OK, I just watched Dev. D and was really, truly disappointed. Which is still totally fine, you don't have to like every movie out there. But the more disappointing part is I came back and read reviews and so far only found good ones. But then I noticed something. All the reviews were saying how different it is from the typical Bollywood movie. No review said why they truly enjoyed the film. So yes, if your going to talk about it being different from Bollywood movies then yes, it was a great movie. But as a movie by itself, then no.
So many movies are different from typical Bollywood that 'different' should stop being taken into consideration as the only good aspect of the movie. A movie shouldn't be judged and given good ratings just because its not the usual Shahrukh movie. India has been making different movies right from the good old black and white days of the Apu Trilogy. Here is a short list of some other good 'different' films - Everyone says I'm fine, No Smoking, Missed Call, Hyderabad Blues and many more.
So coming back to Dev.D, as a stand alone movie was it good? Not at all. As an experiment or something different from Bollywood? Sure. And here are my reasons:
The characters didn't ever show any emotional connection, which in turn left the viewer never being able to feel for the character, specially for Dev. I probably felt a little for Chanda. But that's it. Dev really didn't have that much going on in his life to be so upset that he had to go out and get wasted or high every night. His love for Paro was never so strong to begin with. He came back to India just to get laid. This was very clearly depicted in the film. And even after meeting Paro he just wanted to get laid. So his whole 2 hours that followed felt like a waste of the two hours coz it never felt like he wanted to that bad to begin with! The whole confusion between Paro and Dev about her sleeping around with many people was such a childlike fight because really, how hard would it have been for them to figure out the truth, all they needed to do was have a 5 minute talk. Anurag, come on. You should know better. And the music. I usually always remember the score after a film. Except for the way it was shot and lit everything else was poor.
Being a friend of Anurag I was extra disappointed because I had such high expectations for the film.
I read the other review on IMDb and it was quite evident that the writer, like many people in India are right now, was just infatuated by Kashyap and will take anything to fill the hole in them that Bollywood has created, but in the process will forget how good a movie really is. Therefore its important to watch movies from all around the world, because sure, if you only watch Bollywood then this movie will surely blow you away.
So many movies are different from typical Bollywood that 'different' should stop being taken into consideration as the only good aspect of the movie. A movie shouldn't be judged and given good ratings just because its not the usual Shahrukh movie. India has been making different movies right from the good old black and white days of the Apu Trilogy. Here is a short list of some other good 'different' films - Everyone says I'm fine, No Smoking, Missed Call, Hyderabad Blues and many more.
So coming back to Dev.D, as a stand alone movie was it good? Not at all. As an experiment or something different from Bollywood? Sure. And here are my reasons:
The characters didn't ever show any emotional connection, which in turn left the viewer never being able to feel for the character, specially for Dev. I probably felt a little for Chanda. But that's it. Dev really didn't have that much going on in his life to be so upset that he had to go out and get wasted or high every night. His love for Paro was never so strong to begin with. He came back to India just to get laid. This was very clearly depicted in the film. And even after meeting Paro he just wanted to get laid. So his whole 2 hours that followed felt like a waste of the two hours coz it never felt like he wanted to that bad to begin with! The whole confusion between Paro and Dev about her sleeping around with many people was such a childlike fight because really, how hard would it have been for them to figure out the truth, all they needed to do was have a 5 minute talk. Anurag, come on. You should know better. And the music. I usually always remember the score after a film. Except for the way it was shot and lit everything else was poor.
Being a friend of Anurag I was extra disappointed because I had such high expectations for the film.
I read the other review on IMDb and it was quite evident that the writer, like many people in India are right now, was just infatuated by Kashyap and will take anything to fill the hole in them that Bollywood has created, but in the process will forget how good a movie really is. Therefore its important to watch movies from all around the world, because sure, if you only watch Bollywood then this movie will surely blow you away.