Movie Review DEV D

A dark, bold, revolutionary love story.

There are three main aspects about Dev D that come out very strongly. -1, its path breaking screenplay, characterization and picturisation -2, its depiction of human character and -3, its direction.

Path Breaking Movie: Every once in a while comes a movie, which redefines the benchmark of various aspects of movie making.
Sholay in the 70’s redefined the Hero of Hindi movies, who wears Denim jeans, drives motorcycles and has a casual attitude and a casual lingo. All this in the magnificent 75mm frame. “Janbaaz” in 80’s redefined the boldness in the movies and the limits of love making between the hero and the heroine, that could be shown on-screen. It also had some mindblowing music and introduced the concept of foreign artists and English songs. Year 2002 saw “Kaante” redefining the language used in the movies. It introduced the concept of Item Numbers and stretched the acceptable limits of vulgarity, in the Hindi mainstream movies.

DEV D brings in a new limit of the language used by the characters, and the depiction of human behavior, sexual or other wise, which can be shown on screen. Most importantly it redefines the feminism in Hindi movies. The boldness of its two women protagonists, the acceptance and depiction of their sexuality and their assertion and clarity about what they want and how they think. DEV D is by far the most advanced "women’s lib" movies made by Hindi cinema. DEV D scores not just because of the shock value of the stuff that it shows, but because of a lot of substance that is there in every frame of the movie.

DEV D also introduces the concept of OST (Original Sound track) in a completely new avatar. The music is a cocktail of different genres. It is difficult to even call it a music album. It is romantic at times, at times folk, at times trashy and at time just noise – an amazing concoction.

Depiction of human character: DEV D is a movie that explores all possible shades of human character. It hammers in the point that there are no good people or bad people. People have a very grey shade to their character. In fact it depicts not one, but hundreds of shades of grey.
Our hero, Devdas – is he a hero? – is so much into self destruction, full of ego, male chauvinism, alcohol, drugs, womanizing … self centered – even after crushing innocent people to death under his car or the death of his father does not move him. He seems to be completely remorse less. At the same time he loves Paro so passionately, that you can feel his grief of getting separated from her. He romances with Chanda that you enjoy and smile with him.
Then there is Chanda, who moves from being an innocent 16 year old teenager to a suave commercial sex worker, who know how to manipulate her clients. And when you start thinking that is her, she displays her youthfulness, shows the pain she has inside and falls in love completely all over again.
At the end, one can not pick up who is the good and who is bad. They are all just so human.

Direction : DEV D is Anurag Kashyap’s canvas. He has shown his genius as a movie director. The hallmark of DEV D is its subtlety.
Unlike many Hindi movies, which keep on explaining every situation till even the dumbest of the dumb gets it, a lots of complex situations in DEV D have been depicted so subtly that you sometimes need to be an ardent movie watcher to have observed all the nuances.
The editing of DEV D is really jazzy giving it an international / new-world feel.
Anurag Kashyap also scores is his ability to extract performances from people, who don’t have a proven track record in acting.
By far this is Abhay Deol’s best performance so far. Even better than the great job he did in “Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye”. However, the performances by new actresses Mahi Gill and Kalki Koechlin are completely mind blowing. They stand out. Both of them have done an amazing justice to their characters. They are the new bold, sexy, brainy brigade in Hindi cinema.

All in all, even though DEV D can not be called an entertainer, it keeps the audience engrossed – actually shocked. Though it tends to drag in between, overall it is gripping and will be remembered for a long time as a path breaking movie in Hindi cinema.

Ameet Mattoo
New Delhi.