Gulaal (2009)

What a waste of my time!!!

Beautiful, moving film.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Blistering performances.

Power packed, enthralling and a must watch.This is a movie that is inspired from a song "yeh duniya" from Pyaasa (1957) and comes out completely powerful and gripping. The director Anurag Kashyap is playful with his symbolism and his characters. Symbolism is really a tough thing to decipher and that's what makes this one each time enjoyable when I watched it.Let me go through symbolism, Piyush Mishra refers to John Lennon as "His Highness Imagine Singh". "Nihilism" is written on black board of a law classroom, now how do we interpret each thing and why were such things placed. Even Ardhnaari is a character that is just inexplicable and yet symbolic perhaps to underachievers.Coming to characters, each one has a flavor from and impertinent Bhati to all important Duki Bana and even the ladies have their say. Kiran among all ladies is so very underplayed and yet comes out as the most powerful woman. From a flamboyant Rananjay to a dogmatic and naive Dileep Singh, each one has been outstandingly written and equally well portrayed.A story of fighting for separate state has never been darker and interesting than this one. All kudos to Anurag to have perceived this story and told it so well. Now to add to the color of the movie, comes in Piyush Mishra who not only acts but also provides music and writes the songs for this and makes this tale poetically beautiful. How can the already superb song "yeh duniya" be re interpreted, how can a powerful song as "sheher" be placed at funeral.Listen to the music and it's not just poetically beautiful, there it's satirical and even philosophical. Indian Ocea too gives a song with "Yaara Maula" that says how students are being handed weapons instead of books. Just can't get over the music of this film.Watch out for more, for one of the most powerful movies and thanks to Kay Kay, who does an outstanding job as Duki Bana. I love Rananjay more though as a character..Watch it watch it watch it. Its 4/5 and one of the best movies of the decade.

"Gulaal" starring too many unknown faces like Raja Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Jesse Randhawa along with the brilliant Kay Kay Menon, is unusually bold for a fictionalization based on real events. Using the plot on pursuit of power, betrayal and hypocrisies, the movie explores those corners that have never been attempted before. The remarkable thing about this Anurag Kashyap directorial is the way different layers accumulated into one solid drama. Presenting diverse characters form John Lennon fan Piyush Mishra to a minor role of Tabu fan Mahie Gill, every character is well refined. Anurag Kashyap has shown the enthusiasm in each scene with experimental cinematography like continuous use of red filters and yellow light.SPOILER ALERT:: Initiating from the college ragging, the movie takes several turns into various interesting issues. The scene of Ransa mocking Karan after being kidnapped and Karan killing him is terrific. Also Raja Chaudhary was stunning in a particular scene giving an awkward speech. But the final scene where blinded by his love for Kiran, the violent and aggressive Dilip reminds me of Travis Bickle getting outraged in the final scene of the "Taxi driver".While each individual performance is of high standards, Kay Kay Menon shines as Dukey Bana, while Raja Chaudhary showed the innocence of Dilip very naturally. In a relatively small role, we have Piyush Mishra, as the eccentric poet Prithvi Bana successfully showing his presence. Also he gave the music for the movie which complements the movie in every way.In the end we get a dish served with various character and cooked by the brilliant Anurag Kashyap who knows the world he's showing making this movie an engaging watch. A huge impact of theater can be seen in the movie due to Anurag Kashyap's theater background but still it's a great show that shouldn't be missed.

OK, so many people think that this movie is a masterclass and the director has done a great job with it, but in reality the director has just made a fool of all the people who see it. There were many positives in the movie too, but the negatives were so strong that the positives stood negated. To start with, the actors taken for the movie were i would say almost perfect, but that could not help the really dumb storyline. I guess the movie should have come with a disclaimer that all people in the movie, barring two, are really dumb, someone would make a fool off them and they would be completely clueless about that. What the director was doing for the film was that first he would introduce a character to the audience, then he would make them like that character, and then suddenly a big fool would be made out of that character. This thing continued till the end of the movie, be it for the character of Rananjay Singh, Dilip Singh or for that matter Dukey Bana. Well I understand that the director wanted to make a movie where he wanted to show how a single woman can manipulate so many men, but seriously, where in the world will a brother ask his sister to go around sleeping with men. The only reason a person would want to see this movie is if he wants to get irritated. Piyush Mishra who otherwise is a great actor was a complete waste with a role where he was made to act lunatic. In the end i would want to say that the director made this movie just to irritate the audience, which was definitely not expected from a director of Anurag Kashyap's caliber. And also the song 'jaise dur desh ke tower mein ghus jaaye aeroplane' was really insensitive towards the American sentiments. It was actually making fun of an incident where more than two thousand people lost their lives.

Its surprising that the Director who gave us Dev D, comes up with Gulaal in the same year. True to Anurag kashyap's style, the movie is dark, rough and hard hitting. KK as Dukey bana who has his secret political ambition to revive "Rajputana" rule in Neo-Nazi style. Then the Brother sister duo with own political agenda and the student politics in the backdrop of Rajasthan. There is a plot and sub plots but the director keeps them all together and never goes off track. Gulaal shows all colors of Human nature.The strong performance by all characters is the highlight of the film. For me Piyush mishra as KK menons brother with his satirical poems steals the show.