Anurag Kashyap creates a benchmark and goes beyond it in his very next work. Before a few days I watched Gulaal.
Set in Rajpur town of modern Rajasthan, Gulaal is a film woven with stories of student politics and a covertly local rebellion emerging, for an independent Rajputana. The meek, Dileep Singh (Raj Singh Chaudhary), is an idealistic man who gets caught in the student politics and much more, as he gets pulled into the world of Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh), Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay), an autocratic local Rajput leader who is leading a planned armed movement to reclaim Rajputana for Rajput, a brother-sister couple (Aditya and Ayesha), the illegitimate children of an erstwhile Rajput king who are seething at their status (Aditya Srivastava, Ayesha Mohan) and Anuja (Jesse), a young teacher who becomes a misfit in college after an incident she goes through in her college.
Dileep gets used as a means to an end by people who matter to him and ends up being an unwilling player in a sinister plot.
The film deals with the question of illegitimacy, sexuality, and sectionalism- themes least explored on screen by and large.
An illegitimate child suffers from the inferiority complex and hatred towards the social structure which has treated him like an outcast. It is more of his desire for the name than his need for the position of the throne. The roots of the insecurity and power being associated with the position were sown from his childhood. So much, that he kills his brother Rananjay, without a feeling of belongingness or thought. Lord Acton had rightly said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
The film also explores the idea that in spite of being less deserving and with clear evil intentions he takes away the throne.
Set in Rajpur town of modern Rajasthan, Gulaal is a film woven with stories of student politics and a covertly local rebellion emerging, for an independent Rajputana. The meek, Dileep Singh (Raj Singh Chaudhary), is an idealistic man who gets caught in the student politics and much more, as he gets pulled into the world of Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh), Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay), an autocratic local Rajput leader who is leading a planned armed movement to reclaim Rajputana for Rajput, a brother-sister couple (Aditya and Ayesha), the illegitimate children of an erstwhile Rajput king who are seething at their status (Aditya Srivastava, Ayesha Mohan) and Anuja (Jesse), a young teacher who becomes a misfit in college after an incident she goes through in her college.
Dileep gets used as a means to an end by people who matter to him and ends up being an unwilling player in a sinister plot.
The film deals with the question of illegitimacy, sexuality, and sectionalism- themes least explored on screen by and large.
An illegitimate child suffers from the inferiority complex and hatred towards the social structure which has treated him like an outcast. It is more of his desire for the name than his need for the position of the throne. The roots of the insecurity and power being associated with the position were sown from his childhood. So much, that he kills his brother Rananjay, without a feeling of belongingness or thought. Lord Acton had rightly said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
The film also explores the idea that in spite of being less deserving and with clear evil intentions he takes away the throne.
Sexuality has been depicted through the emotional perspective of a man- Dileep. The common belief of a women suffering at the cost of a broken relationship has been challenged. It is shown how it holds equally true for a man to lose his balance and well being when he realizes that he has been only a means to a political consequence.
The tragedy of Dileep hurting his true lover (Jesse) and being carried away by the physical relationship leading to an emotional attachment and a subsequent betrayal, from Aditya’s sister, is heart rendering.
Sectionalism today is set in a big way and the film is the true reflection of where our society stands today.
The lyrics and music provided by Piyush Mishra are outstanding. The way the words are written gives a concrete meaning to the sub-text of the songs. For an instance in the song, Arambh he Prachand, he shares the idea of greater love being considered insignificant compared to the battles on the war front.
However in the culmination of the film, not all the characters’ lives were shown.
The audience does not know what subsequently happened to Dukey Bana’s wife, Mahie Gill and how their lives changed. Had a few shots been shown of how things changed forever; it could have left a much sharper impact. Nonetheless the audience could derive their own points of view which may be different from each other since the director chose an end most appropriate to his perception.
The tragedy of Dileep hurting his true lover (Jesse) and being carried away by the physical relationship leading to an emotional attachment and a subsequent betrayal, from Aditya’s sister, is heart rendering.
Sectionalism today is set in a big way and the film is the true reflection of where our society stands today.
The lyrics and music provided by Piyush Mishra are outstanding. The way the words are written gives a concrete meaning to the sub-text of the songs. For an instance in the song, Arambh he Prachand, he shares the idea of greater love being considered insignificant compared to the battles on the war front.
However in the culmination of the film, not all the characters’ lives were shown.
The audience does not know what subsequently happened to Dukey Bana’s wife, Mahie Gill and how their lives changed. Had a few shots been shown of how things changed forever; it could have left a much sharper impact. Nonetheless the audience could derive their own points of view which may be different from each other since the director chose an end most appropriate to his perception.
The cinematographer Rajeev Ravi has done his bit extremely well. Gulaal is an extremely well shot film with Anurag Kashyap and his team at their best- thus, rendering it as a masterpiece.
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