Some other cool things from Gulabi (1995):
- Flash Light Transition: The iconic ‘’Ee velalo neevu em chestu untavo..’’ song ends with a bulb flashing on Maheswari’s face and we cut to her being photographed by someone in the following scene. The flash bulb wakes her up from the soothing dream to the brutal reality that she is stuck in. In the last frame of the song she is positioned above JD Chakravarty so that the bulb’s flash can hit her face.
2. One More Smash Cut: Maheswari creates a mess at the JD’s home. She mistakes JD’s father Chandra Mohan for the house servant and orders him to bring her a glass of chilled water. JD notices the mess and tries to control the damage. Chandra Mohan is kind of impatient with the ongoing situation and we Smash Cut to them all having a pleasant chat in the kitchen. Again, creating expectations and breaking them with a cut to boost the feeling of Joy.
3. Best Sound Design: I don’t know how this sound effect is created. Is it the pink noise blended with the sounds of sea shore? Is there an instrument involved? This is one of the best sound design elements I’ve had the privilege of experiencing in Telugu cinema. The Looping sound effect stays for a while. The handheld long take shot takes us into a narrow lane, the darkness creates silhouette and the sound effect accompanies it to help amplify the feeling of extreme agony and helplessness. Before Arjun Reddy there was Gulabi for great sound design and they achieved all of it in analogue!
4. Brahmaji’s Set-up: A friend once told me that Fight Club (1999) didn’t work at the box-office because the climax twist of the movie didn’t have enough set-up. Then I argued with him that the plot twists in a story shouldn’t have any set-up at all or that may lead to the audiences predicting it beforehand. I realised why he was correct when I watched Gulabi. I understood why plot twists in some movies feel fake (as though they are forcefully incorporated into the screenplay for the story’s convenience). Plot Twists need subliminal set-up for them to feel shocking yet digestible.
5. Steady-Cam: Pardon me for saying this but I believe that Gulabi succeeded in executing the steady-cam shots almost to the point of perfection unlike in RGV’s initial attempts with the same in Shiva, Kshana Kshanam and Raat (I am a big RGV’s bhakt myself so no offence meant whatsoever). RGV used to place the camera in the predated character’s position so all we see in the above mentioned movies’ chase scenes are POV shots with the absence of human beings in the frame whereas in Gulabi the camera takes an audience’s POV. We feel the energy of the shots because the characters as well as the foreground objects like houses, walls, floor etc., move so fast (watch steady-cam shots in Vishal Bharadwaj’s ‘Kaminey’).