Friday, March 26, 2010

LSD : Watch it only if you have the stomach!


Let the cinegoers looking for feel-good movies be warned at the outset. If all you want to get out of a movie is entertainment, LSD is not for you. After all, feeling something hard-hitting and getting disturbed by getting reminded about the reality we live in is no entertainment.
LSD is instead for those who want to see a alternate way of movie-making, one that is nearer to reality in format and content. One that is gutsy, more honest and imaginative. The picturization is novel and is a reflection of today's urban society, where everyone is on camera, knowingly or unknowingly - The offices, the residence complexes, the cinemas, the malls and what not. The 'story' reflects our times - everything real-time, from politics to swayamvars. As a spirited Journo says in the movie "Desh ko seva nahi, prime time entertainment chahiye!" And as another says about the power of camera "Yeh camera nahi khazane ki chabi hai".
LSD defys conventional cinema in format and content. This is the first digital movie entirely made on handheld digicams and CCTV surveillance cameras. This visual medium with candid cameras with the shakyness and hazyness prepare the audience for the dose of realism the movie portrays. It gives the MTV bakra kind of feeling. It is just that the comedy there is replaced by a sort of black comedy here along with some spoof (of DDLJ) and some satire and some irony. There are 3 stories captured on handy-cam, CCTV and a hidden camera. This format adds to the authenticity of the content that is mired in Dibakar Banerjee's blase outlook. Even when the mood in the first of the three stories transform from a spoof mode to black comedy mode, Banerjee does not turn dramatic or over-emphasise. These subtleties in approach makes the 3 stories all the more brutal and matter-of-fact. Banerjee's take on love, sex (voyeuristic videos, MMSs) and Dhoka (sting operations) in 3 stories bear close resemblances to real-life scandals. The love story of a dreamy-eyed youth in a society of honor killings is too close to the Nitish Katara-Bharti Yadav case. The voyeuristic part resembles the Miss Jammu/Mysore Mallige MMS scandals while the sting part reminds us of the episodes involving Aman Vermas and Shakti Kapoors. In all, there is too much of the realism dose to digest that hits the pit of our stomachs. So unless you want to think about the movie the morning after, an evening with this movie may look pointless. This movie leaves such a bitter aftertaste.
What stands out in the movie are the characters. They are with the minutest of details and hard to forget. They are very very real with their dialogues and there is a good chance you think you know similar people in real-life. They engage us even when we think we know where the stories are heading for. LokiLokal, the punjabi sales girl, the 'Adi sir' fan, the frustrated store supervisor, the watchman, It is the characters that had my attention for the 2nd and 3rd stories although those 2 stories seem to run predictably. In fact they even seemed to be unnecessarily dragged lonegr. The movie is littered with profanities and is aptly rated 'A' although it contains almost no instances of sexual acts on screen. The movie is epoch-making and is a step ahead in Hindi cinema after Dev D last year. This is yet another instance of how suitable western technique is picked to tell Indian tales. Bravo Banerjee.

1 comment:

essays writing service said...

I want that book to cinematic!! I'm sure it will be great, if a director will be "normal".