Watching Dev D...Anurag Kashyap's take on Devdas

I watched Dev D at PVR's yesterday...I had wanted to see what Anurag Kashyap had done with the theme...I was not disappointed...in fact, I got more than I expected...the movie is an interpretation of the Devdas theme, first conceptualised by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee in his novel called Devdas...it was subsequently made into movies, and many movie stars in many languages in India immortalised the role of the hero...so much so that any young man in India who suddenly starts growing a beard is thought as growing it out of being rejected by his girlfriend...and is called 'devdas'... and if he starts drinking, the name becomes all the more appropriate...because all the movie Devdas-es start growing a beard and start drinking...ostensibly to forget the pain of losing the girl...Paro...

I often wondered why Devdas became so famous...in fact, he is a loser, who has commitment-phobia, and who didn't have enough guts to run away with Paro...and Paro having had enough, marries a widower with two kids... then Devdas starts pining... and in all the movies based on the novel, Devdas is shown as a tragic hero...

Anurag Kashyap shows Devdas as who he is actually supposed to be ... a loser ... the movie then starts becoming interesting ... and gives it a different spin... and the treatment that it gets is really edgy...it kind of flies very close to being 'dangerous'...but comes back to terra firma in time...

Anurag Kashyap thanks Danny Boyle in the initial credits and I again wondered what Danny Boyle had got to do with an essentially Indian themed movie...that too brought onto the silver screen many times over... and then when the movie started 'moving' and 'grooving,' I got it... Anurag Kashyap is obviously inspired by Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and it shows in the many ways in which scenes are framed... and sometimes some scenes and images are obvious nods to Trainspotting images...and the ending is, if I may so after reading so much about Danny Boyle's films and also having seen Trainspotting, is also inspired by Danny Boyle... watch the movie and you'll know... and surprisingly, I don't recall any review mentioning this Danny Boyle connection... maybe I didn't read all of them or didn't read whatever I read carefully enough...