Review: Girish Kasaravalli's Gulabi Talkies review
Master director Girish Kasaravalli uses the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan as a backdrop in his "Gulabi Talkies" to analyse how a small peace-loving fishing community in the southern coastal State of Karnataka loses its inter-religious harmony. The conflict on the Kargil Heights is never shown, and the tension that builds up between Hindus and Muslims in the fishing village is handled with exemplary restraint. We realize by the end of the film - attractive for a long festival run but with probably a limited commercial appeal -- that economics and not quite religion is what drives a wedge between the two groups.
Musa ( played by K.G Krishnamurthy) is a relatively rich Muslim fish merchant, who undercuts prices to the annoyance of Vasanna (Ashok Sandip), a Hindu trader, who finds it impossible to sell his daily catch. The faraway war that television brings into living rooms worsens the animosity between the two men fuelling malice and suspicion between their folks.
Interestingly, the television that splits the village also helps forge some kind of unity, however tenuous. At the centre of this discord and disunity is Gulabi (Umashree), the neglected, childless second wife of Musa, whose skills as a midwife transcends the societal divide. Crazy about movies, she is one evening dragged out of a theatre and asked to attend on a woman in labour. A thoroughly displeased Gulabi is promised a colour television set and a huge dish-antenna by the woman's family, and the box that brings cinema into her hut serves as a catalyst for communal compromise. Women and children of both religions throng Gulabi's talkies or film-house, united by the magic of the medium. But cinema can cement bonds only to a point, and they snap when a Hindu girl elopes. Musa is suspected of this misdemeanour, and Gulabi is unfairly victimized.
Though a trifle long at 122 minutes with the energy dipping at times, the camera brilliantly captures the splendours of the region as it does the mood and mannerism of the fishermen. Natural and authentic, the movie also scores with its top-rate performances. Umashree is excellent as a barren woman, shunned by her husband, but sought after by the people for her warmth and geniality. She conveys the pain and pathos of her paradoxical life with a subtlety rarely seen on the Indian screen. Krishnamurthy and Sandip are engaging as the two fishermen troubled and tormented by dwindling supplies, rising tempers and a widening chasm between religions.
First appeared in the Hollywood Reporter
