GULAAL - FILM REVIEW

GULAAL : FILM REVIEW
Here comes another hard hitting movie from Anurag Kashyap after his recent emotional atyachaar “DEV D”, which was critically acclaimed a lot and interestingly did good business at the Box Office. Anurag belongs to those breed of directors who think differently and comes out with a different serving, though it calls for a lot of risk taking and courage contrary to run-of –the mill Directors who rarely dare to tread from their so called Box Office formula.

And do you know that GULAAL was made much before DEV D, call it luck or whatever, Anurag released it at the right time following the success of DVE D and alos during the festival of HOLI in tune with it’s title GULAAL.
Gulaal deals about several plots as love, greed, but mainly talks about STUDENT POLITICS.
The story is set in the background of Rajasthan and the Rajputs, where the general rule of law does not work. It is about the movement which aims at recouping an independent Rajputana state by launching a civil war against the government headed by Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon).

Dilip Singh (Raj Singh Chaudhary) lands in Jaipur to study, where he meets Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), Rananjay Singh Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh), Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), and Kiran (Ayesha Mohan).

On the request of Dukey Bana, Ransa agrees to contest the college elections for Rajputana party, where he stands opposite Kiran to fight for General Secretary's post. The story takes a violent turn when Ransa is murdered by Karan (Aditya Srivastava), as a result Dilip is forced to contest elections, which incidentally is won by him, thanks to polls rigging. This adds to a bitter taste and embarassment in their rivals, the brother sister duo of Karan & Kiran. They are ready to go down to any extent to take revenge and hence gain the power, no matter Kiran first lures Dileep and makes him fall in love with her. She gains his trust and makes him believes that Deleep is being used by Dukey. Gradually she takes charge as General Secretary and then gets close to Dukey by seducing him. This act of hers makes rejected Dileep frustrated and abusive and the plot becomes more violent.

Anurag Kashyap offers us a riveting first half but he fails to hold the momentum in the second half, where the film looses the sheen and even the story goes awry.
As regards to performances, Kay Kay Menon as usual is in top form and to a certain extent holds the film. Raj Singh Chaudhary though has the talent but somehow does not manage to impress. Ayesha Mohan is just superb. Piyush Mishra & Deepak Dobriyal are excellent. Aditya Srivastav & Jesse Randhawa do not get enough scope to perform. Mahie Gill as a mistress, MUJRA girl once again after DEV d, charms the viewers in a small role.

GULAAL is a dark, violent, intense and thought provoking movie and is interesting in bits and pieces. The dialogues are powerful, but there are lots of expletives used in the film, which could have been avoided. Lyrics by Piyush Mishra are powerful and are worth mentioning.
Overall, film will fare well in multiplexes, but is not recommended for female owing to it’s violent stream and expletives used in the dialogues.
I will give 2.5 out of 5.

TITLES
Banner : ZEE Limelight
Released on : March 13, 2009
Language : Hindi
Genre : Social & Drama
Director : Anurag Kashyap
Star Cast :
Kay Kay Menon - Dukey Bana
Raj Singh Chaudhary – Dileep SinghAyesha Mohan – Kiran
Aditya Srivastava - Karan
Piyush Mishra – Prithvi Singh
Deepak Dobriyal - Bhatti

Jessy Randhawa - Anuja

Mahi Gill - Madhuri

Abhimanyu Shekhar Singh - Rananjay Singh
Music on - T-Series
Music - Piyush Mishra
Main Singers - Piyush Mishra, Rekha Bharadwaj, Shilpa Rao, Swanand Kirkire, Rahul Ram
Cinematography - Rajeev Rai
Story : Anurag Kashyap, Aparna Chaturvedi & Raja Chaudhary