That Girl in Yellow Boots

Steve Jobs, the 'ex' CEO of Apple Inc. once said, "It isn't consumers' job to know what they want." This mantra fits well for the new age cult filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who has drawn a strong line between the mainstream and the parallel with all his movies as a director or a writer. Following those words, made them respected names in their arenas.

His latest offering That Girl In Yellow Boots, co-written by Kalki, is "socially" not intended for the audience we see in this country. God knows how he arrived at the concept of this movie...may be after getting intoxicated and sunken into the pervert sex stories? After scripting this idea and actually materializing it into a feature film needs gutsy balls. Said it. Indian producers are obviously not that ballsy to produce it, only if they get time and money from puke-like sugar candies and silly remakes. So valid is the irony of this filmmaking: 13 days to shoot the entire film and 2 years to release it! Coming upon the movie, Ruth Edscer (played by Kalki) in her metaphoric Yellow Boots is trapped in labyrinthine Mumbai, in search of a man who she hasn't seen since childhood and he also happens to be her father. In this quest, she comes across men of all kind- some "Men is Dog" kind at foreigner's registration office, a generous Diwakar (Naseeruddin Shah) at the massage parlor with the name "Aspaspa" where she works without a permit, his druggie boyfriend Prashant (Prashant Prakash), gang-man Chittiappa (Gulshan Devaiya) are some to mention. The numerous male characterization sets layers for the story to proceed: Makarand Deshpande as post master, Ronit Roy as a humble but unhelpful policeman, Piyush Mishra as a rickshaw-wallah and also Rajat Kapoor.

Fixed with the plot, the film runs for around 1hour 30 minutes with each frame mellowed with dark creativity of arts and lights (reason: low production this time, may be) adds a charm to the kind of the tale it is paced to tell. Rajeev Rai's camera work with some guerrilla technique shots, trademarks the Anurag Kashyap kind of filming. Editing by Shweta Venkat and the parallel storytelling carves to enter the dark psyche of the protagonist. The debut music director Naren Chandavarkar grips harder onto the film with the background score- a striking folk genre sung by Shilpa Rao to portray the lead Ruth.

Performances of almost every character, as they appear on the screen, hits hard - be it Makarand Deshpande only for seconds or Naseer Saab in all his short appearances. The other support Prakash and Chittiappa are worth watch. And to find a humor in this dark tale, there is Maya as the manger of Aspaspa, played by Puja Swaroop. Kalki is thrilling as Ruth, speaks with silence and her eyes.

Kashyap, as always, asks his audience to feel the movie rather than to enjoy it. And, once you are sunken into the concept he pictures here, you are shocked with its disturbing climax. With the Indian Censor Board passing this concept and National Film Development Corporation producing it, I see some maturity in them and expects the same from the audience. Digest this. Have Gelucil. No puking.

An urge to the Bollywooders: If a director, known for his critically acclaimed work, risks it with his future on stake and has balls enough to throw an idea beyond the scope of Bollywood that producers will never risk, isn't it your job as a part of liberal cinema lovers to see the bar rising just at the cost of a movie ticket and some time? Like. Dislike. Your say. Ideas need to be projected.

One of the key protagonists of New Age Indian Cinema,Anurag Kashyap returns with his another unusual film with a strange title THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS, which has already won critical acclaim in many film festivals abroad. As per his reputation of a daringly different film- maker, Anurag gives you exactly what was expected from him, a path breaking, bold and disturbing, realistic film which mainly calls for a strictly adult viewing.

With his own stylish shot taking techniques and sequences, this time Anurag goes into the filthy world of a local massage parlor of Mumbai, where you are offered pleasure services, a little more than just a massage. In clear words, here is something which you have never seen before in an Indian mainstream movie ever. And to be precise you can easily call it 'A Soft Porn' too served in the name of New Age Indian Cinema to the audience, minus the visual depiction of the term.

Here I really don't mean that it's a bad film. THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS is undoubtedly, a perfect example of a powerful controversial cinema which takes into the dark real world of oral sex, drug addiction and child abuse. It is a journey of a girl who is in search of both her own self and her lost father, who she thinks, is the only person in the world still loving her.

The film starts off sarcastically, revealing the silly work ethics of a government office dealing with foreigners in a real stupid manner and then it moves into a different world of drugs, sex and love all of a sudden. The director even takes you into Pune's OSHO Commune with the girl enquiring about her father, who has written a letter to her recently from there and he also shows a glimpse of OSHO's discourse running on a TVin one of the film's sequences. However the director's purpose of using this reference remains unclear and confusing. Keeping in mind the funny remarks made by his characters over the copyright issue of the commune, it looks like Anurag wanted to highlight the deteriorating state of the movement, fast heading towards an un-required commercialization.

Anyway, returning to the film, overall it just remains a fine out of the box attempt for me, which sadly never makes a rock solid impact on the viewer even with its shockingly disgusting climax. In fact if you are an avid lover of the world cinema, then the chances are that you might guess the climax much before it comes in front of you on the screen.

Moreover, it becomes repetitive in the mid and also doesn't give you the main story idea of the writer very clearly. The script basically starts emphasizing on the girl's search for her father after almost one hour and until then the director keeps on showing the related sequences about her good clients, her drug addict boy friend, a south gangster and the girl sitting at the massage parlor's reception talking endlessly on her phone. And the sad part is that most of these characters remain half baked on the screen, unlike a Anurag Kashyap film.

Besides there are many known friends of Anurag doing their very short cameos in the film just as a courtesy, such as Piyush Mishra, Rajat Kapoor, Makrand Deshpande and Ronit Roy, which doesn't really serve any purpose.

In terms of technical production, it is a superb project and in terms of performances its a winning stroke from Kalki Koechlin as the confused girl. But I didn't find the film connecting with the audience at an emotional level. At the most, it simply can be called a never before kind of Indian Film with some highly sexual gestures, taking away the actual limelight from the film itself and its main theme. It no doubt stuns you in its final moments but you don't walk out of the hall highly impressed. The film actually lacks the conflicting drama, which the subject really demanded and therefore in the end it remains a rather bold but less satisfying project from Anurag Kashyap….unexpectedly. Further, co-written by Kalki and Anurag together, TGIYB seems to be more a Kalki's film than a Anurag Kashyap's brainchild. She is wonderful as The Girl in Yellow Boots, but how many times she will go on repeating herself in such psycho kind of roles, that's my question to the girl? Prashant Prakash as her boy-friend is naturally impressive and Gulshan Devaiya shows off his inner talent, even in an under-written role of a disturbed don.

On the whole, with TGIYB, Anurag certainly takes the wave of New Age Indian Cinema a few steps ahead, but still I cannot rate the film as one of his best efforts till date in any case. However, if you only consider the boldness in its open sexual content, then it surely is a path- breaking attempt by the off-beat director in Indian Cinema, unarguably.

Summing up, I want to end this review raising a few questions in front of all film-makers following this trend of experimental, new age cinema, which came to my mind while watching THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS…….. "Does a new age movie or an experimental film, always supposed to be written around Sex and Perverts? "Do we always need to make such movies around Unusual Sex, Child Abuse, Lesbians, Eunuchs and Gay characters?" and "Is New Age Cinema only dependent and concerned about such repeated subjects only?"

Just give it a thought?

I consider myself a big fan of Anurag Kashyap and think Gulaal to be one of the best movies made in Bollywood. In that perspective, I think this movie doesn't live up to expectations and is quite avoidable.

The movie does well in taking you through the Mumbai underbelly from the eyes of an illegal foreign immigrant and inspires images from Shantaram. However, the story is too loose. If it was intended to be a mystery/ thriller, it doesn't have enough pace and coherence. It just keeps jumping back and forth b/w Kalki giving customers hand shakes and randomly following leads to locate her father.

The best sequence in the movie is Kalki narrating her father's death to the gangster when he comes for a massage. The revelation at the end of the movie is shocking and disgusting but there is no build up to it which would make it sort of an inevitable end. It comes as if it's there in order to shock you rather than being the purpose of the story all along. The extremely unconvincing and weak performance of Kalki's father is the weakest link in the movie.

The subject and the first 40-50 minutes are promising and this movie could have been much more. The last 20-25 minutes are a dampener, if you don't give too much thought to the shock/ disgust aspect of the end.

To conclude - Just about an average, "art" movie that might appeal to you because of its "boldness" and being out of line with "societal norms". But very average story line, acting and direction.

There are certain masked aspects of society which when revealed reflect the filthy side of otherwise laminated societal structure. That Girl in yellow Boots revolves around one such aspect of society which will shock the audience and they will question their foundation. But one need to have a strong belly to digest the film even though all knows whatever depicted is brutally real. This movie which was not getting producer since its inception finally rescued by NFDC thus making its presence felt in International film festival circuits. With a US distributor on board the film will be getting an International release and it deserves that.

Anurag Kashyap collaborated with his wife Kalki Koechlin to write the script of this dark slice of life film. Like Dhobi Ghaat the film revolves around few protagonists but similarity ends there. While the former dealt with softer side of relationships TGIYB reflects the darker side of human nature which is hidden beneath sophistication. Anurag Kashyap knows the darker side of metros like no other director and after exploring Delhi in Dev D the director chose Mumbai and its by-lane to tell the story of Ruth (Played by Kalki) of Indo-British origin. She comes to India in search of her father, who has left the family when she was 5 years old. There are few other characters surrounding Ruth's life. Sid is her boyfriend whose fiend is preoccupied with his d*ck and drugs and the other man Divakar (played by Naseeruddin Shah) who comes for leg massage from Ruth everyday and has a fatherly affection towards her. Amidst her life in the massage parlor Ruth saves money which she uses on search of her father. While digging on the truth some twisted shocking facts comes out which changes the way Ruth perceives few people and things.

Anurag Kashyap keeps his script simple this time with imagery over powering the narrative as the objects in each frame symbolizing something or the other. It is through Ruth's eyes the pervasive man's nature in a metro is laid under a scanner. The "Yellow" color symbolized the psychedelic state of Dev's mind in his earlier masterpiece Dev D. In this movie Yellow symbolizes aberration. It reflects something which is twisted and off-path from societal normal functioning. The clumsy looking yellow boots radiates the confused state of Ruth's mind the way she is vulnerable and hard towards Sid because of whom she looses 57000. The yellow boots also symbolizes the uneasy state of Ruth's existence as she becomes restless in search of her father, perturbed about getting her Visa which is delayed due to evergreen redtapism, edgy about her feelings as she watches Osho but then feel disturbed in getting laid only to satisfy her BF with a hand job. Kashyap is a maverick director who is simply genius in his direction and here also he is simply flawless in execution. All the characters came to live with his finer sense of camera angles, lights and color. He uses the shades of yellow to highlight different state of Ruth. Through Divakar,Sid,local goon Chuttiyappa (brilliantly played by Gulshan Devaiyya who was earlier seen in Shaitan) he tried to hint upon certain Grey shades of society-Grey in terms of optimism as well as negativity. With able support from Shweta Venkat in editing department and Kashyap's patent Rajeev Ravi in camera the director creates the perfect setting needed for the realistic thriller. Most of the time one cant predict the next frame thus showing the brilliance of Venkat's editing. Appreciation would remain incomplete without mentioning Washinq Khan's flawless set design and Shubra Gupta's costume. Naren Chanravarkar and Benedict Taylor's music is easy on ear and in tune with the narrative. Amongst the actor Kalki is in brilliant form as the lady in search of her father. She raises her own bar with this film and look forward to such finer works by her. She should also be given credit for weaving the story which is indeed shockingly real for Indian masses. Language is real and bold but one is witness to such cuss words in Delhi Belly so hopefully it will not come as shocker accept for hand job sequences. Naseeruddin Shah surrenders himself to Mr Kashyap and renders a spontaneous performance. Prashant Prakash's is simply brilliant in his debut film and is an actor to look for. Gulshan Devaiyya rocked as KC in Shaitan and here was at his menacing best as Chutiyappa.Pooja Swaroop excels as blabbering Maya. Divya Jagdale and Shiv Subramaniam did a good job in their respective roles. There are also fine actors like Piyush Mishra, Markand Deshpande, Ronit Roy in one off sequences.

Anurag Kashyap improves himself with each film and through every film he elevates the level of Indian cinema to the next step. TGIYB is one such thriller which will not crash the BO but will surely be remembered in the history of Indian cinema for its brilliance. The film is real, hard, shocking and for a selective audience. If you are a lover of independent cinema then go for this one and you won't be disappointed.

Anurag Kashyap ("Water") delivers another stunningly controversial masterpiece with "That Girl In Yellow Boots". True to form as one of India's leading modern indie filmmakers, this film will bedazzle and shock you. Kashyap takes us on a colourful and dangerous journey through the underbelly of Bombay experienced through the eyes of Ruth (Kalki Koechlin).

Kalki Koechlin (winner, best supporting actress Filmfare, "Dev. D") co wrote this sizzling script with Kashyap. Every character is remarkably fleshed out from Ruth herself to the thugs running drug rackets and the girls and their clients in the massage parlour. The growing reality of the size of the sex trade in India inspired Kashyap to conceive of this story and to collaborate with Koechlin on the script. ..