Review of "Dev D"

A must watch.

I haven't seen anything like this for a long long time.

The film is a modern adaptation of the famous story Devdas, which has already been made into 9 movies so far.

This one of course is different, the characters are tweaked to fit the modern world, they are pretty bold and of course the story does not end in the same way.

After the movie, I read a little about the director Anurag Kashyap. The wikipedia entry on the director is quite interesting. He seems to have had a life of dreams, consfusions and frustrations before he could make it in as an acclaimed director.

When Anurag Kashyap was in college, he seemed to be heavily into drugs and alcohol. Maybe that explains his wonderful portayal of the "sense of high" his characters feel in his movies. I found it absolutely brilliant !!!

The music in the movie is a wonderful blend of quirky (Emotional Attayachar), hard rock and folk music. Very different and refreshing. Great job here by Amit Trivedi.

Now I am waiting for Kashyap's "Gulaal" and "Bombay Velvet". I can safely say that 2009 will have at least 2 good movies from Bollywood.

Quote

To truly hear you must quiet the mind.
~Unknown~

Optimism

Optimism (rather the concept of it) is misused in its worst form when once does not want to face the truth.

How does one realise that the feeling is actually cowardice?

Happiness

Happiness....everyone has their own unique definition of it.

Learnings

The best learnings in life often come from the worst experiences.

Ironical...isn't it?

Random Hearts

Yesterday, while switching channels on TV, I came across a movie called Random Hearts. When I read the movie info, it reminded me of a book I had read many years back.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to watch the movie, mainly to confirm if the movie was really the adaptation of the story I remembered.

I did not remember the name of the book, nor the author, but for some reason, I remembered the story very well, and remembered it fondly. Sometimes some things stay in your memory, for reasons which cannot be rationally explained, and this was on of those such things.

It turned out to be the same story after all, the movie was an adaptation of a book by the same name, authored by Warren Adler (I got these details when I googled later).

I was happy to see the movie, especially since I recollected the story pretty clearly, even after so many years later. Of course, the script of the movie had some deviations from the original storyline. The adaptation from paper to reel was still a good one.

I was therefore pretty disappointed to read the reviews of the movie and its ranking on IMDB, a mere 4.8 out of 10 :(. Also, there was no appreciation for Harrison Ford's work in the movie, something I thought was done very well. I have never seen Kristin Scott Thomas in any other movie earlier, so cannot say much about her performance.

Inspite of all the above published facts, I still like the movie and would love to watch it again.

Maybe this was one of the good movies which did not do well in box office....

Maybe I liked the movie because I am a romantic at heart....

Maybe this is one of those things which cannot be explained rationally....

The "Insect Syndrome"

An insect, no matter how hard it tries to improve, does not evolve into a higher animal. Its life continues and ends as an insect.

All of us, at some point in our lives, go through this. We feel limited by our limitations. One reaches a point when the only thing that hinders progress is not attitude and effort, but one's own capability, or rather lack of it.

And there is no worse feeling one can have than than feeling powerless, and feeling like an insect.....