Dev D Review

Anurag Kashyap who showed awesome promise in the much delayed and a lot appreciated Black Friday outdoes himself and exonerates the ghost of No Smoking with the psychedlic yet charming take on Devdas in DEV D. It seamlessly integrates the rural landscape to the bylanes of Paharganj, from the Presleys from Patna to some eclectic but very well placed music. The rural urban cocktail was never for a femto second jarring and there were stellar performaces especially from the girl who played Lenny. Her pure Hindi accent never seemed out of place and here eyes revealed the pain buried in them without much effort on her part. Abhay Deol has become the new poster boy of Nouveau Cinema taking the mantle from Rahul Bose. He plays sloshed in most of the film and is very convincing in his acting or else Smirnoff was freely available on the sets. Mahi as Paro has the spark in its infancy which was in the flame of Smita Patil so many years ago. The Ode to Trainspotting is very much evident in the Cinematographic journey with the DOP on LSD taking us on the ride of our lives. Anurag has also paid his dues to Danny Boyle in the credits and that’s like a Good boy. He is the enfant terrible of the 'Artsy Cinema' and the infant has become an adolescent and I cant wait for his adulthood. It raises expectations from Gulaal to the skies.There is an uplifting ending to keep us from going with a heartache unlike the earlier Devdases so much dripping in melodrama. Here its there in short doses but mighty effective. Chunni becomes a slimy pimp and the underbelly of Delhi is for all of us to see in the seedy hotels of Pahar Ganj (I have visited them during my stint at Lady Hardinge Medical College, though mine pursuit was not of the 'Billi' but Internet at Rs. 5 per hour and Shakes and Sandwiches at even 4 o ' clock in the morning.
The scene that takes the Grand Prize is the one where Paro prepares her bed in the middle of the sugarcane fields only to be spurned by Dev and her ride back home has pathos you take home with.The use of the DPS MMS and the BMW case are so well interwoven in the case that it doesn’t seem opportunistic at all, while a fleeting role of the Momo wala is also very impressionable especially for the scene he guides Dev to the Autorickshaw for serving a customer momos.Its close to three hours but you feel bad that it ended so soon, while Emotional Atyachaar is by far the most ingenious song of the decade after Bidi jalayley from Omkara. The technical prowess of the technicians is for all to see and this film shall become a Festival favorite of all. This is by far the most brave interpretation of Devdas with it taking Devdas and putting him on drugs and booze and in jeans and makes him not as big a loser as other films do so.

Rating : Four and a half stars /Five