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Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay would be rolling in his grave were he to watch this new version of Devdas in which a blowjob, MMS, a BMW and a servant’s idle gossip constitute pivotal moments in the story.

Not your grandfather’s Devdas, eh?

No sir, not this one.

This is a Lenny, you’re the best, 21st century version of Devdas.

Different Devdas, Yet Nice
For all those convinced that a decent Bollywood film is but a mirage or a contradiction in terms, we say: Wait, there’s Dev D.

It’s been nigh on 11 months since we first watched Dev D, a movie we enjoyed and one we quickly added to our must-review list.

But what with the pressures of everyday blogging, lassoing our herd of commenters and the need to consider fresher content, we put the Dev D review on the back-burner and never got around to it. That is, until now.

Finally we rewatched the movie the other day, Hey, we relished this lust-full tale the second time as much as we did during the first watching.

Sure as hell, Dev D ain’t no masterpiece (hey, the Indian soil just isn’t fertile ground for masterpieces) but still a welcome respite from the unceasing deluge of Bollywood crap that foul up the movie screens.

Poverty of Scripts
Given the paucity of good movie scripts in India, it’s no surprise that Dev D director Anurag Kashyap took the easy way out and plunged into yet another adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s legendary Bengali tale Devdas, a tragic story that’s been told time and again by Indian filmmakers with varying degrees of success.

The difference with Dev D is that it’s set in the modern times, featuring priapic boys taking pictures of girl-friends sucking their dicks and then passing them on via cell-phones and rich, drunk brats in BMWs mowing down people on the road.

Is this an instance of art imitating life considering the above were widely reported real-life incidents in Delhi.

True to the Devdas tale, our principal protagonist is, of course, Dev (Abhay Deol), newly returned from studies in UK to a small Indian town.

Then there’s Paro (Mahie Gill), Dev’s childhood inamorata waiting for his return; and later comes the pimp Chunnilal followed in short order by the randi (prostitute) Chanda (Kalki Koechlin). Continue reading »