Well Not Really! I have always held Anurag Kashyap in very high regard for his visual flair, choice of subject and conceptualization. Somehow between the abstract one could see the man's intelligence, his clarity. His problem, as is with such individuals is ‘hubris’. Somewhere he loses it; over indulging where subtle would have been the best. Yet there is something about him, which tells me he'd be remembered for his cinema.
I have a habit of watching a movie for the merit of its director, so a Tarantino film always merits a watch, a Nikhil Advani film is always a convenient avoid. This rule though changes with Abhay Deol; he is the only current actor who has an amazing knack of picking up different scripts. Scripts that might not please the pundits, but almost always find a cult following. So I set out to watch Dev D for two reasons, Abhay Deol and Anurag Kashyap, two minutes into the movie I found a third. Ladies and gentleman let's put our hands together for the most killer soundtrack in ages. Amit Trivedi has used exceptional creativity in composing music that merges seamlessly with the narrative. There were times when the characters were quite and one could still decipher what was going in their heads. That’s the power of music. Full marks to Anurag Kashyap for cleverly using the 18 tracks very intelligently for character and the story development.
Anyway back to the story, Dev D is a modern interpretation of the novel Devdas, but in a lot of ways it is completely its antithesis. In Dev D the characters are not black or white, the situations are not melodramatic and the tragedy is not tear-inducing. Here life’s a bitch and characters are ‘sluts’. You can see Dev making out with a chick before getting worked up on Paro’s supposed affair with another man. Here Paro is an all abusing female, not ready to take shit from anyone. She is not crying but gyrating on her wedding. Here ‘Chanda’ can speak English in an accent and can turn on a man with her voice. Here Dev uses sex to get over Paro and most interestingly one never gets to know whether Dev truly loves Paro or was he pushed into depression because he thought someone else would ‘do her’ and not him.
Dev D takes Devdas and turns it head on. Especially interesting is the fact that assuming that Dev and Paro would have wanted to get married, there would have been no family opposition. In fact Dev’s father wanted Paro to get married to Dev. Anurag Kashyap cleverly changes the story line to make it a tragedy of the situation rather than the characters. It’s here that he develops pathos. When Paro questions Dev’s manliness, you cringe, cos you understand how it would hit a man’s ego. When Dev enters the brothel you see ‘Maar Daala’ playing on the television. Dev D is about such in-jokes.
Performance wise Abhay Deol has enacted the role quite well, save for certain scenes where he tries too hard. Mahi Gill is exceptional as Paro, while Kalki Koechlin looks very much the character she is portraying.
The only portion which disappointed me was the ending, which looked too rushed and too forced. It kind of killed the built-up to the climax. Even though I liked the positive ending, it did not look too convincing. Leave that aside and Dev D rocks. It is an extremely visceral experience, filled with humor and characters true to life. When one of the side-kicks asks Dev ‘iski abhi tak nahi li aapne sir’, a friend quietly chuckled, probably reminiscing the last time he asked someone a similar question!
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