Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Gully Boy
2019 · Zoya Akhtar · Gully Boy on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch Murad framed through grilles, laundry, and doorways in Dharavi. (camera)
Jay Oza shoots the settlement close and handheld with the frame loaded by foreground obstruction, so Murad is repeatedly seen through something rather than in open space.
Payoff: The camera keeps something between you and him, the same way the city does.
Notice how often glass or mirrors separate Murad from wealth. (camera)
When Murad drives an affluent family, the camera works through the rearview mirror and the closed car window, an interface that lets him be seen without ever being addressed.
Payoff: He is visible to these people and still completely unreachable to them.
Listen for the world drop out when Murad puts on headphones. (sound)
Dharavi's continuous layered noise, machinery, television, argument, traffic, cuts away completely the moment Murad puts on his headphones, leaving only the track.
Payoff: This is the one moment the film lets you hear exactly what he hears inside.
Notice how much happens on rooftops instead of indoors. (staging)
Murad's home is a single room where every family conflict is overheard, while rooftops and terraces, the settlement's only unclaimed space, are where writing and performing actually happen.
Payoff: Indoors compresses him. The roof is the only place he gets room to work.
Watch Ranveer Singh keep his shoulders in and eyes down. (performance)
Singh plays almost the entire film in physical recession, quiet and withheld, so that each rap sequence detonates as a release of energy he keeps hidden elsewhere.
Payoff: The performance is built around what he does not show you until the mic is on.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch what happens to the sound whenever Murad puts on his headphones.