cult status and so did prem of mpk. bigB as vijay too became a cult status. if we have a few more munnabhai movies, then tat too can become a cult character. its not like only dark movies with exclusive themes tat achieve cult status, as u are implying.
Thanks for the reply.
What I meant was ‘Cult film’ following the wiki definition- Cult film is a colloquial term for a film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans.
Please read the whole article here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_film
I indeed was talking about dark, sort of underground stuff (say- Fight Club).
The movies you have mentioned have reached a ‘classic’ status. I am talking about movies like ‘Ek Haseena thi’ or ‘Being Cyrus’, whatever is the category named.
All I am saying is such movies will always make history.
Cheers!
~uh~
@~uh~ : i dont agree with u on EHT and BC being a cult film. anyways, the movies tat i have named have not just been classics but have achieved cult status. by definition of cult film u are narrowing it down to ’small group of fans’… then how do u expect ‘commercially successful movie’ to become a cult film?? the moment a movie is commercially successful the fan-base multiplies and is not limited to a small number. so, a cult film and commercially successful may just be an oxymoron
if somebody else can come-up with an example or talk more on it, then plz do so.
Basically a movie achieves a cult status, when it has a dedicated group of hard core fans, and it might not be succesful in conventional sense.
Tarantino’s movies are perfect example of cult classics, they have been commercially succesful also, but they are not the kind of movies that are universally liked by all. Pulp Fiction is cult, because while its fans( including yours truly) love it to death, and would spend hours talking about it, for many the movie just goes over the head.
Also Sholay, MPK, DDLJ cant be considered cult movies IMO. They are the kind of universally accepted movies, which a vast majority of people like.
Ratna, actually explained my viewpoint. We are talking stuff like Taxi Driver here.
Oxymoron accepted. Corollary: A cult must be a flop of it’s times …..lol. ‘No Smoking’ may have also a cult following. Probably they will feature in the “List of Indian Cult films” after 20 years
What I wanted to convey in my original question is that a film can be treated as successful when it ends up being a ‘cult film’. Whether commercial success is more important, can only be answered by the Director.
I wish I had AK’s viewpoint on this, given a choice what would he prefer ?
Sorry Rals, if I had digressed away from topic. Coming back to the topic, whose poster was on the wall on black and white on Prithvi’s childhood flashback ?
Cheers!
~uh~
PS: King Kong is cult film too !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_Movies_(book)
@~uh~ : not sure if u are testing me with this ‘whose poster was on the wall on black and white on Prithvi’s childhood flashback ‘
anyways…Jim Morrison is shown in a black & white still flashback of Prithvi Bana’s childhood
u were not digressing dude…take it easy. we were discussing abt cult movie and it has helped me understand the larger ‘wikipedia’ sense of cult-film
Hi CrazyRals,
Saw this Flick Gulaal yesterday and was in an awe .If u had weed before..it had a similar effect you feel a bit of high..coz of the intensity. Ran through your say about the movie and i think you have a very commercial taste. seemed like you wanted the character dilip to grow..which was his beep problem..that’s what you have to relate to. you wanted him to come strong like a commercial hero and kick all asses. That’s the thing abotu anurag’s style..you always expect a character to come out as hero..but when u get dissapointed u get hit. Who knew kiran and also his brother would be the brain behind the plot. Especially kiran come’s out strong instead of a Guy which is what would have happened if it was some commercial shite and ofcourse about portrayal of Anusha’s love. You got hints..but if you are honest, you were not sure till the end that anusha loved Dilip until Dilip’s cook blabers at the end. I like the shade and mood of the movie. Lyrics of the songs and the dialogues..utter brilliance. watch it when you are in the right frame of mind coz thats important. If you are ina mood to watch dostana and end up watching dasvidaniya you will have a different view about the movie. i love the movie and i dont care if its a hit or a flop coz its got guts, intensity, reality, performance and loads of creativity.
Mukwizard
@Mukwizard : [i dont care if its a hit or a flop ] … tats where my problem lies. i want the movie to be a hit so a wider audience will be able to experience it. my post was just stating my fears as to why the movie may not do well because of wat i have analyzed about the movie.
Who are we to judge a work which is beyond our own quality? My only sentiment here is, always mention “According to me” or “In my Opinion”. A huge number of my friend circle went to watch this movie. People far removed from India and its politics. People who’ve spent last 10 plus years in US. Young guys and girls who neither care nor know about politics at all. I’ve seen all of them like it so much that there has been repeat viewing. Almost all came back and said it was profound at the same time it was very entertaining. There were such unexpected moments of thrill. Yes there have been some people who’ve said the second half was a let down. But my whole point is let us not be so egoistic and didactic as to state “This is my pronouncement and the movie doesn’t connect with audience”. It’s a completely one eyed statement.
@Subhasish Chakraborty : well, i dont know why this post of mine should have such a response. i have written this because i watched the movie on the first day with a handful of people which was sad. and in lotsa multiplexes where my friends watched it, they have reported the same. while i loved the movie and have even gone on to praise wat i liked about it. but at the same time i have just written abt my fears of why the movie may not do well.
the movie has made an impact, no doubt; its a fantastic work of art, no doubt; but the problem was the absence of consistency…loss of momentum towards the 2nd half.
Gulal is brilliant in portions. Maybe the film is as confused as the concept of “Revolution” itself.
anurag kashyap bakhts will like GULAL anyway.
anurag kashayp is ever experimenting.GULAL wont click because of anurag .
read in today’s paper that no one has charged for the movie, and they will earn if movie earns. so hope its a semi hit atleast
“Has she heard of contraceptives for women, she went on accusing Dilip for getting her pregnant, and sucker that Dilip was, he just kept listening to all this bullshit. This is women empowerment in 2009, get real guys”
I agree with u there..A minor let down for an otherwise well made film..
@crazyral
Comparison of a mediocre RNBDJ with a masterpiece like Golmaal was unwarranted..Unlike RNBDJ there is clear justification of double role of Amol Palekar..don’t want to talk abt this further just my view point..
@sharath : i was not comparing golmaal and rnbdj. in fact, the mention of rnbdj in the comments was uncalled for; but since somebody spoke abt it i was merely trying to say abt the acceptability factor of the dual chars played by the same person. both movies belong to different eras and different genres, they can never be compared. i was just drawing the similarities between them, and not comparing.
regarding justification of srk’s get-up in rnbdj, i have mentioned tat in one of the above comments…plz check it.
Has she heard of contraceptives for women, she went on accusing Dilip for getting her pregnant, and sucker that Dilip was, he just kept listening to all this bullshit. This is women empowerment in 2009, get real guys”
Obviously, she has heard of female contraceptive. It is just that she was trying to manipulate him. For all you know she might even be faking her pregnancy.
@Utkal Mohanty : she cud not be faking the pregnancy bcos anuja was by her side in the hospital and she wud have informed dilip abt it
Utkal @ 48: she was not faking her pregnancy, thats a confirmation given by Anuja (Jesse Randhawa) when she cofirms to Dilip (who is also slightly unsure of the veracity of the issue) that she has missed her ‘chums’.
and then, in the hospital, the doctor confirms that its one month old, and asks whats to be done, to which anuja responds,” giraana hai”.. so there… it wasnt being faked.
The pregnancy is for real.Remember the scene in the kitchen where Anuja informs Dilip that Kiran is pregnant & Kiran slaps Dilip?This scene is followed by the scene @ Kiran’s home where she informs her bro & others like Jadwal about her preganancy.In fact Jadwal gets slapped by Kiran on getting taunted by him!!!
@Sethu & Satyendra : thanx for expanding on the pregnancy sequence. i just said it in short tat anuja was there all the time, hence it cud not have been faked.
I dont understand why RNBDJ is being discussed here. There are separate posts for it. There are many movies where same actor plays multiple roles for whatever reason, OLLO would be recent another. Shoot, I am doing what I am opposing :-)
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Thank you crazyrals, for quoting few lines from Aarambh.
I love it to death. After a long time, I see a song with Veer Rasa.
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Don’t know if I will see Gulaal or not but this song is AWESOME!!!!
@RK sir
I think in OLLO Dibaker Banerjee has explained that due to budget constraints, he kept Paresh Rawal in 3 different roles which ought to be different so the character Lucky sees them as different persons, while for audience they might be the same person because there is a fourth wall between audience and the characters so audience might not feel the same as the characters feel.
People were giving examples from Dr. Strangelove also, though I cant say as I’ve not seen it.
@Jahanpanah : i dont think i can agree with u on budget constraint. i think dibakar said tat paresh rawal suited the part and he got greedy hence he cast paresh in all 3 roles. moreoever, he wanted a kind of continuity in lukcy’s life of how a father-figure keeps screwing up his life. so, why not use the same father character to play all the 3 roles…
if someone knows more abt the OLLO case, please elucidate further.
as far as dr.strangelove is concerned, peter sellers played all the 3 parts with justice; but i dont know why he played all the 3 parts himself; of course kubrick asked him too
Whatever might had been the reason for casting the same actor in OLLO but it is there for the audience. As you said that the director wanted to show how a father figure keeps deceiving Lucky, so the director has taken a cinematic liberty here but from the POV of the characters in the movie they are different persons.
woh,i was asking question in an article http://passionforcinema.com/gulaal-a-movie-par-excellence/ .I have not gone through this article. Not only i got my answer of my question completely but quite happy with the different view on same event of many people here.
I do not know why people are fighting over RNBDJ. There are people who have liked those type of stress buster and mind less movies.Instead of taking it as a different voice in democracy,few eminent people here wants only intellectual kind of great cinema.Democracy stands for clear opinion about any topic without any fear of supression. Diversity cannot be supressed by intellects shouting over bad cinema but they can only contribute by enriching their experince to naive readers.You cannot force juntaa to like no smoking instead of Dostana.Justice is our goal not supression of choices.Let many film makers bloom and our indian cinema become truly artistic medium to reflect society realism or dreams.
@yayaver: i am glad tat u found wat u were looking for. as a writer/author, it makes me happy tat i am able to convey my thoughts well.
speaking of democracy, in the same breath, let me add tat liberty of doing/liking wat we want is our personal choice[of course without hurting others]. if someone likes a ‘no smoking’, its entirely their choice and i dont question it. similarly, if i praise ‘rnbdj’ its entirely my choice and no one should question tat as well.
wat ppl dont understand is tat, to appreciate ABCD u dont need to pull-down XYZ. ABCD and XYZ can co-exist…cheers to democracy
Well.. you may know this or you may not, but this post demands continuity and people wants to delve deeper.
*Continuation in what Crazzy has said and every next thought is “IMHO”*
13. Bhanvar singh worshipping lord Hanuman.
He is not married and has spent all his life with Dilip’s family.
14.Imagine his highness – I know all of you have heard and know this, but to make it sure, Prithvi was talking about Lennon’s song -”Imagine”
15. Rock n’ roll: AK has special love for Rock music. It’s not only Lennon, you can see it everywhere in Ransa’s house – Jim, Hendrix, Bob, Woodstock 69 picture.I don’t know what difference those pictures actually made to movie. Although, Jim Morrison’s picture with a moustache may have been an effort of Ransa to idealize him.
16.”Jaat- paat”: On numerous occasion it has been described.
a)When Inspector Rawat asked everybody’s name and it comes out as no one is Rajput.
b)Bhaati killed Police inspector Rawat for no reasons, even though he agreed to be a guy like they want.Camera flicks to Rawat’s nameplate after the bullet shot.
c)KK to Jadhwal’s sidey – “Padaiyesh to nahi bhul gaya tu apni”
@Negi : thanx for keeping this alive
i m glad u loved it as much as i did.
there was another fantastic moment, when jadhwal says ‘mere paas maa hai’ referring to the gun; and the preceeding dialog ‘kya hai uske paas, motorcycle hai etc etc’… too good
Gulaal is not for spoon-fed audience…its for people who like to think on hints given very intelligently…perhaps the author of article fails to understand that
Very nicely written article mate.
However, not getting into details, just mentioning a scene that i found particularly clever.
When Rananjay goes to meet Dukey Bana at (Mahie Gill’s) parlour, she seduces him while Dukey’s away and asks for his no. etc … When Dukey returns, Rananjay says he’s goin and stuff .. and Mahie Gill puts on the song
“Ruk ruk arey baba ruk, O my darling, give me a look” ….
Really slick
@crazyrals,
For me Its bit strange not to differentiate between two cases, i.e Golmal and RNBDJ.
Bindiya Goswami does not have to differentiate between two Amol Palekars because she knows ( or she is told and made believe) Ram and Laxman have similar faces because they are twins. For her, since begining two different people Ram and Laxman exist and she meets with both of them though at different times. Have not you seen twin brothers in real life who resembles so much with each other?
in RNBDJ, Tanni never even feels that Raj has similarities with her husband as far as morphology is concerned.
OLLO- Inspite of being champion, Mr Clever, Mr Intelligent, Lucky never feels that His father, Gaane wala Parsh Rawal and veternary doctor, all the three people have similar faces.
Ye angle hajam nahin hota in such plots.
There can be a dialogue, a scene.
a lacking is a lackng and a mistake is a mistake in a plot and nothing can cover up these things. People may still like these films for different reasons and thats fully justified but everything can not be simply good and justified in any and every film.
RNBDJ and OLLO had this lacking and this may not affect you and many others but at same time it cant be said that overlooking these things in the plot was justified.