Anurag Kashyap’s GULAAL

I seem to have missed out on the Anurag Kashyap phenomenon almost entirely, partly because his movies were difficult to obtain in Nairobi, where I was based in the last fourteen years.

Finally saw GULAAL at my nephew’s insistence (yes, he’s a movie buff). It can’t be called a proper ‘movie’ viewing as I saw the movie on my laptop over two sessions.

Terrific movie, pretty much a movie unlike any other. With characters that ranged from the familiar to totally outlandish, a plot that mixed in familiar and unfamiliar elements in equal quantities, and a totally outlandish, unconventional musical score. There’s bad language in the dialogues, as seems to be the rule in smaller movies nowadays. The actors and technical qualities ranged from bad to good, but I’m judging as a ‘classicist’ in cinema.

Godard and Tarantino are obvious inspirations, but using the angle of Rajputs as a sort of ‘old world’ mafia in India, equating them with Nazism or the Italian mafia, was certainly a novelty. (Or at least so it seemed to me, an ‘outlier’ to the world of Indian cinema right now). In terms of the script that was the novelty I thought the movie would follow, but it moved more onto the youngsters and their confusions before eventually re-uniting with the main theme.

The young people, urban youngsters in small town India seemed totally devoid of any independence of thought or action, seemed totally at the mercy of more cynical powers. This is by and large true of urban youth in North India today, but I’m sure there is more to the youngsters- they have to have their dreams and ideals.

The other odd part of the movie was the use of song, it seemed to be totally out of control element with a mind of its own- much like the musician character in the movie. Parts reminded you or other overseas movies, but definitely there must be no other movie in India using music like this. I think this was because the music seemed to refer to nuances that weren’t there in the script, but here the story did manage to hold it all together.

That’s what makes Anurag Kashyap’s world unique in Indian cinema. Which is a good position to be in as a filmmaker.