Dev D : Reader Reactions
iView Author: Biswadeep Ghosh (Pune, India)
Email: beegee1968 [at] gmail.com
Do you know Devdas?
When Dev. D ends and the credits show up with the names upside down, Anurag Kashyap’s cinematic intentions – as least the way I see it – get established in the most emphatic manner. The director has made a film in which the protagonist Dev has led a turbulent life in general, partly because of his tomorrow-can-go-to-hell attitude and also because two romances decide the course of his destiny. But, the manner in which the narrative flows – with its characters, 18 songs, editing and everything else – shows that the film, in the overall analysis, is Devdas Inverted. In that sense, the credits tell the story.
Endless yarns of prose have been spun on Kashyap’s moving away from the original novel. Indeed, anybody who has read the novel as also seen the previous versions will tell you that this latest film is a quasi-cynical take on the simplistic exposition of a romantic tragedy in the Sarat Chandra offering. Inhabiting an era in which eternal romance is an evanescent reality most often, Kashyap’s narrative needed digression for establishing the spirit of the time in which protagonists live. In order to be creatively successful, he couldn’t have done a Bhansali who painted the screen with bright colours and turned his Devdas into a hollow cinematic experience merely few years ago. Did Bhansali change the original? He did, by making Paro dance with Chandramukhi among other things! But his ‘tribute’ to the Bimal Roy film fell flat because the depth of emotions got buried in showmanship as the narrative went haywire.
There have been previous versions of Devdas, the one made by Pramathesh Chandra Barua and starring Kundanlal Saigal way back in 1936 being overtly faithful to the original. Barua’s film was produced at a time when the film industry was caught up in a struggle to understand and implement the basic technology of filmmaking. As it happens in every other aspect of life, this Devdas, therefore, needs to seen if we wish to comprehend the effort that our pioneers made and not as a creative masterpiece.
The second version, hailed as a classic and rightly so, was the one made by Bimal Roy in the 50s which starred Dilip Kumar as the tragic lover. Roy, who had worked as Barua’s cameraman in the first version, was fascinated by the thought of making the film for a couple of decades. When he finally made it, it produced some brilliant performances, great music and, of course, fine direction resulting from the passionate association with a work of literature for such a long time. While this Devdas also stuck to the original storyline, why it will continue to feature in the list of Hindi classics is chiefly because of the way in which Roy presented the narrative to the eyes. Those who saw the film were struck by the starkness onscreen, the minimalism employed by the director reinforcing the story of a tragedy which assaulted its three protagonists.
While Barua’s film can be seen for how our makers started their journey, the one by Roy is an example of the sort of artistic excellence he achieved although, in today’s terms, the story had the simplistic feel of the original. There have been several other occasions in which Devdas was re-interpreted (read, distorted) even by the makers of commercial cinema. The Amitabh Bachchan starrer Muqaddar Ka Sikandar was a take on the story, but it was a film made for the millions who deified the star. So, Bachchan was Sikandar even in his death. The Bengali film Debdas starred the Satyajit Ray favourite Soumitra Chatterjee as the hero with superstar Uttam Kumar playing Chunilal. Although the film was mostly faithful to the original, the slight deviation to show Chunilal in a shayari-mouthing avatar hit the film really hard. Bhansali’s film proved why partial reconstruction can be disastrous. The grandly mounted project drove a message home: that is, if one had to interpret an original, it needed to be done freely, without any inhibitions, without any desire to be partly there, partly somewhere else.
Reinterpreting a story needs courage and, what’s more, intelligence that refuses to be sycophantic to the power wielded by the popularity of a classic set in another time. Kashyap scores because of his conviction in the thought that Devdas doesn’t exist any longer. The open-ended last frame tells us why the aftermath of unrequited love needn’t be as pathetic as Sarat Chandra portrayed. Paro’s rejection of Devdas shows why modern-day love isn’t unconditional. Today’s Devdas – or Dev – can be a lost man, a drunkard, a drug addict, whatever, but he is also a sexual being for whom physical associations have their own relevance. Body tempts him. He is not a saint who drinks and dies.
The film shows us people we know, or, at least, know of. In doing that lies Kashyap’s triumph. For, think of this once as you take a look around you. Do you know any Devdas? At least, I don’t.
Dev D: Devdas with “Substance”!
iView Author: Ajay Gupta (Mumbai, India)
Email: ajaygupta76 [at] gmail.com
Wonder what Mr. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay would have thought. Devdas is still a loser, still makes impulsive choices and still lives on the fringe. What has changed is that Anurag has fast forwarded the story to the world we live in today. A life where the individual dominates the society, where everyone feels in charge of his destiny and yet no-one quite seems sure of his decisions. The outcome is a psychedelic trip through not just Dev D’s mind, but through the minds of Paro and Chanda who seem to have a tighter grip on their lives, though the grip is tense, and sometimes fragile.
If asked to define the one thing that makes this a milestone film for Indian Cinema, I think one word to capture that is “liberating”. I say Indian cinema carefully, as I think that while the story telling is assured, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily pioneering. What Anurag has done is assembled a masterpiece through rags, multicoloured threads, mixing this fabric with that and come out with a brilliant outcome which is definitely avant-garde for its sheer irreverence in the context of Indian mores.
Let’s begin with Paro, as finally the underlying story, done more than a dozen times before, is nothing but a long camera pan across the three criss-crossing lives of Devendra (DevD), Paro (Parminder) and Chanda (Chandramukhi/Lenny). Paro is the exact opposite of what audience in India expects the female protagonist to be. In what is a daring first scene, we see Mahi Gill (brilliant) lying on the bed, talking on the phone to Dev in a breathy voice, saying I am falling in love with you, and after the conversation reaches a crescendo, she says, I have fallen in love with you! Look out for what Dev asks Paro at the end of the chat. Paro speaks her mind, is not ashamed of being vulnerable, not afraid of asking someone in the village for a room to do it in with Dev, neither to run after the same man with a sickle in hand when she is upset. Later, we see her as capable of switching from a warm childhood buddy to a cold hearted jilted lover, not afraid to hit Dev where he hurts the most – his ego! What amazed me about the way Mahi handles Paro, is her use of her body. She has freedom written right over her. To see a heroine express herself with such ease, to make choices which are hers though sometimes flawed, and to want life on her terms is at first disturbing (feminists, please don’t sit up) and then after a while you want more. You want her to not pull back, you want her to break rules and you want her to protect her sanity even if at the cost of others. This is the first form of liberation – the freedom of the individual over what society writes as “correct”.
Dev in turn is almost shown to exist in a moral vacuum, starting from the dinner table conversation with his family when he has barely grown a mustache. When pulled up by his Dad for having been caught smoking a cigarette in school, he is not remorseful, he is just not able to understand what’s bothering his Dad, who he refuses to call that by the way. He is sent to London to study from where he returns, in his Dad’s view, a wimp who prefers skinny bimbettes to “real” womenn and fish to chicken! Dev is at once, a passionate man who cannot take the folks in the village talk ill of Paro’s sexuality, and in the same breath not able to take the slightest dig on his own by Paro. In what is part misunderstanding, and part a clash of egos, Dev dumps Paro and proceeds on a spiral journey into nothingness, where as he puts it, he moves from one point to another “just like that”. He lands in Delhi, full of pain, unable to forget his first love who was audacious enough to not apologise for what was not her fault. His trip is laced with vodka, spun into overdrive with an occasional sniff of coke and zips through the underbelly of Pahar Ganj in an aimless out of control way. Abhay seems to have been born to play this – a misfit, slightly head strong, completely vulnerable and made to go through a world which is not of his choosing. You get attached to him, wanting either that he is taught a lesson by life, or by death. At no point of time however, are you able to take your eyes off him.
As one of my friends said at the intermission – I want to get drunk this way once. I remember feeling exactly the same after watching Leaving Las Vegas , wanting to see the world through the bottle in the Smirnoff ad. I was once told by a girl I knew that I had a suicidal instinct, one that wanted to raise its head at a moment’s notice, just waiting to see if anyone was looking. I confess, and also wonder, doesn’t everyone want to let loose subconsciously. Doesn’t everyone want to cock a snook at safe behaviours, safe speeds and safe relationships? If only, we were like the characters in video games that have more than one life – we could take risks and if we fell, start all over again. This to me, is the second kind of liberation, a freedom from “safety”. Dev lives his life as if he is an video game, ready to self destruct. That until, he meets an alter ego, Chanda.
Chanda (earlier Lenny) is shown born into a rich house (a high society dad, a foreign mom), possibly given comforts but never understood as she proceeds into her pubescence, trying to assert her individuality folding up her skirts, riding across on bikes with men older than her virginal fifteen and enjoying the confidence boosting stares from boys of all kind, and her “boyfriend” who states “Lenny, you are the best” – words that will echo in her head forever. In a take on the infamous DPS scandal, Lenny is caught by this man, making out on a cell-phone camera, and soon she is the object of a national lascivious gaze. She runs away from the country, tries to find a solace in family but no-one is willing to give her a second chance. No one, but a girl who finds this nymph like beauty hungrily strolling the lanes of Delhi, now not being able to afford a sandwich from a fast food joint. Lenny is adopted by “Chunni”, who encourages her to study and take her own time, while showing her the potential cushiony life that awaits her. She has phone sex with all sorts of men, gets men off in Tamil and French with equal ease and as Chunni says “is an exclusive type”. Why is Lenny exclusive? I think because she is clean where it really matters. On the surface, she is a societal reject, who is using her body and male libido recklessly all towards making money. But is she really that? She seems to have detached her mind, heart and body as if they are living in three different dimensions, each knowing the other, each having its own take on life. Lenny defines the third kind of liberation, that of “consistency”.
Lenny by now has taken the moniker of Chandramukhi, Chanda for short, after her fascination for the same character from Devdas which she constantly watches on the telly. Kalki plays Chanda beautifully bringing to her all the repression felt by a girl growing up in Delhi, all the naivete of someone who has been forced to form a philosophical outlook of life at the age of seventeen and the irrepressible need for love which sits in every girl’s heart even one so ill done by life and so full of cynicism. Chanda often asks Dev to face life head on, to not deny the pain and to “move on”. Dev looks down upon all this initially as being “pop psychology” before eventually recognizing that his pain might not be the worst there is. He falls in love with Lenny, though never able to forget Paro.
I have given away a bit of the plot, and would stop right here so all of you who haven’t seen the film can do it without this piece taking away any of the pleasure that I had watching this mad film unfold on the camera. Before I go, let me pay homage to the brilliant music of Amit Trivedi, which is a star in its own right. How Anurag has timed the pieces of the soundtrack to match the intensity of the moments, and sometimes to act as counterpoints, is amazing. The extremely quirky “Emosional Atyachar”, the angst ridden “Nayan Tarse”, Chanda’s song (Payaliya), well actually each and every song plays its part and stays with you. One reason you will want to go back and do a retake is to see how the songs talk to the characters and come in and go out seamlessly. I also need to mention the three dancers in the underground post hours pub, who seem to be witnessing Dev’s life though without emotion or judgement.
The camerawork is arresting, and unlike my fear, Anurag has ensured that the technique doesn’t overtake the spirit of the film (though the characters almost lack soul, the film has tonnes of it !!). One scene that will remain with me, is the pre-dawn swim that Dev and Chanda enjoy in what seems like a plush swimming pool, which they break into in the dark. It’s a magical moment, which again reminds you that these two are unfulfilled souls looking for simple joys, deprived by a mix of fate and their own individual quirks.
The dialogue is hip, and sparse, the music often fulfilling empty spaces. The story that was written more than 100 years back, is adapted intelligently, sieving out any remnants of twentieth century and filling in the angst of this one.
Go ahead, watch this film and again, you will be a part of cinema history – as this is sure to spawn a new era of filmmakers feeling confident of bringing us out of hypocricy, putting out there whats on the mind of everyone and doing it in a way which doesn’t preach.
Dev D is a colourful mirror to the times we live in!
Devaa aa gaya … Dev D has arrived
iView Author: crazyrals (Bangalore, India)
Email: crazyrals [at] gmail.com
“devaa aa gaya”… announced Dharamdas[Tiku Talsaniya] in 2002’s
version of Devdas. But my Dev hadn’t arrived yet. What SLB did was
excellent, poetry on celluloid; but what AK has done is more like a
sonnet. I would not like to compare the two becasue SLB had his
version while AK has his own subversion [pun intended].
SLB took great pains to re-create the past, an old era near Hooghly
while AK has done a whole lot of research to portray Dev for the
present and future. He has set a benchmark for other writer/directors
becasue this is a movie that respects the sensibility of a mature
audience. AK has gone a few notches up in the story-telling
department. Black Friday looked like a docu-drama and No Smoking went
into a fantasy and looked like AK had lost control due to his
over-indulgence; but DevD is a perfect blend between visual imagery
and story-telling … like Coke with Vodka.
I have followed DevD diaries and have been reading about it from
inception to conception to gestation and finally reproduction. And it
was worth the time that it took, becasue he has got everything right;
well almost. I thought the second half dragged a bit, lost a bit of
momentum; but it ended well.
AK has moved Devdas to Punjab, from Kolkata, and rechristened him as
DevD. That in itself is a huge shift and makes us realise that Dev
belongs to Gen-X. He has pleasure trips, guilt-free sex, enjoys a good
smoke and lots of liquor, has sex-chat with Paro; in fact his dad
quips in that Dev has acquired new taste .. “chicken chhodke fish,
whisky chhodke vodka aur asli ladki chhodke sookhi baas ki bamboo ke
peeche bhagna”. Thats Dev, always running away; sometimes from Paro,
sometimes from Chanda and most of the times from himself.
He loves Paro immensely but his arrogance gets the better of him. He
loves her so much that he breaks a bottle on the head of one of the
villagers who brags that he has had a nice fuck with Paro and that she
is great in bed; but his chauvinism does not permit him to make love
to her. So great is his arrogance that he belittles Paro, breaks her
heart and pushes her away to marry somebody else. The realisation
dawns on him only when her ‘doli’ is about to leave with the blaring
‘Emotional Atyachar’ in the background. Perfect song that describes
the feeling and captures the emotions of Dev.
Then enters Chanda in his life. A precocious girl who was wronged by
her boyfriend, he shot a video of her giving a BJ and circulated it.
The shame that her parents go through when media guys hound their
house waiting to make a scoop, finally makes her run away. She has
been disowned by her mom as well as her friends who refuse her calls
and she finally lands up in a dingy brothel, or should we call
‘pleasure house’ where rich brats visit. Dev is also brought here by a
pimp called Chunni.
Some people don’t find love all their lives, but Dev fortunately or
unfortunately finds love twice; this time in the form of Chanda. But
both the times he fails to recognize it. When he was with Paro he did
not realize it was love till she left him, and now that he is with
Chanda the thought of Paro keeps haunting him. He wants to meet her
once, make love to her. Meet he finally does, but Paro has moved on in
life. She has been mature enough to compromise and she accuses Dev of
not being in love with anybody but himself. And thats the last we see
of Paro, totally out of Dev’s life. While Dev is still not able to
accept this fact he drowns himself in alcohol and in his drunk stupor
he over-runs 7 people o the footpath in his BMW.
In the final reels, after his dad’s death he has a near miss accident
when a car crashes against a wall beside him. And that brings in a new
consciousness and he decides that he has to move on. I shall not
reveal the ending but all I can say is that this Dev is a guy of the
new generation; and hence the ending had to be new and believable too.
A special mention should be made of the fantastic music-lyrics duo,
Amit and Amitabh have done an excellent job. All the songs are apt and
they have been weaved into the movie; they are almost like a smooth
narrative. Mahi Gill as Paro was brilliant in the movie. She has
everything it takes to make an actress, an amazing range of
expressions – from grief to grin, from anger to anxiety, from love to
loathing…everything. Kalki as Chanda was good but she could not
express herself through her voice and face; she needed lines.
The editing was slick and 360 deg camera rotation was used to great
effect. Cinematography was fantastic, capturing the beauty of Punjab,
the loneliness of Delhi streets, the filthy room of Dev, dingy brothel
areas; everything was shot well. And finally, Abhay and AK…from
concpet to conundrum…they created it. Abhay has rasied the bar for
himself, he is no longer competing with anyone but himself. I am
waiting for his next and of course AK’s next titled Gulaal. Until then
… dhol yaara dhol.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I need to go back and see the movie again. There is so much happening in the movie, cinematically, musically, artistically – it overwhelms you in one sitting. Somewhere on the reviews (Masand’s review, and elsewhere) I read, the movie is boringly long and filled with unnecessary songs. Ever since the 18-songs album released, I thought AK being greedy and just taking too many songs to make a musical out of a loser’s story.
But wow – shame on you Rajeev Masand. You lack the ability of art appreciation, if you thought so. And more so, if you didn’t write a line about the overdose of art in this movie.
Yeah, everything from production design, to songs picturisation, the 3 guys dancing in bar, the graffiti on the hotel wall, the interiors of Chanda’s den – talks loads of brilliance of art!
I come out of the theater feeling a powerful art explosion happened right on my face!
I wrote about one song on my blog:
http://www.onesongreview.com/2009/02/09/emosanal-atyachar-from-dev-d/
Cheers!
I love Anurag Kashyap and have defended him everywhere his name gets mentioned … except on PFC. He is the reason I found PFC but after seeing the Anurag worship so prevalent here, it just gets to you man!!
I hope “Dev D” is one of those films that “connects AK to the outside world” … but i am a little put off by the over-analysis of it here on PFC! Its only a film guys, give it a rest
What a fucktard man! Whats with him?? Why is he hell bent on pulling down the film. Anurag, Do something about him. Sad part being that so many people are gullible to accept his verdict.. Look at the language he uses. It clearly is a vendetta against Anurag. Go for this link
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/trade/top5/index.html
TA can go screw himself, IBN Live, Glamsham, Midday have all confirmed Dev D is a hit, and in fact turning out to be a surprise success.
saw DevD last night and simply loved it.
having no technical interest or knowledge in any art form, i sense good work/beauty without supporting it with a 1000 words.
so i loved DevD but could not sleep for much of the night coz of the way it ended. the car crashes at the PCO missing Dev by inches and he settles down with chanda.. it felt like a quich wrap-up. though the movie is long, i wudnt mind watching it if was 6 hours long. that beutiful it was to watch it.
then i wondered if it was more than the a car crash which changed Dev? Dev lived the life he did thru an everflowing ATM. with the BMW crash and death of his father, that ATM dried up.
sounds too simplistic i know. not suggesting dev is now going to live off chanda’s ATM. just that he never thought ATMs dried up and one day when it did, he changed. and the skipping the death by inches was just a catalyst.
my hats off to the team of DevD. and best wishes from a fan for life.
hello All,
Is this site some kind of a portal for spreading propaganda for AK’s movies and his kind of thoughts?
Everywhere I see is about DevD……..
Its ok for a particular point, but come on guys there are enough of things to discuss other than this masterpiece DevD which all the people of this site term as.
DevD is a daring and bold movie, and its a trendsetter in bollywood for these type of movies in future, but other than this, the movie is not a perfect and masterpiece which you all guys keep discussing.
Sometime I doubt if all the people here are paid for this spreading the propaganda about DevD.