In DEV D, amidst all the noise of the wonderfully outlandish soundtrack and the cleverly interspersed background score used to underline the personal and interpersonal dynamics of the characters, Anurag Kashyap maintains a peculiar silence throughout the narrative. It is a silence, not of a man appalled at the downward spiral that each of his lovingly sketched characters take at various points in the movie but a diplomatic silence of a man who wishes to watch the events unfold from a distance rather than have an actual opinion on the sordid ways of his protagonists. Never for once does Kashyap lower his guard and offer the audience an insight into what he truly feels about Dev, Chanda and Paro. The treatment rendered is deliberately and carefully open-ended and it is this delicious ambiguity that makes DEV D work.
Unlike previous interpretations of Devdas, Kashyap’s modern and gritty-with-a-vengeance take on Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s novel makes it explicitly clear that this is a three pronged narrative in which you could be forgiven for considering anyone of the three main characters to be the protagonist of the movie. Which makes sense because Kashyap manages to inextricably intertwine the fates of Dev, Chanda and Paro with a Tarantino like flair.
Kashyap doesn’t alter the literary character of Devdas- he brutally mutilates him as if in a “Thums up- vodka- ke- saath” induced frenzy himself, dresses him in low rise jeans and aviators, snatches the shaving razor from him and shoves him into joining the ranks of the 21st century Indian youth still grappling with the need to give expression to sexual angst. And give expression he does. Cultural and economic globalization has seemingly come to the aid of Dev and provided him with a variety of outlets to go on the most famous downward spiral associated with Indian cinema and literature. So Dev uses his credit card and a currency note to snort coke, prefers sex chats to perfumed love letters, and uses scanned photos so as to leave nothing to his already prurient imagination, all the while, listening to Amit Trivedi’s stunningly composed rock fusion on his MP3 player to go with his mood.
The women, nauseatingly maudlin in the previous cinematic versions, have come a long way as well. Mahie Gill’s Paro is reinvented as a woman whose desires of sexual liberation are trapped in her almost metaphoric traditional attire of salwar kameez. In an audaciously clever and a lip smacking maneuver, Kashyap replaces the social inequality barrier between Dev and Paro and in its place plants suggestions of Paro’s promiscuity as the trigger for the sundering of hearts.Kashyap’s Paro is a woman who not only consents to her boyfriend’s wild sexual proclivities but also brings the proverbial mattress to the fields on a bicycle. And what’s more, she carries it back too. She is a woman waiting for India to come of age. Indeed, she is a seminal female character in Indian cinema deserving of a far more elaborate analysis.
The choice of the half French Kalki Coechlin to essay the character of Chandramukhi, the courtesan (read prostitute), is a directorial masterstroke. If you didn’t know better, you could have sworn you ran into her in one of those dingy, infamous localities tucked in to the dirty belly of your town. There is something about Chanda’s curved, protruding lips that betray cigarettes smoked and profanities mouthed. Unaware of the 2 mega pixel camera that Kashyap has slipped into his modern day setting, she proceeds to find answers to her sexual curiosities and instantly becomes a social pariah. The street smart Paro gets away with her excesses. The naïve Chanda doesn’t. In a way, her tragedy is the greatest of the three as it is completely devoid of the vices of ego and self abuse which mar the life Dev. It is a tacit admittance that women still get the raw deal socially. In fact, if one were to look closely through the lingering haze of Dev’s cigarettes and the crimson night club lights bouncing off the swirling vodka, DEV D is a brutally scratched, albeit adequately honest, mirror of our times.
For all the colour splashed around in cinematography and the gaudiness of the “Patna ke Presleys”, the theme of Kashyap’s DEV D is a somber grey. He carefully steers clear of painting characters in strokes of black and white. Even Chanda’s dad, seemingly the victim of the humiliation heaped upon him by his precocious daughter is railed for getting round to seeing the MMS of his daughter in a compromising position. “Did you get off on it, you sick bastard?” screams an aghast Chanda who, by now, has been scarred for life.
Which makes one wonder that maybe Kashyap sympathizes with his characters but considers them undeserving of his empathy. Yes, there are protracted moments in the film when he decides to provide an all pervasive silence, interspersed only by sounds of the city, to his characters to acknowledge the gravity of their emotional turmoil. For instance he patiently bears with Dev as he downs two successive shots of vodka each time hurling the glass against the wall and piercing the few moments of silence, devoid of background score or soundtracks, which have been borrowed from Kashyap’s restive disposition.
But DEV D finds Kashyap in a capricious mood. He is undoubtedly out to have some good old sadistic fun at the expense of Dev, Paro and Chanda. So, as soon as Dev shatters his second glass of vodka, Kashyap’s patience runs out, and he follows it up with some jazzy music and colorful, whirling camera work to glorify Dev’s vodka induced numbness. His dispassionate and often cold treatment ensures that his audience never feels manipulated. Whenever he feels the burning desire to mock the trio he calls upon his singing-dancing cronies to trivialize their emotional roller coaster with a rustic melody with often hideous lyrics.
Kashyap couldn’t care less whether you like Dev or feel repulsed by him. He is out to have fun. And he suggests you do the same.
Unlike previous interpretations of Devdas, Kashyap’s modern and gritty-with-a-vengeance take on Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s novel makes it explicitly clear that this is a three pronged narrative in which you could be forgiven for considering anyone of the three main characters to be the protagonist of the movie. Which makes sense because Kashyap manages to inextricably intertwine the fates of Dev, Chanda and Paro with a Tarantino like flair.
Kashyap doesn’t alter the literary character of Devdas- he brutally mutilates him as if in a “Thums up- vodka- ke- saath” induced frenzy himself, dresses him in low rise jeans and aviators, snatches the shaving razor from him and shoves him into joining the ranks of the 21st century Indian youth still grappling with the need to give expression to sexual angst. And give expression he does. Cultural and economic globalization has seemingly come to the aid of Dev and provided him with a variety of outlets to go on the most famous downward spiral associated with Indian cinema and literature. So Dev uses his credit card and a currency note to snort coke, prefers sex chats to perfumed love letters, and uses scanned photos so as to leave nothing to his already prurient imagination, all the while, listening to Amit Trivedi’s stunningly composed rock fusion on his MP3 player to go with his mood.
The women, nauseatingly maudlin in the previous cinematic versions, have come a long way as well. Mahie Gill’s Paro is reinvented as a woman whose desires of sexual liberation are trapped in her almost metaphoric traditional attire of salwar kameez. In an audaciously clever and a lip smacking maneuver, Kashyap replaces the social inequality barrier between Dev and Paro and in its place plants suggestions of Paro’s promiscuity as the trigger for the sundering of hearts.Kashyap’s Paro is a woman who not only consents to her boyfriend’s wild sexual proclivities but also brings the proverbial mattress to the fields on a bicycle. And what’s more, she carries it back too. She is a woman waiting for India to come of age. Indeed, she is a seminal female character in Indian cinema deserving of a far more elaborate analysis.
The choice of the half French Kalki Coechlin to essay the character of Chandramukhi, the courtesan (read prostitute), is a directorial masterstroke. If you didn’t know better, you could have sworn you ran into her in one of those dingy, infamous localities tucked in to the dirty belly of your town. There is something about Chanda’s curved, protruding lips that betray cigarettes smoked and profanities mouthed. Unaware of the 2 mega pixel camera that Kashyap has slipped into his modern day setting, she proceeds to find answers to her sexual curiosities and instantly becomes a social pariah. The street smart Paro gets away with her excesses. The naïve Chanda doesn’t. In a way, her tragedy is the greatest of the three as it is completely devoid of the vices of ego and self abuse which mar the life Dev. It is a tacit admittance that women still get the raw deal socially. In fact, if one were to look closely through the lingering haze of Dev’s cigarettes and the crimson night club lights bouncing off the swirling vodka, DEV D is a brutally scratched, albeit adequately honest, mirror of our times.
For all the colour splashed around in cinematography and the gaudiness of the “Patna ke Presleys”, the theme of Kashyap’s DEV D is a somber grey. He carefully steers clear of painting characters in strokes of black and white. Even Chanda’s dad, seemingly the victim of the humiliation heaped upon him by his precocious daughter is railed for getting round to seeing the MMS of his daughter in a compromising position. “Did you get off on it, you sick bastard?” screams an aghast Chanda who, by now, has been scarred for life.
Which makes one wonder that maybe Kashyap sympathizes with his characters but considers them undeserving of his empathy. Yes, there are protracted moments in the film when he decides to provide an all pervasive silence, interspersed only by sounds of the city, to his characters to acknowledge the gravity of their emotional turmoil. For instance he patiently bears with Dev as he downs two successive shots of vodka each time hurling the glass against the wall and piercing the few moments of silence, devoid of background score or soundtracks, which have been borrowed from Kashyap’s restive disposition.
But DEV D finds Kashyap in a capricious mood. He is undoubtedly out to have some good old sadistic fun at the expense of Dev, Paro and Chanda. So, as soon as Dev shatters his second glass of vodka, Kashyap’s patience runs out, and he follows it up with some jazzy music and colorful, whirling camera work to glorify Dev’s vodka induced numbness. His dispassionate and often cold treatment ensures that his audience never feels manipulated. Whenever he feels the burning desire to mock the trio he calls upon his singing-dancing cronies to trivialize their emotional roller coaster with a rustic melody with often hideous lyrics.
Kashyap couldn’t care less whether you like Dev or feel repulsed by him. He is out to have fun. And he suggests you do the same.
