At the time of going for the movie, I had heard that Sarat Chandra's novel Devdas has been adapted at least 9 times (some say 16 times, figures vary) on the silver screen. It includes the famous renderings by Dilip Kumar and Shah Rukh Khan. But nothing, I mean none of those adaptations prepares you for watching this reckless contemporary take on the same novel. The vision of Abhay Deol brought on screen by Anurag Kashyap (and Vikramaditya Motwane) is nothing short of speechlessly rebellious by nature.

I was an amateur film-goer back then. Dev.D was one of my initial Hindi films in a theatre. In fact, seeing the initial credit of a "Thank You" to Danny Boyle, I even joked to my friend that he had mistakenly bought a ticket to Slumdog Millionaire! Not Funny. But the initial ten minutes of the movie certainly were funny. In their own wicked way, at that. It gave an outrageous background of lust to the lead characters of Devinder Singh Dhillon and Parminder (so much for adapted names!) in stark contrast to their love that forms the soul of the story of Devdas.

Thereafter, the movie moves wildly through the lives of the three lead characters and how they get affected by the gossip of the side characters. The language use was preposterous in places. But limited to the point of enhancing the movie and not degrading it. It was amazing to see the amount of care that Kashyap has paid to the detailing in each scene. I particularly remember three of these scenes. In the first, when Dev.D first meets the pimp Chunni (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), the background flashes a big neon light that spells out RAND (slang for "prostitute" in Hindi). I was shocked as no one else seemed to notice it and I pointed it out to my friend who was amused. We waited and watched and as they started walking, the camera zoomed out and we read the words "GRAND HOTEL". Our respect for Kashyap had increased manyfold. The second scene was similar in nature and displayed the words HIV in the background of a brothel balcony where Chanda was standing. (I didn't manage to catch the remainder of the word but never mind!) The third scene involves a verbal fight between a girl and Dev.D in the bus and the camera zooming to catch the word "Mahilaye" ("Ladies" in Hindi) on the bus with the letter "Ma" scratched out. It now spelt out as "Hilaye" ("Jerk off" in Hindi). It gives the clue to the viewer that a break-up is on the cards. Hillariously Epic!

Such kind of detailing by a filmmaker is rarely observed in Indian cinema. Who, after all, bothers to show anything else apart from the actor's faces and body language at the most? But Kashyap, the rebel that he is, refused to stop with just that. He has used dizzying camera angles and tricks (apparently taught by Danny Boyle) that are usually not employed by Indian filmmakers. The drinking scene during the song "Pardesi" uses a special camera that was imported from Holland by Danny Boyle and can capture an incredulous 40 frames per second in contrast to normal 25fps cameras (not sure about the specs, read about them a long time ago).

The adapted writing also includes three narrators that appear throughout the movie and keep an eye on the characters, some real-life incidents that serve as backdrop for many important scenes (the Delhi school MMS scandal,the BMW hit-and-run case) and also some awesome scenes (the hilarious episode at the bus, the car crash outside the phone booth) that have been adapted from world cinemas as an ode to them. By the way, the first customer of Chanda (Kalki Koechlin) is a cameo by Anurag Kashyap. See if you can spot him!

The brilliance of this movie does not, however, end with the screenplay and direction. The trippy soundtracks featuring 18 tracks by Amit Trivedi (that fetched him a National Award) are a treat to listen to. They still remain my all-time favourite soundtrack album. Sadly, I have never heard any of these underrated songs sung in any stage concert or in any of those mind-dumbing reality shows. The extraordinary cinematography (Kashyap's regular Rajeev Ravi) has been carefully used throughout the movie to enhance the mood of the different scenes. The cutting-edge editing (by Kasyap-experienced ex-wife Aarti Bajaj) in many of the drinking scenes take this movie to the dizzying level you would expect to find yourself if you were as drunk as Devdas.

I still remember to having spent the least amount on a Multiplex movie ticket (Rs.60) but having enjoyed it more than the costlier bigger budget extravaganzas. In fact, the only ever thing that I could complain about this movie, was the way it ended. I really didn't expect the lights to switch on at that point. It kinda leaves you incomplete. But the rest of the movie makes up for it.

Lose your control, Kashyap. Be the rebel forever!

8/10