Film Impressions

REVIEW: That Girl In Yellow Boots (2)

MUMBAI BY NIGHT

The problem with Bollywood cinema right now is the lack of a viable alternative.  On the one end is junk like Bodyguard you don’t want to see; on the other high-quality cinema of Anurag Kashyap (and his followers) that you can’t bear to watch.

That Girl in Yellow Boots is typical ‘indie’ fare that invariably hopes to attract audiences through controversial content.  The story follows Ruth (Kalki Koechlin), who has come to India to look for her father. He had left when she was a kid.  She has received a letter from him, and set off in search; and while she makes the rounds, she works in a seedy massage parlour and specializes in what is euphemistically referred to as “hand shake.”

REVIEW: That Girl In Yellow Boots

LOVE AND LONGING IN MUMBAI

Anurag Kashyap is the unqualified chronicler of urban depravation in contemporary Hindi cinema. He says it like it is—if you don't like to see the ugly truth, steer clear of his turf. In film after film, he clinically peels the mask off civilised society and in turn, a cinema that feeds on and into its hypocrisy. He takes you to places no other filmmaker dares to go and throws all the filth you're trying to wish away straight at your face. It is remarkable that he believes such cinema will find its own audience and did so, even when it didn't and his films either couldn't get released or bombed miserably.

Kashyap knows how to tell a story and also to use the medium skillfully. The dreary streets of Paharganj in Dev D and the netherworld of Mumbai in No Smoking and Black Friday took us far, far away from the rose-tinted make-believe of Bollywood. Paanch was a punch in the gut the Censor Board just couldn't recover from. He's found a dependable ally in cinematographer Rajeev Ravi who makes seedy, dingy, unglamorous surroundings look poetic while Kashyap infuses his miserable characters with real emotions and depth.