Tragedy the new immortal flavour of Hindi movies... The story goes like this: Devdas the son of a zaminder falls in love with his childhood friend Paro(Parvati) who belongs to not so well to do family.But when the time comes to choose between Paro and his father(who is dead against the marriage), Devdas after much melodrama opts for his father.He then goes back to Calcutta far away from his village where they are fixing a marriage for Paro to another zaminder old enough to be her father. But afterwards he understands how deeply he needs and feels for Paro and wants to come back but Paro being heady with self respect rejects him and marries the older zaminder.Devdas then drowns himself in grief and wine.Till at the end he dies infront of Paro's house, his last wish of meeting/seeing paro once more before death remains unfulfilled. This deeply moving novel by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee has the Radha-Krishna-Meera effigy.
Sanjay Leela Bansali did take quite a risk in making/re-making the 1917's story of Devdas. Sharat Chandra's Devdas has been immortalised in Indian languages as the Romeo of Shakespeare.
No doubt the movie have definitely captured attention with all its grandure set and beautiful costumes.Aishwarya as 'Paro' and Madhuri as 'Chandramukhi' do justice to their roles respectively.But Sharukh Khan has degraded the movie quite a lot.In none of the scenes did he portray the character of 'Devdas'.He just played 'Sharukh Khan' in the movie. The film didnot make clear why Jackie Shroff as 'Chunni Babu' comes into picture.
Also Sanjay Leela Bansali did take some liberties with the Bengali Culture.In Bengal, the wife/ daughter-in-law of the house of the Zamindar can never dance in front/with the common people.And he should not have punched some bengali words like 'bandhu', 'sotyi' etc in the dialogues.This gave the film a ridiculous tinge.
The film is also different from the actual novel in some respects but you cannot blame Sanjay Leela for that.If he would have said that Devdas went to Calcutta instead of Oxford for his studies how many of the audience would have bought it??
All the songs are just beautiful.Overall this has been the best film of this year(2002)uptil now.Any first time viewer of this movie(as this story has already filmed 9 times) and who has not read this novel will definitely love this movie. But Ishhhh...this movie could have been more capturing!!
This is going to be an entry in the foreign film category for next year(2003).
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Good research on Indian, especially Bengali culture and the original novel of Sarat Chandra. Contains some special remarks.. Nice job..
And one more thing, that was Chuni Babu who took Devdas to Chandramukhi.. If he was absent, then the story could be nonsense.. Nice review from your part anyway..
shahji88 08.08.2003 08:37
excilent comment written but as written in the opinion tht songs are gert "the song s are not too good "
sarsons 23.11.2002 12:33
I don't know much about Bollywood, except for a few films that I've seen whilst working inside homes of families that are watching B4U on Sky. Always entertaining, even if you don't understand the language - the acting, and emotion etc makes me smile. Interesting to read your ops on the films. Thanks.
The biggest Indian film of 2002! Male and female childhood friends grow up to realise ... more
that their different social status's could prevent them from staying as close as they long to be. Former Miss World Aishwariya Rai stars in this stunningly beauti...
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Advantages: The most unbeliveable cinematography ever seen in a movie, and ofcourse it has Aishwarya Ria in it. For those who don't know.. simply put she is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN ON THE PLANET!!!!! Disadvantages: A little long for those who get restless after the first 2 hours of a movie.
aneesh7 30.05.2003 ·
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Review of Devdas (DVD)
![Devdas [DVD] [2002] [NTSC]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78494943.jpg "Devdas [DVD] [2002] [NTSC]")
Nov 7th, 2002
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