AK's obsession with complex female characters
After watching Dev D and Gulal I am inclined to believe that Anurag Kashyap has developed a fetish for abstract and complex female characters.
In DevD we had Paro who reckoned adultery as an urban concept without letting it diminish her passion for Dev. It was as if she *beep*ed that servant out of boredom.Then we had Chanda who was a rebel incarnate in a persistent effort to reconcile the myriad subtle emotions raging in her mind.
In Gulal, AK elevates the quantum of eccentricity (if you allow me to use this word) to a more pronounced level. Anuja, despite being incarcerated and humiliated (and most definitely sexually exploited)hangs around the lawless region just for the joke of a job. She neither secedes nor yearn for revenge.
Kiran was in a league of her own trying to carve out a niche for herself in a society of musclemen. Her jigs with the guitar ("I'm a big big girl" and the cameo in the climax) suggesting the vestige of innocence and machinations in her character. It was just magical.
Its great to see actresses in such powerful roles in Bollywood where they had hitherto been relegated to Maa, Behen (Who most often commits suicide before getting raped) and Premika.
Way to go AK