Gulaal (Kashyap, 2009)

[shariqq]

I think madali is out-of-town. The below is from his "Salam Cinema" blog.




Gulaal (Kashyap, 2009)
IMDB Link

Its political themes, messages, and questions it raises are brilliant. As a film, it mostly fails. And that’s “Gulaal”, the equivalent of an intellectual writing a political book, might be brilliant in its ideas, but a shitty read.

The problem with “Gulaal” is you can feel it straining under its multiple sub-plots and characters and ideas, and while some directors are able to balance them out well, Anurag Kashyap is not one of them.

The film is about a political royalist group that wants to regain power in India. Dileep rents a room in a hostel as he is joining university to study law. Dileep is a mild-mannered, young man and soon becomes part of the circle of the political group. He is surrounded by shady politicians that are using him and others for their own political gains and rivaled against another political group of people that are as corrupted as they are. Both groups will go to any lengths to make sure they gain some success in the democratic system.

Director Kashyap fails mainly with his handling of Dileep. The film is supposed to be about him, given the focus he is given towards the end, but the film loses focus, and never really develops him, so his transformation and character decisions he takes never really clicks with me.

With the current political situation in Iran, a lot of what was said in the film sounded familiar to me, and I was very much impressed by its strong messages. But it just needed to have a stronger handle on its character and allowed them to develop more and maybe then the film would have turned out better.

3/5

[ayaa1977]

Gulaal started off as an engrossing film with some powerful performances and themes, which were eventually hindered by a very annoying main protagonist, some sprawling plot points, and weak third act.

The film brisk momentum at the first hour took a big hit and almost lost me with the death of Ransa, played beautifully by Abhimanyu Singh, a flawed but identifiable character, he is such an iconic screen presence. Kay Kay Menon's Dukey Bana is a great antagonist who is driven by believable motivations, and despite all the terrible things he does, you know that his genuine, unfortunately the director and the script should have spent more time flushing out his character instead making him almost monotonically psychopathic. May be exploring his other side especially with the women in his life would have helped. Had the film focused on him or any of the other interesting characters, especially the females, may be we would have forgiven the blandness of the protagonist Deelip, played terribly by Raj Singh Chaudhary, who is treated like a puppet by everyone, and kept acting like a baby. Many  failed attempts are spent to make him a man throughout the film, but we only see a wimpy whinny boy who has little to offer for anyone. Such a character might be interesting if played right but not this time around. Then we are supposed to buy into him growing a pair of balls at the final 5 minutes and take on the most psychopathic players going all Dirty Harry, it is just doesn't make any sense.

One thing the film did very well is integrating the songs in the plot of the film in such a neat way, that made it easier to explore and understand the characters of Madhuri and Prithvi Bana, the latter especially is perhaps one of the best written characters in the film. All those pluses didn’t safe the film for me because the central character was poorly motivated, developed and acted. I agree with Mad that the development and the actions he takes toward the end are not earned, thus the film structure is not sound.. Even the final reveal for the motivation behind Ransa's murder was played as a surprise twist which it might as well has come from another movie, it totally rang false as a reveal and has no payoff at all.

I am really disappointed that I didn't love the film the way I should, because the potential was there, and the talents as well. Too bad somewhere in the process the filmmaker lost focus and messed it up. My rating is 3/5.

[shariqq]

Nice view, Ayaa.

For me, the whining and nerdiness of Dileep was interesting and worked. He came across as a man of inactivity - not a leader but the kind who likes to be lead. A Pawn. This is established right at the beginning, when he prefers to do nothing, but Ransa (the rook) plots & plans the revenge for his ragging. Being pushed around by all characters eventually gets to him when he realizes for the most  simple and carnal of reasons: the woman. Kiran was a very interesting character - a bastard child who doesn't mind using her body in the power-play. But she's also just the queen-piece. The King - her brother Karan - was my favourite of this chess game. Preferring to stay in the background, plotting. The last reveal only enforced what was scattered and structured throughout the movie - it's a chess game, and the winner is not the last-man-standing, but where he stands.

[ayaa1977]

Nice view, Ayaa.

For me, the whining and nerdiness of Dileep was interesting and worked. He came across as a man of inactivity - not a leader but the kind who likes to be lead. A Pawn. This is established right at the beginning, when he prefers to do nothing, but Ransa (the rook) plots & plans the revenge for his ragging. Being pushed around by all characters eventually gets to him when he realizes for the most  simple and carnal of reasons: the woman. Kiran was a very interesting character - a bastard child who doesn't mind using her body in the power-play. But she's also just the queen-piece. The King - her brother Karan - was my favourite of this chess game. Preferring to stay in the background, plotting. The last reveal only enforced what was scattered and structured throughout the movie - it's a chess game, and the winner is not the last-man-standing, but where he stands.

I get your point Shariq, I really do. But the problem is the filmmaker was not so keen on spending time flushing out the chess game you are talking about. Karan who came across victorious at the end I would not describe as a mastermind, he was just lurking there in the shadow and by a random act which he couldn't possibly has foreseen (i.e. Dileep's final's showdown) he got what he wanted. Now Kiran I get, using her body is not beneath her, and she is determine not to repeat her mother's mistake. She went do Dileep and she demanded that he becomes her bitch, and he typically said yes. She used him then threw him away like a used condom. You bought the pawn transformation into a vengeful badass, and I would have if only the actor was not so bad, I just couldn't latch to him at all, and that was the main problem that ruined my enjoyment of the film.   

[kaytee]

I still have to find time for this...hopefully over the weekend.

[kaytee]

Ok so I finally saw this and even though the movie had a very interesting plot, the excessive sub plot lost the whole effect of the movie. Yes each character was important and had its moment but too many characters and Dileep was such a sissy. I understand what Shariq is saying about Dileep but he was such a bad actor. I would have loved to see Abhay Deol in that role. On the acting front Kay Kay Menon, Abhimanyu and the actress playing Kiran stand out. A decent attempt from Anurag but it could have been so much better in terms of pacing and acting.
3.5/5