Aarambh hai prachand...

Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal is perhaps the best film ever made on student-politics...Altho it mayb argued tht the crown belongs to Haasil, i'm tempted to say Gulaal scores, basically bcz of the power in the screenplay and dialogues....not to forget the impact it creates by the time the mindblowing journey on-screen culminates!

Gulaal comes really close to becoming a flawless flick, especially bcz of the straightfwd and raw handling of the subject by AK and the towering performances...KK is amazing as usual...Raj Singh Chaudhary, who hs also co-written the story wit AK, is perfect as the submissive nerd who gets entangled in things he hs zilch knowledge and attraction abt, thru circumstances totally out of his control....Abhimanyu Singh as the brash, rowdy Ransa is simply superb and leaves a strong impression....AK's Asst. Director Ayesha Mohan makes a sparkling acting debut as Kiran...more thn her performance, the graph of her character is so well-etched, u cant help but accept her ways of life...the manner in which she uses Dileep is one of the numerous high-points of the movie...Deepak Dobriyal is pitch-perfect as KK's side-kick....Aditya Shrivastava, Jesse Randhawa and Mahie Gill are good in thr small parts...especially Mahie Gill, who conjures up some of the most entertaining scenes in the film...and to top it all, the sucker punch is delivered by Piyush Mishra, whos also the lyricist of the film, in the role of KK's elder brothr, Prithvi Bana, a brooding, bordering-on-insanity individual, who seems to hv lost it, but is in fact more on terms with reality thn any1 else....his monologues r the peaks of the Alps...in fact he deserves double kudos, for writing such amazingly pithy, dark, profound lines and then delivering thm so well, be it thru prose or song! Piyush Mishra is the real star of the movie considering hes responsibl for most of the profundity in the lines as well as the music and the vocals...the songs, once again lik Dev D, are used to carry the narrative ahead and tht registers a really strong impact...of note especially is Aarambh, as it makes u dizzy by the tim the song climxes...

again, thr r plenty of subtle references and sly remarks towards society for ppl who appreciate such art, and altho not all of thm are readily tangible, the ones tht can be deciphered raise ur opinion of the film so much tht the ones tht dont, not only remain few but also insignificant! The references to John Lennon, Gandhi, Hitler, nihilism and America's war on terrorism are simply brilliant and light up the proceedings with thr wit and the manner in which they r portrayed!

The victory of Gulaal lies in the fact tht it manages to tk the viewer into an unknown era and surroundings and yet manages to convince him hw and why, wt happens, happens...if living-the-movie ws one experience u hd been missing all ths time, heres wt the doctor ordered! :) undoubtedly one of the best movies of the yr! and thts a feat considering its just april....and in the first 3 months, v hv hd path-breaking stuff lik Dev D, Luck By Chance and Delhi-6!

A day later...

Its almost 24 hrs since i watched Dev D and the movie hs been sinking inside all this while...I am sure there r gonna b hundreds of opinions abt this one and i know mine is just one in the whirlpool....but if ur an ardent lover of cinema as an art rather than just a mode of passing some time, only then will u undstnd wt m abt to say...Dev D is to hindi cinema what penicillin ws to medicine...or Galileo to astronomy...or Niels Bohr to chemistry...or T20 to cricket...its radical, its eccentric, its psychedelic, its subtle (rathr baap of subtle!), its technically astounding, and most importantly, its a crazy, crazy ride into the psyche of humanity! Thank God for mavericks and non-conformists!!!
Anurag Kashyap hs put an amazing spin on the age old Devdas story and the result is just spell-binding...his vision as a director is evident in more scenes than one...thrs so many memorable moments in ths movie, it'll b a huge spoiler to say anyone out aloud...and yet i cant stop myself frm talking abt one particular scene in which Chanda passes a stricture on morality in today's society "Half the country downloaded the video and derived self-gratification out of it...and they call me a slut!"...the takes on morality, ego, love and self-destruction are honest and raw...and path-breaking for hindi cinema...
Abhay Deol plays his part perfectly, but more than him, its the writer who writes his part to the T...the character is written so well, tht u begin to loathe Dev for the self-conceited egotist tht he is...and his self destruction is so tangible, u cn actually see it happening b4 ur own eyes! Mahi Gill as Paro is startling and forthright...the care she hs for Dev inspite of him being a scumbag, is genuine....and whenevr, some1 tries to make a doormat out of her, she doesnt hesitate one bit before showing the othr person his place! Darn good! But probably the most emotionally-relatable character of the ensemble is Chanda.....its brilliantly written with all the finer nuances crafted expertly and painstakingly...and wonderfully underplayed by Kalki...she lives the role like its her own...and in the process, provides the movie with the much needed emotional depth tht it othrwise lacks...
Inspite of being a trippy trip, this ones essentially a musical in the truest sense possible, bcz the songs carry the story forward instead of being huge boulders between scenes....its a case study in how songs cn serve as worthy substitutes to dialogues in narration...a word here for Amit Trivedi, who hs created the most freakin', tru-to-the-movie soundtrack ever!the songs r so appropriate and so well-used, tht they end up towering over everythng else, even the intelligently written lines and the technical finesse....and THT is sure a monumental task! not to take away anythng frm the technical crew, who hs done a fantabulous job, rit frm the camerawork to the art direction to the choreography (esp the break-dancing dudes in Pardesi!) to the background score to the editing....ths probably is one of the few movies, where almost nothing goes wrong in any of ths depts...
Of course, thr r bound to b a few glitches...lik the second half drags a wee-bit... and the end, altho radically diffrnt, is kinda abrupt and doesnt hit u lik a ton of bricks (and mayb thts y it does eventually manage to hit u hard, no matter what!)...the return of the break-dancing dudes for Saali Khushi seems like stretching the rubber-band too hard...and thrs self-indulgence on part of the director in a couple of instances, whr he gets carried away by his craft and tends to lose control....but ths r just minor abberations in an othrwis flawless piece of cinema (and for once, i wudnt hv the slightest hesitation in calling it ART, altho i used to hate tht word bcz of wht was erstwhile referred to as art in cinema!)...
The scenes and lines stay with u loooooooong aftr the movie's over...and the Einstein-ian 'A-Ha!' moments keep happening as each layer keeps unfolding with time...the multi-layered, multi-dimensional nature of the movie sure makes u take a trip inside ur own psyche....and thts saying a lot...bcz not many thngs, let alone movies, cn manage tht!
Everyone associated....take a bow!! Hats off!

Dev.D

INTELLIGENT.CAPTIVATING.INTELLIGENT.MESMERIZING.

INTELLIGENT.OVERWHELMING.INTELLIGENT.AWE-INSPIRING.

INTELLIGENT.BRILLIANT.

Anurag, Amit Trivedi, Abhay, Mahi, Kalki and everyone else...Take A Bow!