I just finished watching "Gulaal" and was absolutely blown away by the fantastic performance exhibited by a great ensemble cast. As a matter of fact, it's a pity that this movie was stuck for 6 years since there was nobody ready to finance it. There are so many similar good low budget movies that have a story to tell with very fine actors but unfortunately very few get endorsed. So who is to blame for this total apathy towards good cinema?
Talking about "Gulaal", it's made by the maverick writer director Anurag Kashyap who dazzled everybody with hard hitting "Black Friday", confused all with his most self-indulgent weirdo "No Smoking", experimented with his modern take on Devdas as "Dev D" and now the provocative "Gulaal" as his supposedly most angry film till date. The movie is truly a layered one where every character has his ego and power hungry but desperately wants to legitimize it. The real star of the movie though is Piyush Mishra whose lyrics, music and acting remains etched in the memory even after the movie is finished.
Last year, there were some really good movies like "Aamir", "Mumbai Meri Jaan", "A Wednesday" and few years back, "Khosla Ka Ghosla", "Life In A Metro" to mention a few which gives me a glimmer of hope that Indian Cinema is finally moving away from it's stereotypical formulas but not sure whether this new age cinema will have it's sustenenance coz at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether it's a profitable venture for the producer. Strangely, still dumb movies like "Ghajini", "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi", "Singh Is King" rule the market.
Once good quality low budget movies start making business, it'll do a world of good for everybody and not just for a few connoisseurs like me. The exorbitant prices of the celebrity stars would come down and so would their tantrums. But I guess Indian audience prefers pure entertainment as a stress buster over sincere work of art. Well in that case, one should not complaint and bitch about the kind of movies that are being served. Unless we endorse good intelligent cinema, we'll be thrown the same old crap.