Dev D: emosanal attyachar

Last Friday morning when I flipped over the pages of Times of India, I saw something that was unprecedented and therefore jolted me out of my slumber. In that edition Dev D had been reviewed and been given a rating of five star.Now that is something I haven't seen before in the last twelve years as a reader of TOI. That really set the expectations from the movie very high. That night I got to see the movie. When I came out of the multiplex I was kind of a confused person. Previously whenever I watched a movie, I either liked it or disliked it. Dev D elicited highly ambivalent reactions from me.I could not bring myself to either like or dislike it out rightly. However certain things were crystal clear. One of them was that the movie was clearly ahead of time,in terms of bold dialogues and female sexuality. I mean how many movies show a traditional Indian woman carrying a mattress to the field for her man. It really left a lot of viewers squirming in their seats. Secondly this movie has been given a different and radical treatment that defies all conventions and breaks all moulds. It tries to rewrite the technique of artistic medium with its unusual cinematography, dizzy editing, non-linear plot narration and breathtakingly bizarre audio track. Thirdly the performances are just okay without being too good or too bad. When I was coming out of the multiplex the "Emosanal Attyachar" was being played out in the background with the credits rolling. It stood out for two reasons. Firstly
this song was one of the highlights of the movie with its quirky music,lyrics and picturisation. Secondly and more importantly, I thought it captured the essence of the movie. One of the biggest problem with this movie is that it lacks the soul and fails to connect with
the audience. RDB, Lagaan, TZP and Black were some of the movies which apart from being different, managed to have a connect with the audience so that people loved watching them again and again. Besides, you don't feel for any character. So in a way, this movie was an emotional torture for the viewer.
If pronounced sexuality and sexual emancipation of the female protagonist was the chief criterion for judging a movie then i guess even a rating of five star is not enough for this movie.
otherwise a rating of three star would have done more than justice to this movie for its attempt to be different.
(PS : the tag line of the movie should be; its all about moving on. In the movie, Paro moved on with her husband and his children, Chanda moved on with her job as an escort girl and Finally even Dev D moved on with Chanda unlike the original Devdas where Dev met a tragic end. I guess the message which Anurag Kashyap wanted to send to viewers was have a "move on" after watching this movie and not take this movie too seriously.)