Dev D

Dev D is one such flight of fancy from the filmmaker that definitely defies all conventions and demolishes all moulds. The director of the film Anurag Kashyap has always been a contrarian filmmaker, consciously steering away from traditional Bollywood with films like Black Friday, Paanch, No Smoking.

Dev D is like that heady cocktail which has the vodka pitched perfectly with the tang. Set against the rich rural backdrop of Punjab and Paharganj (Delhi), the film traces the self-destructive sojourn of a young, contemporary hero who mirrors the existential angst of the proverbial outsider, made legendary in the writings of Satre, Camus, Kafka, Kerouac and the ballads of Kurt Cobain.

But Dev D (Abhay Deol), unlike Devdas, isn't a blast from the past. Dev D is indeed a coming-of-age film, not merely for the protagonist, Devender Singh Dhillon, but it is a brilliant breakthrough for Bollywood too.

It really doesn't matter whether the film ends up as a box office scorcher. What matters is the fact that for the discerning viewer. Anurag Kashyap, however, gets even more adventurous and adds a progressive flourish to both the plot and the characters which are played to perfection by the three lead players.

If Mahi and Kalki are riveting new finds, assured of a long innings in cinema, then Abhay Deol adds a whole new meaning to the term `Unconventional Hero'. Dev D is the class act from the Deol who cleverly flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Dev D is purely a musical love story, with zany numbers like ‘emosanal atyachar', ‘saali khushi', ‘nayan tarse' and many more.

Gulaal

Gulaal is about a simple man’s anger and outburst against the corrupt, rusted system have been seen and forgotten by the dozen, and Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal turns out to be just a statistical addition to the list.

The movie is a telling statement on the degeneration in the political structure both at the micro level of student politics and the macro level of power-hungry, who stop at nothing to realize their political ambitions. The movie casts Kay Kay Menon, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Mahi Gill, Jesse Randhawa, Aditya Shrivastava, Piyush Mishra, Mukesh Bhatt, Abhimanyu Shekhar Singh, Pankaj Jha, Deepak Dobriyal and Ayesha Mohan.

The film 'Gulaal' is all about love, rage, power and politics. It unfolds the story of an innocent college student Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), who is pushed into politics.

‘Gulaal’ is essentially a character driven story that seems to get too verbose at places. The dialogues are expectedly sprinkled with expletives because the director wanted them to sound ‘real’. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi is superb. Music and lyrics by Piyush Mishra are fascinating.

If there’s anything truly worth watching in ‘Gulaal’ it’s the performances by the ensemble of talented actors from Kay Kay Menon as the devious Dukey Bana to Deepak Dobriyal as his assistant or Mahi Gill as his mistress.

Newcomer Raj Singh Chaudhary has an unassuming persona and very well portrays the inner transformation of his character. Ayesha Mohan and Aditya Shrivastava as the brother sister duo are terrific in their individual performances.

All said, ‘Gulaal’ is a seething, simmering, but tortuously predictable tale of all that’s rotten in the system. The director has pooled all his anger and cynicism against the system and revealed it on the screen to be smacked at the faces of hapless viewers in the form of ‘Gulaal’.

Frankly, with Gulaal, Anurag Kashyap has once again proved himself; his versatile, prolific and ardent direction is utterly commendable.