Dev D Review : The first cut is the deepest
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A friend asked me if I’d like to watch Dev D. one afternoon last week at a special screening by UTV for a closed group of people. Her friend (who works for the production house) had told her she could get a couple of friends if she wants. I wasn’t keen to see it before release until she said, “this is the original film before ‘cuts’”. That made me reconsider and I am glad I did.
Anurag Kashyap has not adapted Sharatchandra’s Devdas. He has set it free from a gas chamber of confined meanings where it fought long and hard to survive.
The film has a bit of a journey left before it makes it to its final destination so this is not a review, in the technical sense of the word. But it would be too much to ask of a critic to see a film like Dev D. and not brim with thoughts that might just take their toll if not channelized into expression. There is of course a parallel urge to refrain from writing about something that moves you that much until time has brought in a little clarity to the heady impressionism. But a road must be taken, and so I write.
There are a lot of levels on which Dev D succeeds. As a work of cinema it is cutting edge- the sound design, a soundtrack that gets the beat of a generation right, the reworking of the Indian musical genre to give it a contemporary and universal appeal and significance, savoury dialogues, visuals balanced deftly between the real and surreal, honest, evocative and satiating at once, a very involved camera and a slickness that is utterly charming only because it does not compete for attention from the heart of it all. I suspect in the months to follow there will be a lot of commentary on the actors, filmmaker and writer’s craft but since this piece begins with a disclaimer about its reviewing aspirations, I am going to be content in making a couple of observations about the politics of the film.
If this film were literally political, it would be liberal, left wing, inclusive and humanistic, which is an impossible ideal in the macro sense but duly implanted in the personal politics of this film. Anurag’s Dev is not a larger than life, arrogant, beautiful suffering hero. He is a sharp regular guy from a generation in India that is at the cusp of extraordinary contrasts. He is cursed with that not so irregular phenomenon of a heightened consciousness and perhaps even a little genius is imaginable in the context. He is not a man undone by his great love but an unassuming boy-man trying to find his way through a maze of telling emotional and intellectual quests. Dev’s story is a coming of age story in that sense with a hope of redemption that is not even mildly saccharined. Never before have you known Devdas nuanced so well and yet on some level he is but a representative of those who seek their own way but are never given a well deserved second chance to get back into their life if they lose the track briefly. He is not simplistically and pointedly self destructive, nor does he thrive on pity from himself and his audience. He is a seeker trying to make sense of the world, holding on to what he can, trying to inch his way back into a world he can accept, but rejected by the circumstance of existence and society at every crossroad. For the phenomenon of ‘atyachaar’ is largely emotional and cannot be neatly divided into groups of man-woman, rich-poor, dalit-brahmin. We hurt each other irrespective and outside of our categories- sometimes, irreparably, and even when not, a lot goes into repair work.
This is where the substance abuse comes in. Unlike Devdas, Dev is not a puritan converted to the evil of alcohol by a fallen woman. He always enjoyed his beer and perhaps a doobie or two like regular people; thereby taking away the tricky morality out of the condemnation of excess and escape which he later falls into. Even in the original alcohol was a metaphor of destruction, poignant at a time when there was little else available as a tool for the same. Dev slips in other ways as well as he watches one betrayal after another ill equipped to walk through on his own steam. Kashyap has stretched the metaphor to include other incidents, some touted by the media, others shoved into the unseen underbelly despite their epidemic proportions, both altered in translation by a fourth estate that serves only its own needs now.
The trick here is to look at the film without the defense mechanism of pseudo morality because it concerns all of us. Substance is Dev’s desperate attempt to escape a reality that is not relenting in its harshness, his need to believe in something else. On a literal level this transcends the lifestyle barrier that usually hinders our understanding of abuse so much so that we treat Cocaine abuse in nightclubs as a phenomenon distinct from the railway station addictions of homeless juveniles. On another level, we celebrate Ginsberg and Huxley for their unabashed quest of the hidden corners of the mind treating it hypocritically as an intellectual and therefore higher purpose. The truth about substance is that it is rampantly available through and through due to a system of corruption that we cannot even begin to shut out as easily as we can the acknowledgment of its existence through self censorship mostly. And that dysfunction that we as a society create and refuse to be responsible for, will thrust dregs and disturbed from every strata of society to look for a runaway train, more so when we shun them for it. Then there is also a need to step further back and ask, are we all not subscribing to some form of addiction or the other, sufficiently opiated at any given time by prejudices, pride and lies in order to continue in the comfort of our burrows?
Kashyap has not just got the story and its protagonist out of fossils, he has also reconstructed its two heroines, who despite their popularity in pop culture, have largely remained foils and incidents in the life of Devdas through the history of its interpretation. So much so that commentators saw them often as simply one single bifurcated character representing good and bad. Kashyap’s Paro and Chanda are not one stereotype or the other, both women from two different Indias perhaps, united in their struggles and self-expression of rebellion. They meet, like in SLB’s but not to create a spectacle of grandeur only to suggest subtly a crossing of destinies and journeys. To begin with they are fully formed characters that rise above their ‘beauty’ and ‘social placement’ and yet embody both completely. They are fiery and independent, in love with their lives, believing in the changing status of the other sex as projected by the times. They have a sexuality (yes they do!), they have desires and opinions, they have anger. But the layer of equal opportunity painted over by education and such is punched through when they become hapless victims of prejudice and exploitation, judged and betrayed by a psychological morality and perverse cocktail of possession, exploitation and weakness that men throw around when they are not using real acid- crucified for a na'¯ve and natural sexuality that cannot belong to them because it has been usurped by self appointed moral police for double use as pleasure and power.
This is not to say that Kashyap’s film is more ‘sexual’ than the original novel. Saratchandra’s novels were bubbling under with sexuality expressed in the fashion of those times with key symbols. It is only in later adaptations that the sexuality was deliberately under-read or lost due to a failure to revise those symbols. Kashyap brings the sexuality out, only as out as it is in real life but out-er than it is allowed to be in cinema and other mass media. He treats it organically, not giving it more importance than it should get because it is a rare sighting in our constructed collective consciousness. But he is not willing to let it pass as a disconnected, dirty, secret thing that has nothing to do with anything in the outside world. Sexuality is key in man woman relationships, love, desire, jealousy, gender games and bias. It is an oft use tool for deceit and power with an uncanny ability to guide our actions outside of the bedroom too. But then again, when Freud says this he is a genius who must be celebrated in classrooms and debates without asking what repression is doing to our own psyches.
Kashyap’s heroines are not devotees of Dev. They make their choices in the face of adversity, they have an extraordinary capability to love, and their self-respect is not threatened by the loss of their hymen. They are stronger than Dev in every way and treated with a lot of sensibility and sensitivity in the story.
Actually no character in the film is given an excuse for their being where they are. Their circumstances guide their choices but never impose them, painting thereby an open landscape of the minds of the characters. Relationships don’t fail because parents object or social status intervenes. They fail in the film as they do in real life because we fail them. That truth and pain of relationships that are so fragile they cannot be cemented but by external bonds, so elusive they cannot be explained fully at any stage, reflects itself in moments that sadly cannot be elaborated here before the film is up and running.
Kashyap does not judge either of his characters. He refuses to separate them morally and delineate them in black and white. But what he does do is redefine ‘slut’ as a meaningless descriptive word. All his characters are ‘sluts’, they all at some point or the other sell themselves cheap for security, power, revenge or want. But then who doesn’t? Then again, prostitution is not all Kashyap reexamines.
He has woven into the story two events that received tremendous media attention in the last decade, observing that these ‘accidents’ are not incidental but integral and representative of the state of things. There is a need to see them unaided by media hype, blitz and sensation, in a human way. There is a need to reconsider how we understand them and why they slip off the mind because they are off air. There is more to be done than light a candle for Jessica (no, that is not the event referenced in his film). We are also responsible for the Manu Sharmas in our society and their genesis is as much our problem as Jessica’s justice. The suitable end to a rape saga is not in the jailing of the perpetrator, just as rape is not just its legal definition of ‘non-consensual penetration of the physical body’.
Every critic is innately capable of criticism in the lay sense of the word. This film like its energy, conviction, petition and protagonists, is not incapable of being better than itself. But one is leaving that debate to others simply for an opportunity to stand up for something that feels right, in an impulsive sort of way (which is really the only way anything can ever feel completely right.)
Finally, believe it or not, Dev D is a lot of fun (some scenes might play out after the film and make you laugh for days even!), only without offending the intelligence. Not an ounce of aforementioned urban or intellectual angst weighs on its breezy watchability. It is unusually accessible from everywhere. With a warm sense of humour that changes various shades of irreverence and black, Kashyap puts forward a case for his generation. He asks for chance for them. It will be ironic if his film doesn’t get a fair one. It deserves to because beyond the ever-open debate of good and bad, it is honest. Atleast it was when I saw the director’s cut. And in an ideal world he should be the only one calling cut.
Tags: Add new tag, Anurag Kashyap, Dev D Review, Dev.D
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
Whoa! when is the movie releasing?
Intriguing and more interesting.
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Pragya,
TAke a bow.
Your post is so deep and reflective. It deserves a review of its own.
I guess, this is what Anurag meant in one of his posts:
“i lost my authority over the film the day it released.. it was open to interpretation like any work of art…”
What is clear is it does not matter what Anurag intended, this work of art has a life and if you will a voice of its own.
Again quoting Anurag from his posts ” various interpretations do provoke a thought in my subconscious..did i really intend that, i don’t know”
I am certainly hoping Dev.D connects with the masses like it connected with you.
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“But the layer of equal opportunity painted over by education and such is punched through when they become hapless victims of prejudice and exploitation, judged and betrayed by a psychological morality and perverse cocktail of possession, exploitation and weakness that men throw around when they are not using real acid- crucified for a na'¯ve and natural sexuality that cannot belong to them because it has been usurped by self appointed moral police for double use as pleasure and power.”
Some of you PFC authors raise the bar so high it isn’t funny.
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Great write up.
Hope the movie connects with the audience.
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Pragya nice and interesting write up, great to see u here after a long time. Very good analysis of the movie, now u have made me really curious to see it.
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kuch samazh nahin aaayaa boss:)
i had to read it twice
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as it is i want to see the movie.
but this writeup is something that went over my head. you started off well, i was intrigued and wanted to read further. but down the line you went from simple english to thesaurus english.
could you please provide subtitles for this ;)
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yes the post has immense potential to go over ur head..cnt make up my mind what it ws about but it has made me curious & anxious at the same time, abt the film..will watch it anyway..good luck to Anurag Kashyap
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uh thanks guys for reading, and sorry for the incoherence. my article was also a first cut. not re-read and re thought.
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Pragya what a revu.Superb post,totally unexpected post about revu of this much-awaited movie weeks before it’s release.
And the curiosity increases many folds.
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one’accident’ is the mms scandal . which one is the other ??.
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“Anurag Kashyap has not adapted Sharatchandra’s Devdas. He has set it free from a gas chamber of confined meanings where it fought long and hard to survive.”
what an imagery! i am your fan now. in fact, you can take this image and make a short film on it. a 30 min film on the struggle to set the concept of devdas free.
btw, gas chamber of confined meanings = prayogshala?
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Just hope the movie’s as good or better than this review! & i also hope it connects with more people than this review has!!
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I sincerely hope this film becomes a commercial success. Otherwise people like Anurag Kashyap have to take the Mira Nair route and make films in US/Kanada. Actually, I think they’d get a much better hearing over there. Anurag continues to surpass my expectations. After No Smoking’s box office difficulties, I was disappointed that Anurag’s movies might become products of compromise. But I’m elated to see the trailer, the music and the look and this review of Dev D.
But it scares me when a IIT Delhi educated 30 something US return argues that OLLO was un-entertaining and No smoking was meaningless.
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Dude Subhasish what has IIT Delhi US return got to do with movies sensibility ?????
just like any other grp of ppl/institution it has it’s own normal distribution curve of the good the bad and the ugly depends on who u bumped into
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bahot bhari matra maine angrezi ka prayog kiya gaya hai. lekin joh bhi hai uchit kaksha ka hai.
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Great post..without giving too much details…probably inspired by AK…. I hope everybody at pfc should do their bit in promoting Dev D…as a ploy for viral marketing… paste the links of this post in everybody’s blog and some sites…so that it shows up in google searches :-)
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awesome read. loved it so much… now cant wait to watch dev.d myself…
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@cherish, i havent read anurag’s posts on dev d as yet but we are all a part of the capitalist consumerist circus in some way or the other. there can be no harm in livin more deliberately.:D
@thanks magik, watch it!
@mitesh angrezi bhari nahin hain bhavnayein bhari hain
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This review can be used as a passage in the next CAT exam. – seriously!
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Pragya…
Classy!!!
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ab aur intezaar nahi hota……when its releasing?????
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Hey Pragya,
Ever since I saw the trailer of this movie, I knew Anurag Kashyap’s version of this tale will not just limit itself to a mere change in the geo-setting or the milieu. It would have far deeper meanings which are metaphors for human realities…
Your review was just an insight into those layers!
Great write-up there and needless to say – you have multiplied the desire of watching this film manifold…
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Pragya, what have you written…so deep…its wonderful…you really have put forth so many..ideas / reflections if i may say….i got to read it again…your take on the two women is super…
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Jesus Pragya!
I stopped reading midway – just because I did not want to hype it up for myself and go crazy. What was only a longing to see this movie is now a raging desire.
AK, lots of hope for this movie, man. Knock ‘em out!
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Pragya,
Someone mentioned that this review deserves its own review..and I could not agree more!!
I have never encountered such intelligence and meaningful thoughts in a film review. It actually made me forget that you were talking about a film, I felt as if I was reading literature. You have made this article a piece of art. I am going to come back to it frequently to ensure my writing is able to match up to this.
Marvelous!
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Bhaari english hai bhai..Bhavani iyer ki yaad aa gayi
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A very very very very very very VERY VERY refined HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW “Christopher Nolan” Kartik Krishnan post.
More Power to Dev.D!!!!
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“Their circumstances guide their choices but never impose them, painting thereby an open landscape of the minds of the characters.”
…you’ve said it mate..that’s the way it should be.
btw pragya, what was the duration of the first cut? and were the deleted scenes that we see now there?
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Amazing review, defines life !!!
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@Kshitij thanks a lot. i dont remember the duration exactly, but i cd ve easily seen more of the film
so it wasnt long. havent seen the deleted scenes on youtube/pfc yet…
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wonderful post…makes me even more curious to watch the film…when exactly is it releasing…
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Feb 6 – two weeks !
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oye pragyaaaa :-)
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we used to call it ‘preview’ in our days :-)
delicious writing pragya :p
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@thani, cheers
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“If this film were literally political, it would be liberal, left wing, inclusive and humanistic, which is an impossible ideal…”
Did you mean – If this film were literally political, it would be [at once] liberal, left wing, inclusive and humanistic, which is an impossible ideal…
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@rajat, yes i did
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Detractors have already titled the review for dev D ” Atyachaar”
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@alone, have they seen the film? in anycase, not a very smart title..fairly predictable
uninspired critics too have a right to write i guess. we all do 
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they dont see the film even when they write a review.. :D
rating, title template sab tayaar hai.. sirf thoda content bharne ke liye ruke hai..
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Nice post Pragya.
What about the actor’s performance?
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@henrry, i cdnt review review the film so nothing about the actors’ performances. i saw it before the final cut was made. but 6th is around the corner. watch for ureself
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Just coming back from THE PREMIER OF DEV D at chandigarh,
breathtaking……m nt able to get over it…
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I feel cheated by this ‘review’. It’s hardly a review. What are you even talking about? Freud, Huxley, your views about modern India? Please consider this constructive criticism – readers of a review want to know about the movie, and not about you. None of the attempts at insightful observation tell me anything about the movie, and amount to nothing more than mental masturbation. Sigh. Yes, you do have a right to publicly flex your intellectual muscles as you please, but it’s the first google search result and I really wanted to find out about the movie :( Guess, I’ll just have to wait until I watch it. Boo to you.
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@hi rahul, the best of the published critics will be out with their real reviews by day after. try that
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Hi Pragya, excellent flight of your mind depicted in words, pretty no holds barred impromptu ‘preview’. I am about to watch this movie in couple of hours, but by what i have followed till now since couple of months regarding Dev D, i certainly see a hyperconnection between the sur-reel and real. First of all, musical rendition of this movie by AT and AB’s lyrics have already created a lash amongst real music afficionados, but all the tlks regarding this movie and further, the reviews I read have made me realise its a strikingly eerie and familiar world Dev D canvasses which could be acclaimatized almost every other door in urban neighbourhoods of New Age India. The protagonist of Modern day devdas’ multilayered betrayal and self distruction through the kaleidoscope of Sexuality and Dope, makes it a stark reality of modern MCP so self centric in conquest for love overpowered by sexuality that the subtle desire of being loved gets melted in the zany cocktail of Vodka mixed coke. And your writing flew open the cuckoo outta cage. Very intriguing and deep.
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hello pragya..
thanx for the review i just saw the movie today it was worth every penny i wudnt have waited for the review i just wanted to see it.
and thanx for the lovely review
keep postin more…
hats off anurag
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Cool to find some people who have a real taste for cinema. I watched the first day first show coz i have been waiting for this movie for the past 2 months lyk hell. the best thing about this movie is that you might pretty well connect the characters around you so easily and might even find yourself playing one. The overtly abusive tag doesn’t actually seems reasonable coz thats wot is a part n parcel of our lives now a days. Newaz the movie scores 10 on 10 on direction, songs, cinematography and most importantly creativity that lies in the next to impossible adaptation of such a topic. This is probably a master piece for Anuraag and abhay both. The actors are awesome and the story line brilliant.
Probably I can never be a critic but then I would have actually termed it a sin if at any time i wud have criticised anything of this master piece.
Three cheers to self destruction, pain, agony and certainly to “DEV D”
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plz change the background colour of the text….not readable…
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You have read things, comparative literature or critical theory or maybe just a lot of writing on cinema. I will not forgive you for this dichotomy demolishing hack of a feeler that you have left aflutter on so loose a line, but I will concede you a couple of apparent facts roughly mitigating: time, or the lack of it, when the lights come on before you’ve successfully wiped that half smile off your face, like you’ve correctly pointed out, and, not completely independent, the slightly heady emotion the evocation of which is a recognition of a little shared sensibility. On a different note, you have some atrocious insights into strange unclassifiables like second order relationship construction, and it seems to me you’ve worked on some of your own enough to know that it is work after all.
I noticed someone whining that they got a nubless ramble on life at large when all they wanted was a movie review. To thee I say, behold! because you are forever going to be a slightly refined cow. You might as well look at grass than figure out why somethings are not as ‘goahead and cuttandry’ as you would like them to be( Joycean inventions, both, in case you didn’t know. In case you did, now you also know I am a little hollow as far as adjectives go, yes, but I am not perverse enough to hijack some from Joyce and pass them off as my own. Besides, people read Joyce.)
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Hi Pragya,
Interesting reveiw.However, I, being a psychiatrist am more concerned if you really know the meanings of words like ego-defence and collective consciousness, because, you seem to use them in a casual manner,whereas they are highly technical. Actually, what you have mentioned in this review could be right but substance abuse and sexuality are far more scientific and technical than what perhaps you picturise(which of course you do nicely because of a unique combination of divergent thinking and frontal executive functioning). I am not against you or ak, in fact I am myself waiting desperately to see his movie dev d because I like the way he portrays darker aspects of human psychology “logically”. But this does not justify the existance of these darker aspects. One needs to understand (especially the youth)that there are many ways to deal with frustations and approaching substance or prostitution are the immature ones of them. Pragya, I would really want to redefine the word slut but its of no use. The more we get involved in redefining it, the more we will be losing the meaning of words like love and peace. I think the best way to use it is to drop it.
Regarding the substance, it is my moral responsibility to highlight that substance abuse is a highly complicated phenomena and just citing the locations where they are used or the circumstances in which they are used dont explain it. More important is to highlight the interactions of neurochemical, psychological and environmental factors involved in it, which is the main reason I want to see this movie.
Regarding this aspect, I am sorry to say that “no smoking” was a failure but was still worth watching given the interesting symbolic nature of human thoughts portrayed in it.
Any ways pragya, I can understand your urge to portray the meaning of a movie in the way of review but what I want to say is that just take some things into consideration while writing.
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I saw this movie today and i loved it to the core. Finest direction of the recent times.
Very fine direction, marvellous picturisation, abhay deol was class…
I just loved the casting ( Names) that come in the end of the movie..and that made my day… it was very innovative..
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honesty at its epitomy……very much practical….u can absolutely relate it with reality and you will find it difficult to pinpoint loopholes…although i wud say its perfect for da indian audience….at the end of the day every director wants appropriate box office collections….creatively very fresh and innovative and no matter how bad you want it….every individual wants to be happy in the end….in this case it does not have to be always a fitting end rather a perfect 1 is always nice ..optimism is never bad…..personally speaking i really loved da editing ,indirect statements,facial non verbal expressions and also da hidden messeges targeted 4 audience or rather particular audience who will again want to watch it……camera work at times was mesmerizing…(i think it was rolling still camera work which really captured da experience and mood of the scenes) i felt dat as apart of the audience i was told the story in a very resplendent way…..da location of da first shot wid da kids and da shot were Abhay Deol is wid the Sikh reminded me of Ritwik Ghatak in Meghe Dhaka Tara….same place same person in different situations and different incident occurences…i can just go on writing about dis movie….if u want to be entertained but have a different experience of watching a movie…well atleast in the bollywood industry….then go 4 it…..great work….hope ppl start appreciating movies like this…because total honesty along with a touch of creativity and innovativeness should be embraced and appreciated…….may be “New Wave” cinema is coming to India now….hope dat we’ll have our own Godard Antonioni and Bergman in the modern era of cinema in India…well lot of knowledgable people wud say that it is impossible….not in India with all these producers around…but whats wrong in being optimistic….(morale)
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this is a superb film and abhay deol has proved that he has a lot of potential in him.Hats off to anurag for choosing such a subject and pulling off the act so brilliantly.5 on 5.
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Hats off to Amit Trivedi…I think he has a equal share or probably more than Kashyap for creating this path breaking cinema…The soundtrack is the soul of this movie…
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Pragya
Excellent Review!!!
I have watched the movie, but now i regret if i had read your review before the movie.. it would have touched me more than more than what it does now
An your writing needs a BOW!!
Especially about gender bias, depression an all that.. expecting more from you like this
Cheers to you..
Keep writing.
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@Ravi Prakash
Mr Psychiatrist, in your entire talk, i guess the only thing you been trying to do is exhibit and exaggerate how complex and complicated those abuses are rather than actually justifying they are such. Actually, they might not be but you being a ‘psychiatrist’ will be imagining a greater right to comment on the gravity as exaggerated.
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dear pragya.
dev d is a ferociously brilliant film, astonishingly well-crafted and delicately nuanced with wit, whimsy and wonder, three things that take u away from the brutal honesty of the film, the hit-in-beytween-the-eyes of its truthfulness.
dev d scrutinises relationship with a perspicacity seldom seen before this in bollywood, and succeeds in leaving the viewer strangely disquieted and edgy.
a brilliant film! and a fitting analysis by u.
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First thing first, this movie maybe a remake of Devdas but it is inspired from Danny’s Trainspotting. Now I guess that Anurag wanted to make a bollywood adaptation of Trainspotting but then he realised with no love angle, our bollywood cinegoer’s will challenge his creativity.
But then I dont blame im for that. All we want is peace love and happiness from a movie with some nonsensical comedy. Even Trainspotting did not fare well with the American audience who failed to understand the true heroin culture of Edinburgh. Even Ghajini had to do away with the complications of Memento.
In the end DevD is an edgy movie, a welcome change. I hope next time Anurag makes an even ferociuos movie.
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indeed you have build the whole dialogue quite beautifully, but i would still say,the film delivers more then whats been written here. in fact i could see and feel more depth in the scenes and narration. infact there is a lot to crack in the movie, which probably one will crack once he/she watches it over and over. hope you too agree to that.
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Hi Pragya,
You post has been a good read!I have so very much loved this movie and after reading this review of yours, I think…….I’ll surely go back to watch again!:-)
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@jitendra, this was not a review in the right sense of the word because it was written pre release but even if it were a review can only give one a whiff of whats cooking anywhere, it cannot possibly fathom the entire depth of the movie. dev d like all great work will have something new to offer everytime you see it. cheers.:)
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Thanks for a wonderful review of a movie that took my breath away by its sheer humanity, adultness, compassion, willingness to give a second chance, fun, neons, songs perfectly in sync with the movie, its perspectivies on different people’s attitudes to sex and sexuality, the heady mix of drinks, Devdas and drugs, some abosolutely beautiful shots (Mahi’s yellow churidar’red feet flying over the haldi in a vivid blur of yellow, the watery shot of the sunset, the weaving in of some very contemporary “news stories”, the labyrinths and underbelly of our modern large cities..all of it just sucks you in! So much imagination, in-depthness at work, you just can’t help getting floored! Very little of caricaturization, an honest attempt to de-mythify Devdas and a much-needed reality check. What I felt was that a movie de-mythifying Devdas was long overdue, given so many cinematic, larger-than-life interpretations of the character..revolutionary! Also beautiful was the shot in which Chanda paints a clown’s face on Dev..I could just go on and on, and not get it all. You managed to articulate in your review exactly some of the thoughts going through my head while watching the movie yesterday..if it so happens that an earlier review of mine is also here, you’re free to delete one..I think my earlier attempt at commenting got lost when i submitted it..
Once again, thanks for a great review of a powerful break-through-the-glass-ceiling sort of movie..am too caught up in the excitement of watching the movie to say anything coherent or use fewer adjectives.
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enjoyed reading your review as much as I enjoyed the movie
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hi anurag sir,
i watched dev d after wating for last six months…i give it at max 3.5/5 stars…i am a huge fan of urs ,especially your writing….this movie honestly was a bit of a letdown…the propagated view about the movie was that its set in modern background and the characters are aware of their sexuality..point taken….the first forty minutes are the toughest to watch but make the best part of the movie…but the line between frankness and obscenity is easily crossed…to prove that paro and dev are sexually attracted …we dont need to see paro saying “baal bahu hain tere” or dev asking for her nude photographs….i mean there r so many things which r real but cant be shown on the celluloid…and too many of those make the movie an unpleasant experience…
but i must admit the scenes with conversations between paro and dev ,both in first and second half are the best scenes i have seen in a while..
pardesi song has been shot with such flair that it keeps u stunned ,it can be done by a master like u…songs deserve a rating of 10 on 5…amit trivedi is the man to watch out for…
but second half kills it all.the raunchy dialogues and mistimed songs appear to be a coverup for the lack of script..and no,this is not how it ends…one incident and he decides to redeem himself..wow after taking 1000 pots and lakhs of drinks…how illogical….
abhay deol is extraordinary and so is mahi gill..she is so natural…kalki is strictly ok…
The only thing this movie lacks is the extra edge in screenplay…found in abundance in “no smoking”
…it still is one of my favourite movies…we want the director of “no smoking” back..
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Oh my god!!! You have written exactly what i felt after i watched the movie.. I honestly wonder why it got such a bad response from the audience.. I believe Dev D is far better pictured than even Slumdog Millionaire(since its “the” movie people are talking about)!
The movie took me on a journey into Dev’s head.. And it was morbidly fascinating.. The music just blends with the movie.. Hope Amit Trivedi gets a solo album out sometime.. Am already a huge fan of his!! Anurag Kashyap should give himself a pat on the back (if no one is willing to!) and so should Abhay, Mahi and Kalki.. In conclusion, Dev D has officially become my fav movie.. i was trying to convince ppl to change their mind about Dev D, but i never found the right words..Now i’ll just send them the link to your review!! You have done such a marvellous job!! Thanx again
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@VS.Actually I need not reply you because your text had no question, just statements and statements cannot be replied to. This is for everyone reading this blog. The complexity that I had mentioned in my earlier comment was not an exaggerated version. Perhaps Pragya knows it so she did not reply. Its a fact that substance abuse is the result of a higly complicated interaction of neurochemicals, environmental factors and social factors. Those who deny it are denying a fact, which has been mentioned in all the scientific researches (if anyone really interested, he can ask me for more details).
VS, imagination is a gift to humans, which you have used to judge that what I have written is the result of my imagination. I really wish you knew a bit of science.
Regarding the movie, I have seen it. I would say it has been highly technically executed. It shows what is happening today in society, without commenting about the appropriateness of these events. Although he has himself exaggerated at several places which people like VS have missed but that was needed for the so called realistic audience(of which VS would be surely one).
Atlast, I would like to repeat my earlier statement that in no way is substance abuse to be justified in society. If any one wants to ask the reason to it, i ask him to come to my deaddiction ward and see how hundereds of dev-d s are living a life worse than death just because they are not able to leave a substance. VS, I really wish you see them.
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one of the two reviews I like,
this is a bit long but interesting,
the other one is crisp and gave me goose bumps as did the film
http://firstcitydelhi.blogspot.com/2009/02/high-and-dry-notes-on-dev-d.html
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Well I am about to wtach the movie just about in a couple of minutes time. But I do agree with one of the fellow posters that this thing above is not much of a review but more like a subtle reflection of the authors views on feminism (gauged from a modern Indian perspective perhaps), philosophy, sexuality and what not, all like I said before attemped a shot from a modern Indian perspective. One thing’s for sure though, an anomolous ‘review’ of this sort does raise one’s expectations about the movie.
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Great review ! There is a typo in the last sentence. “Atleast” should be replaced by at least.
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Incredible review…
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