Kashyap had got into trouble even with his debut work, Paanch. It is yet to hit the screens.
He made several movies since then, including Gulaal, Dev D (a modern look at the Devdas story) and No Smoking. But they certainly did not attract the kind of attention that Black Friday did. In fact, both Gulaal and Dev D were screened at the Venice Film Festival last year.
This year, the Festival’s 67th edition -- now on here -- chose to show Kashyap’s latest work, That Girl in Yellow Boots. The story, written by Kashyap and his girlfriend, Kalki Koechlin (who also essays the protagonist in the movie), is all about a British girl from Brighton travelling to India to try and find her Indian father. The man had left her, her mother and step-sister 15 years earlier after a tragedy had stuck the family.
Koechlin playing Ruth is 20, and lands up in Mumbai to face the usual hassles that most foreigners in India go through. Often, looked upon as a woman of easy virtue, because of the colour of her skin, her youth and single status, Ruth in her desperation to survive only in order to search for the man she feels she loves gets involved with a drug addict, entangled with gangsters and pushed into working in a seedy massage parlourimpresses at VEn.
The narrative unfolds with surprises and shocks at every turn of frame, and The Girl in Yellow Boots has been scripted with a considerable degree of finesse that does not let the viewer make any easy guesswork.
Koechlin’s performance holds out promise, but unfortunately her European looks will greatly limit her roles. Prashant Prakash as Ruth’s boyfriend impresses, and so does Naseeruddin Shah, a “clean” customer who visits the parlour.
However, Kashyap’s creation may find it difficult to get past the multiplex audience, and its chances of making a mark outside metr.
By:Gautaman Bhaskaran
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