Devdas Vs DevD
One film that has always caught the fancy of the Indian film makers of all ages is Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s romantic tragedy ‘Devdas’. It’s interesting to note that the film had thirteen remakes with hardly any change in its script and all made a box office success. Be it, Bimol Roy’s simplistic DevDas or Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s highly melodramatic one. The protagonist of the story, Devdas is a rich educated young man and spoils himself for his childhood lover, Paro. His indecisiveness led to self destruction.
Since time immemorial, the Indian audience gets immense pleasure in watching films soaked with an overdose of emotions. Generation after generation, heart rending films or music give them immense gratification. It is almost a ritual for the Indian film lovers to sob and shed tears whenever the protagonist is on the bed of death. The film makers have exploited this sentiment to its fullest. Time and again, it is this trail of tears that has led to the commercial success of Devdas.
Now, with the release of Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D, the old era of Devdas has come to an end. The film is more in tune with the post modern era; the maverick director has made daring experiments in terms of narrative techniques, script, cinematography, lyrics and music of the film. It explores the predicament of today’s youth through drug addicted and alcoholic Devdas, daring country girl Paro, and daunting city girl Chanda. Till recently, sex and sexuality have been an under the carpet topic for the Indian cinema. Keeping the trend of the contemporary cinema, the sensual side of a human life has been blatantly displayed in the film. Indian women are equally sex starved as their male partners. This has been portrayed in a serious-comic scene when Paro, the childhood lover of Devdas carries a mattress on her bicycle to the neighbouring field to enjoy some intimate moments with her lover. Unlike Hindi film heroines, she dares to click her nude photograph in a manual camera and gets it developed. But she decided to move on in her life when her lover refuses to marry her after a series of misunderstandings.
In the original story no one bothered to delve deep into the past of Chandramukhi/ Chanda. But in this film the director has given a modern twist by linking the infamous MMS incident of a school girl. The female characters are far more mature in their attitude, her initial set back does not deter her and she too decides to move on like Paro. She takes up prostitution as a profession and continues her studies. In the entire film, the concept of ‘Move on’ has been well depicted by the three main characters. At the end, even the self obsessed protagonist comes to negotiate with life and decides to move on. Anurag Kashyap is known for portraying the darker side of human life but in this film probably he is at his best. The dingy lanes of Paharganj, psychedelic blue and pink lights, imageries of vodka and vomit unfold the psychological struggle of the film. The number ‘Emotional Atyachar’ with the spoof of Elvis Presley makes the film memorable and meaningful. Definitely, the film is an undoubting work of the maker and a treat to the cinema lovers.
Since time immemorial, the Indian audience gets immense pleasure in watching films soaked with an overdose of emotions. Generation after generation, heart rending films or music give them immense gratification. It is almost a ritual for the Indian film lovers to sob and shed tears whenever the protagonist is on the bed of death. The film makers have exploited this sentiment to its fullest. Time and again, it is this trail of tears that has led to the commercial success of Devdas.
Now, with the release of Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D, the old era of Devdas has come to an end. The film is more in tune with the post modern era; the maverick director has made daring experiments in terms of narrative techniques, script, cinematography, lyrics and music of the film. It explores the predicament of today’s youth through drug addicted and alcoholic Devdas, daring country girl Paro, and daunting city girl Chanda. Till recently, sex and sexuality have been an under the carpet topic for the Indian cinema. Keeping the trend of the contemporary cinema, the sensual side of a human life has been blatantly displayed in the film. Indian women are equally sex starved as their male partners. This has been portrayed in a serious-comic scene when Paro, the childhood lover of Devdas carries a mattress on her bicycle to the neighbouring field to enjoy some intimate moments with her lover. Unlike Hindi film heroines, she dares to click her nude photograph in a manual camera and gets it developed. But she decided to move on in her life when her lover refuses to marry her after a series of misunderstandings.
In the original story no one bothered to delve deep into the past of Chandramukhi/ Chanda. But in this film the director has given a modern twist by linking the infamous MMS incident of a school girl. The female characters are far more mature in their attitude, her initial set back does not deter her and she too decides to move on like Paro. She takes up prostitution as a profession and continues her studies. In the entire film, the concept of ‘Move on’ has been well depicted by the three main characters. At the end, even the self obsessed protagonist comes to negotiate with life and decides to move on. Anurag Kashyap is known for portraying the darker side of human life but in this film probably he is at his best. The dingy lanes of Paharganj, psychedelic blue and pink lights, imageries of vodka and vomit unfold the psychological struggle of the film. The number ‘Emotional Atyachar’ with the spoof of Elvis Presley makes the film memorable and meaningful. Definitely, the film is an undoubting work of the maker and a treat to the cinema lovers.
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