Caution : Don't watch this movie if you consider yourself too sensitive, or think supposed "classics" are not meant to be interpreted with a fresh, if jaded, cynical eye. If you like to view the world with rose tinted glasses or prefer to remain in your own cocoon, this matey, definitely ain't the one for you!!!! *
'You see things and say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were and I say, "Why not?" '-GBS
Having seen/read/heard about the Devdas (Bimal Roy and SLB version), we all know the story, so lemme go straight to my own interpretation.
At the base of almost every saga, is a love story... how many times it can be retold, rehashed, reinvented, depends upon the storyteller. Be it a Gladiator, a Casablanca or a Dev D, they all have a love story at the crux. Coming from Anurag Kashyap, who has always challenged the feel good, escapist cinema of Bollywood (L'Enfant Terrible anyone?)
This was a much awaited movie, and recommendation or no recommendation, I was going to watch it. And maybe it might have been better had I waited for this heady emotional thrill to pass, to try and attain a bit of perspective before I wrote about something which has moved me so much, but write I must, so write I will.
Dev D is a wonderful rendition on how to narrate the oldest, most staid of stories in a dynamic, attention holding, spell binding way. Kashyap has neatly partitioned the story in three parts, Paro's, Chanda's and finally Dev's, with the songs (that wonderful score by Amit T) holding everything together.
Paro is all expressive eyes, clarity of thoughts, decisive, impulsive, arrogant, yet willing to defy social ethos in her willingness to seduce her lover. She is nothing if not pride, a desire never to grovel, even when all she's wished for is walking away from her... Shades of Scarlett O Hara anyone?
Chanda is all innocence, then innocence lost and the horror of being all grown up inside the body of a young girl. See the shock of it, and the numb smile. She decides to survive, by seducing the world which destroyed her life as she knew it, but any choice she makes, is her own...
Dev is ego, chauvinist, mistakes, guilt, a desire for atonement, a vodka bottle, a credit card... used to either draw dope lines, or pay for pleasure... potent or impotent, you tell me. He is the eternal infant, always desiring his women to be chaste, to mother him, to be there, no matter what.
As far as performances go, Abhay Deol has come into his own. As the lazy, often spineless, willing to swim with the tide weakling, with his little boy whine, and that endearing smile with the dimples, he was and will remain the quintessential Dev.
Observe him in the scene where Sunil is telling him about Paro's alleged discretion. No expression, no melodrama, he listens, all the while shaking his leg, and then wham.... The intensity is to be seen to be believed Mahi (I hope the spellings are correct) is a firecracker, full of energy, verve and attitude. Sans any makeup, she reminds you of Smita, made up, she's hot. About Kalki, I am still not sure... whether she has more than that numb smile up her sleeve, but its early days yet, and she fits the bill here...
The reason why this movie will receive more brickbats is that it does not provide you with any stand on which you can sympathize with the characters. Rather, if at some stage you identify with them, you will need guts to admit it, even if to yourself.
If Paro wants to sleep with her lover, its a raw, pulsating desire, and she is willing to set the stage for it. If Dev is a substance abuser, he was the same before he decided not to marry Paro. Earlier, you could blame the social niceties for the self destructive path which Devdas took, how his father refused permission for him to marry Paro and blah blah...
Here, you have Dev's father all willing and wistful for him to be married to Paro, its Dev who decides not to marry her. Wrong decision, he takes refuge in dope, alcohol (coke with vodka). He is not strong enough to face his own guilt, a spade is a spade is a spade.... (getting quite fond if this expression, arent we Nonu?)
Paro, having been sexually and emotionally rejected by Dev decides to cut her losses and move on, her choice entirely. Chanda aka Lenny having been raped by an entire nation over a lack of judgment decides to turn to prostitution on a single thought, "It's easy money" Here you have heroines who are emotionally, mentally stronger then the man (men) in their lives, who still have the courage to pick up the pieces and move on, and no Dev, its not easy, this moving on business.
But like I said, Kashyap offers no excuses, its all lying there, bare for everyone to see, black, white, gray.... No moral excuses, no painting life and its quirks in rosy colors... all Gothic, all psychedelic, what you see is what you get. When love and relationships fail, they fail not because of any external causes, but rather because one or both the protagonists are not strong enough, because one or both dont care enough or have spine enough to fight.. but then, wasnt that always the case?
And in this honesty lies the warmth that pulls you, tugs at your heartstrings. I just wish AK wasnt so morally sanctimonious in the end, but maybe playing safe is the rule of the game.... I have lost count of the times people have cribbed over the crap that's being dished out to us in form of cinema.
This, here, is cinema with a difference. Here's a bunch of people who are willing to let the scales fall from their eyes and let their imagination run riotous on a canvas full of new colors, (even if the colors are Gothic), who are willing to walk away from the oft trodden path, a bunch of people who are willing to stand up for their own generation and its eccentricities, its loose ends, its falterings... This film deserves a chance, and we deserve this film, if only we have the courage to accept it.
<
