Dev D - What an Emosanal Torture !!

I had been waiting for DevD to release. Yes, I am your quintessential moronish Bollywood fan. However, this movie is anything but the regular masala material. I am not sure if this movie is ahead of its time, or the people are way behind its times. I say this because 30 minutes into its start, three families moved out of the cinema hall bag and baggage. Why they came to watch the movie with their stupid baggage is beyond my comprehension. It is an A by certification and an adult comedy by classification. The start was cute, then progressed to being hilarious. The moment the characters came to their crude rustic language, the urbane mentalities of a few posh people around us got a big shock and their modesties seemed outraged. The hall was already empty for the last 11 pm show but for about 30 odd people including Mahesh and me. Once one ugly character started to talk in a sexually explicit way about Paro, a couple found it too much perhaps. They walked out. Then another family got up from this side of the hall, then another. from the other (I suspect it was more due to the need to conform to each other’s standards of morality than out of an outrage to their own). Mahesh said perhaps the men in these groups found it uncool to hear this language with their women around them. At the end of those first 30 minutes, we were only 20 people left in the hall.

I was shocked at their going. And then I laughed out loud as they were moving down the stairs of the audi. I actually laughed at them. No doubt, the comedy was slapstick, at times outrageous, but hell, it was an A-you gotta be prepared to handle it. Blah ! kiddos!! I am glad I have matured.

Yes, there is a lot of sex-talk in the movie, but then that is about it. All they do is talk about it, unless you count unsuccessful attempts at trying to make out in a cattle shed, or in a bathroom, or in a poultry farm with hens cooped up and cackling all around the kissing and groping couple. Later, there are prostitutes, there are sleazy hotels, there are narrow alleys, there are ‘doing drugs’ scenes-and there is explicit language at some places.

Even then, it is not your regular bollywood stuff at all. There is no hunkish character in the movie, there is no hot female in the movie, no item song-all characters totally down to earth, all actors almost average looking. Abhay without a shirt is no semblance to his cousins. Mahesh even labeled his ‘a weak body’ but at the same time, he was totally in awe of this actor’s looks and acting. Paro is a new Chandigarh girl Mahie Gill-good looking, mature in acting but very much your girl next door. Chandramukhi is Kalki Koechlin, not stunning by Indian standards but cute and innocent. The movie ends on a positive note. However, Mahesh seemed kind of frustrated. He said, “At least Paro’s husband should have died by the end of the movie.” And I laughed out loud at his remark. It is so unlike him to want someone’s death – even if it is an imaginary character. I asked him, Mahesh did you really want Paro to come to Dev? They are such similar people. They would have made their own life totally hell if they had been together. But I liked the guts of Paro.

The movie leaves a lot for the viewer to interpret. Each scene, each dialogue is sensibly done. The progress of the self-destructive path that Dev travels to-is absolutely a smooth sequence. His deterioration is complete, but as he is supposed to be, he is lovable. The presence of the three dancers in the same spirit as MacBeth’s three witches was goose-bumpish. They didn’t utter a single dialogue, they didn’t do anything in the movie, except two fabulous dance sequences. They were present all through his destructive phase. The Punjabi numbers are awesome. Emosional Attyachar is a total cruelty-God knows where Anurag Kashyap found these two characters singing the song. I mean I loved the sequence. The stream of consciousness movement at many places in the movie simply leaves you wanting to give a standing ovation to the director, even if in an empty hall.

Go ahead, watch it-but watch it with an open mind.
Ram Sena is already doing enough damage with its closed mindedness.