Devdas

I had a nice conversation last week with Janet Curran, editor of Images Cinema’s Focus newsletter (interview to appear in next issue), and one of the questions she asked was about the advantages of seeing a film in a theater vs. at home on a DVD. There are certainly films for which the proper state of receptivity is overpowering immersion, and not just movies meant to jolt and jostle. Devdas is one of these. I meant to see it when Cinephiles presented it at Images last May -- circumstances conspired against it, but I wish I hadn’t missed the opportunity to see this Bollywood spectacle in widescreen celluloid glory. Even the 3-hour running time should be a form of immersion, and a congregation of awestruck fellow viewers should be part of the experience too. But even dimmed and shrunken, robbed of dimension and fragmented to fit my own schedule, this film wove its spell over me. How can I describe it? Sort of like Heathcliff and Cathy meet Romeo and Juliet somewhere outside of Calcutta. A combination of the eye-popping melodrama of Douglas Sirk with the energetic hoofing and bedazzled camerawork of a Busby Berkeley musical, and occasionally monumental cameo close-ups worthy of an Ingmar Bergman. And these are just the resonances a Western viewer might feel -- for a Hindi audience there must be aesthetic, social, and even mythic levels of response, not to mention pop cultural stargazing. Apparently this is a popular Indian novel which has been adapted to film many times, so the intended audience would not spend the first hour in a swirl of uncertainty, trying to sort out the title character and his aristocratic family from his love next door and her less exalted family. The archetypal story comes clear, however, and then takes a number of unexpected twists, interspersed with big production numbers, most of which amplify rather interrupt the drama and its themes. Devdas is Shahrukh Khan, apparently a huge heartthrob in India, while his love Paro is the impossibly beautiful Aishwarya Rai, who can shake a mean bangle, especially when paired with Madhuri Dixit as the courtesan who also loves Devdas. I know nothing about the director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, but he clearly knows what he is up to. The sets are all sumptuous light and color through shifting veils, the music catchy, the dance sweeping and intricate. Heartstrings are played, but rarely off-key. It’s quaint and touching in this era to see a movie totally devoted to sex come through as completely PG, as well as PC and Oprah-ready. Women stand for love against social constraint, while men are either weak or rigid. Right down to the terpsichorean retelling of the romance of Krishna and Radha, this is popular entertainment vivid enough to cross cultures. (2002. dvd, n.) *7+*