Dev D ... the sweetest nightmare ever!

I saw Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D the second time in a row tonight. And, I liked it even better the second time. There is something about watching a film for the second time, its like the second layer of the film opens up for you. There are very few films that make sense the second time you watch them… the only other film I had seen again in the theatre in the recent past was Rang De Basanti, and really, I got a tad bit bored. With Dev D… like all great films… the subtext opened up for me… that’s when you realise how hard the people have worked on the film, how much attention has been paid to detail. Like the “Trainspotting” matchbox that Abhay uses in one of the shots… the Shah Rukh Khan ‘Devdas’ poster on the wall outside that nameless underground pub… the t-shirt Abhay wears just after Paro’s wedding… with a picture of the Devil on it…. Signifying his spiralling road to debauchery and depravity. There are some film-makers who are very clinical about their attention to detail – like Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Black: the Charlie Chaplin film running in the theatre… the intricate sets and clothes… and then there are people like Anurag K. – with these quirky bits that they add to their films… I know if I see the film a third time, I would find yet more… unravel maybe another layer to the story and the characters.

Like the first time, I did not get the very subtle way in which Dev and Lenny/Chanda interact with each other just after the interval. It establishes their future relationship… some love affairs are not planned… they just happen… notice the way Dev reacts when Chanda tells him casually for the first time that she loves him, he just looks at her surprised, amused, one questioning raise of the hand … there are layers and layers of emotions hiding there… hats off to Abhay to pull it off so well. The swimming pool scene is probably the sweetest romantic scene I have seen in a Hindi movie in a long long time… the strange, barren, almost hospital like scene after the pool scene with the yellow light pouring inside the changing room is also a favourite!

Its interesting to see how Paro becomes almost this coming of age heroine of Indian cinema. A real, full-blooded woman. Not your Aishwarya-Paro, who’s almost other-wordly, virginal and unreal. I wonder how the Ram Sene people feel after watching the Paro of this film! I won’t be surprised if they tear up posters of Dev D in Mangalore and say she is an affront to the idea of Indian women! Wonder how a bunch of fanatics decide what women should do and should’nt do… its sooo crazy that no women have really spoken up against them, there should be rallies in support of women’s lib, why there aren’t is a mystery to me! All the feminists in India probably just keep sleeping in their closets! This happens when our President is a woman! Crazy country we live in… well, that aside for now… Lets talk about the other woman… the child-woman…. Lenny, who turns herself into Chandramukhi, almost with joy… thinking she is taking the name of her favourite movie star – Madhuri Dixit from Devdas. There is something special about her role… about the child thrown into dirt and filth… about her retaining her intellectual virginity. Kalki suits the role like a charm… she is fresh, innocent, childish and believable. When Dev decides to leave her after Chunni has that conversation with him, worried that these two might actually be falling in love… and sends in this other guy to her room, she looks at Dev knowing he is going away for good this time… there is a look of utter despair on her face, the realisation of deceit, as if she has realised for the first time where she really is and what has happened to her life – that’s my favourite scene of her’s… I feel a good actor knows how to add layers to a character… there is that one look demanded of them in that shot, but there is also something extra… you peel off the outer superficial layer… and you find another emotion… a little hidden, yet there nevertheless…

I don’t know if I should talk about the music of the film coz I know I will not do it justice. I can’t get the music out of my head… they are so intricately woven into the script that now its difficult to hear the songs without thinking of the characters they are written for… Paayaliya is my favourite… but that’s not the only one… so is Nayan Tarse…. Yahi Meri Zindagi…. And the rest of the soundtrack! I know I know – I am gushing… but then that is precisely why I am writing this piece...!

I feel this film can’t hide itself for too long, I am not sure if it will be a hit I just know its probably gonna wander around in my head for a long long time… Dev D is the nightmare I’d love to have… its that strange dark alley you cant help yourself wandering into…