Dev D.
Dhruv! Where have you been? It’s almost been a month since your last post. We need our weekly fix of Dhruv’s views and opinions. Please write something.
Thank you anonymous (and imaginary) people for the requests for another post, and how can I disappoint my (imaginary) friends?
Though to be honest, I don’t have a reason to why I haven’t posted in some time. It’s not like I have been too busy or occupied. But still I’m always short on time. I guess its a side-effect of college. But the side-effect has a side-side-effect, I get to watch a lot of movies and listen to a lot of music and then tell you people how I feel about them. YAY! (No?)
So today, I tell you about Dev D.
Super cool poster for a super cool movie
So after waiting for weeks I finally got to see Dev D. I hadn’t seen any of the Devdas’ before, so I was really looking forward to seeing a modern day version and to finally know what its all about. Firstly, this movie is definitely a step forward for Indian cinema. The movie is extremely dark (in nature, and the print) which made it tough to watch it on my laptop since the print wasn’t the best thing since sliced bread. I will not go into details about the plot, but will talk about certain points I like.
It touched some of the plagues of modern India, for instance, reckless driving under influence by rich brats, exploitation of homeless girls, hypocritical society, mass circulation of MMS pornography (its ironic that I read about the Noida MMS a day before watching the movie) etc. What set apart this movie from other run-of-the-mill bollywood movies was the realism – in everything from costumes to accents to looks to dialogues. Nothing seemed fabricated. Even the walls of the rooms the characters lived in had brilliant posters and graffiti, stuff that is not paid attention to in mainstream bollywood. Abhay Deol was very apt as the drug addicted, alcohol guzzling, rich brat. This is his second movie I have enjoyed in the past few weeks (other being Oye Lucky Lucky Oye) and he probably figures in my list of top 5 bollywood actors (I have no clue who the other 4 are). So does Anurag Kashyap in my list of top 5 bollywood directors. I do know who the other 4 are – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Priyadarshan, Rajkumar Hirani and Ram Gopal Verma.
Moving on, best aspect of the film : its mujical soundtrack. After hearing it around 10 times, I think its safe to say its my favorite bollywood soundtrack after Rang De Basanti and Joh Jeeta Wohi Sikander. Title track Emosional Atyachaar follows a very complicated curve of I hate this bs –> Wow this is catchy –> Eww annoying –> Man this is brilliant –> I’ll commit suicide if I hear it once more –> It’s my favorite song of all time. I think I’m on stage 4. Nayan tarse, Mahi Mennu, Pardesi are all brilliant songs with nice lyrics and great electronic, playable-in-a-club beats. I’m impressed by the fact that they could fit 18 songs into the movie without me getting frustrated.
I also saw Dilli 6 also. That does not deserve another post, though.
The story of Devdas is a ready-made platform for endless psycho-analysis and study of contemporary social framework. The original tale relied on the notions of platonic love whereas Dev D is about physical love. It relies on on-face shock value! Devdas is a coward who is defeated by the social prejudices and carries the guilt throughout his life. He drinks in order to forget his cowardice. Dev D and all the other characters of Kashyap’s tale aren’t influenced by the social norms. Both stories thereby reflecting their specific era.
The character sketching is unique. Dev is played to near perfection by Abhay Deol, whose performance is quiet and confident. Paro (Mahie Gill) is no more the sacrificial damsel who lives physically and mentally with different men. Kashyap also maintains the audience’s distance from the characters using the brilliance in script and smooth editing. He never allows us to sympathize with the characters, thereby shifting the focus from one to the other- a rare work of imagery, indeed!
I strongly feel Kashyap could have gone with a better actress for Chanda (Kalki Koechlin). Chanda’s part was not exploited well. The psychological impact of the whole mms incident on her which leads to the suicide of her father never showed up. It was a perfect opportunity to tell the world about the feelings of a girl, and all the hardships she goes through because of one mms!
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