DEV.D: THERAPEUTIC MADNESS
More than fifteen years back a certain Andy Dufresne crawled through five hundred yards of shit to Freedom, years later we are again treated to another man’s tale of finding redemption as he wades his way through the murky swamps of alcohol, drugs and unrequited love.
There are places in this world that isn’t made of stone, there is something inside that people cant get into, or touch. It’s those rare instances when a maker leads its audience into those dark holes, trapping us. Compelling us to look at reflections we are rather comfortable imagining doesn’t exist. Masterpieces are born in moments!
DEV.D is not a joy ride in the park, its not the film to watch with your Paro, it’s a hard grueling, torturous journey into Kashyap’s Heart of Darkness. The suffocation, the fear of claustrophobia, a sense of futility leaves you cold, the music mocks your senses…it teases you. Half heartedly one looks at his watch, he wants the show to end, trying to convince himself he doesn’t relate to the screen. Believing the passion play is nothing but unreal, disgusting self indulgence….alas how afraid he is, that man who refuses to check the mirror.
In all the years as a self proclaimed film buff, rarely have I been as uncomfortable as I was watching the last hour of DEV.D, trying to busy myself with everything from the saltless popcorn of the shabby old theater where I saw the film to the glow of my cell assuring me of an escape from the nightmare.
By the time DEV.D ended its closing credits, I had long left the theater. I had escaped the monster on the screen, triumphant as I walked back home, realization dawned on me, the experience is just beginning. Escaping the theater was just the curtain raiser, the darkness of the screen just clears up and the world you walk through takes up its colour! The film grows on you, its lurks under the darkness of your emotions searching for that one vulnerable spot, slowly feeding on your thoughts. I walked past home, the direction seemed vague, but it didn’t matter…the crux was the experience.
While the first half of the film is rather upbeat, funny…entertaining, providing customary introductions to the leads in a rather uncustomary ways, it’s the second half where the true experience of the film lies. The ceetis and laughter in the audience dies down, people settles down and then slowly slumps in their seat, the director takes us into a tour de force, journey through the heart of modern day India, whose dreams doesn’t lie in the penultimate tower of the leading corporate houses but under the seething belly of its city, its passion dies not at the hands of enemy bullets but under empty glasses.
The film refuses to settle down into a single frame just like the mind of its protagonist, it flicks through the darkened rooms and graffiti covered walls, until he crashes out failing to cope with the surroundings as the fate of life clears in his eyes.
The story doesn’t take a direction, at times it refuses to move, we go through slices of dev’s life as if flicking through old dusty albums, memories of which were just starting to fade. Narrated by Amit Trivedi’s now legendary soundtrack the film hardly requires the support of dialogues, concentrating on visuals, but to the filmmakers credit it all blends in seamless fabric of thoughts and feelings.
One scene that particularly stays with me has to be when Paro visits Dev. She takes off his clothes, washes them, cleans him up just like a mother paying little heed towards dev’s mumbled apologies. And then she deserts him forever, the brutality, ruthlessness of the sequence is bound to leave even the most hardened people cold…
One of the things I loved about the film has to be that it does not thrust itself upon the audience, pausing every once in a while allowing you to soak everything in. It grants you time to think, something that can hardly be said about anything else that’s up on the Indian screen lately.
DEV.D is an acquired taste, its surely not for the weak hearted, the impatient and ignorant viewer. Just like your first drink, it can produce a sense of headache if one is not used to it, but for those patient enough to sit through and look over its short comings, redemption awaits.
Tags: Abhay Deol, Add new tag, Anurag Kashyap, Dev.D, Kalki, Mahi Gill, UTV
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
Cheers bro! very nice observations.
rick….wow..nicely written ….
Ek hulchul si which i cannot explain .Dev.d was surprise that one of the best musical and love story has been made by Anurag.
RR – Your writing has come of age… bravo!
Keep em coming and don’t buckle under anything!
Amazing post RR..Loved it
Bravo man! Din read the whole thing, coz did not want to be biased before hand, but LOVED whatever I read! wrote!
A good review by Bikas Mishra
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19871&Itemid=57&limit=1&limitstart=0
Heil Kashyap!
@rick
you are still minor!
Grow up!
Then write
Make it:
DEV.D is an acquired taste, its surely not for the weak hearted, the impatient and ignorant viewer.
Viewer and Reviewer.
Addendum:
Arrogant Reviewer.
Amazing review…
I felt almost the same sort of madness as probably you did.The movie is mindfuck.But an artistic piece of brilliance nonetheless.
Spot On !!
Rick, your review is like “Coke” Vodka ke saath!!!
No one could have better. Dev D is better than sex on coke.
Loved the last para.. brilliantly put.