A film maker of Anurag Kashyap's brilliance, passion, and originality of thought has been wanting to tell this story for so long, that it feels almost petty to admit that the movie didn't really rock my boat. Largely because it seemed to favour a very mundane story arc fronted by Raja Chaudhary over a much more interesting one featuring Kay Kay Menon's acting masterclass. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Kay Kay's back! After a spate of homogeneous, non-challenging roles which barely required him to show up on set, he embraces and radiates Mrityunjay Singh's charisma, passions and dreams in GULAAL with such finesse and force, that you get hooked-on from the first frame and want to follow his powerhouse performance far beyond its limited screen time, into a completely different and engaging movie, which sadly GULAAL isn't.
We have all been part of or witnessed college elections, experienced the politics, explored the various angles and alliances, and maybe even got surprised by the rapidly switching allegiances. It is this very commonplace and ordinarily narrated segment that doesn't quite become a launchpad for an entertaining 3-hour movie, which I'm assuming was the film-maker's intent.
With that unfortunate confession off my chest, I can now happily admit to getting lost in the film's rich, melodious and exceedingly interesting soundtrack, as well as being suitably impressed by Abhimanyu Singh's and Deepak Dobriyal's performances. Mahie Gill had a unique, heavy-lidded, earthy sensuality about her in Dev. D, and that comes through in this movie too. Dunno why Jesse Randhawa had to be cast though. Unless Anurag specifically instructed her to put on her best stony-face and talk in a subtle, gradually claustrophobic monotone no matter what happens in the exciting land of Rajputana, in which case she nails the part.
In summary, the movie features great music (& lyrics) and numerous remarkable performances, none more fascinating than Kay Kay's, but fails to click as a cinematic whole. I would give it 5 stars out of 10, with an additional half-a-star thrown in for the 'Pyaasa' reference.
We have all been part of or witnessed college elections, experienced the politics, explored the various angles and alliances, and maybe even got surprised by the rapidly switching allegiances. It is this very commonplace and ordinarily narrated segment that doesn't quite become a launchpad for an entertaining 3-hour movie, which I'm assuming was the film-maker's intent.
With that unfortunate confession off my chest, I can now happily admit to getting lost in the film's rich, melodious and exceedingly interesting soundtrack, as well as being suitably impressed by Abhimanyu Singh's and Deepak Dobriyal's performances. Mahie Gill had a unique, heavy-lidded, earthy sensuality about her in Dev. D, and that comes through in this movie too. Dunno why Jesse Randhawa had to be cast though. Unless Anurag specifically instructed her to put on her best stony-face and talk in a subtle, gradually claustrophobic monotone no matter what happens in the exciting land of Rajputana, in which case she nails the part.
In summary, the movie features great music (& lyrics) and numerous remarkable performances, none more fascinating than Kay Kay's, but fails to click as a cinematic whole. I would give it 5 stars out of 10, with an additional half-a-star thrown in for the 'Pyaasa' reference.