Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My take on Love, Sex aur Dhoka

First of all, get ready not to watch a semi-porn movie. If you thought the title just sets you into a mood to watch all the raunchy action, it quite isn’t the director’s priority. Three short stories denoting love, sex and dhoka (being cheated) respectively, are plotted perfectly. Better even is the connection between the three short stories; it hits you like lightening that for weak brains like me, it took a bit longer to actually understand the association!

The first plot, love, pretty much proves that the emotion is not at all times blissful! A final year student Rahul (Anshuman Jha) is directing a movie for his diploma course and ends up falling in love with the female lead in the movie, Shruthi. The girl’s dad and brother, play the typical protective sorts and some element of comedy exists. Knowing fully well that their love will not be accepted, they elope and marry. What follows after that is a gory, but true image of the darker side of love.

The second plot, sex, provides some amount of sleaze for those who still think the title has to justice! Between love and money, the latter sure has an upper hand boy! A new camera has been set up in a supermarket and it has to have some work right? So, it has to play the role of filming ‘the act’ between the heavily debted Adarsh, the store manager who desperately needs money to free himself from unending financial constraints and Rashmi, a ‘dark behenji’ types who eventually gets vulnerable. From seriously falling in love to succumbing to want of money, this plot is pretty much the locus of the entire movie. Much of the connection between the three plots happen in this very supermarket.

The third plot, illustrates the casting couch in the reel world and the media relentlessly trying by means not so right just to bag the ‘headlines of the year’ title. The photographer unable to fund for his wife and kid but having a liking for the girl who helps him in the entire process of unearthing the singer’s weaknesses shows yet another face of dhoka. Herry Tangri plays the role of Loki Local well and reminds you of a famous singer's episode of the casting couch drama.

What makes this movie all the more wonderful is the usage of a hand held camera by the respective character of each plot. Dibakar Banerjee, the director, has made a watchable movie and even the A rated scenes does not make one shift uneasily in his/her seat. However, blood and gore are not my cups of tea and hence I did feel uneasy watching some scenes in the first plot but overall a movie with both my thumbs up!

I haven’t heard any of Sneha Khanwilkar’s music previously and hence cannot compare. But the title track is really apt and the background score blends utterly well. I may have not mentioned some characters and that’s for you to watch because this is one helluva movie!

As I walked out of the movie hall, my friend aptly commented, “When movies like ‘My Name is Khan’ gets 4 stars, this movie is way beyond that”.

5 comments:

Pratish Preman said...

nice review. hope lots of people read ur review and go and watch this movie. i think it is time for the indian movie goers to grow up and accept different movies which take the off track... ;-D

Krithika Chandrashekar said...

PP!! Yeah I know, we really need to get out of the 'running around trees' scenes and watch something like this!

BK Chowla, said...

I really wonder, if we ready for such movies yet. Sure it is a personal choice.

Krithika Chandrashekar said...

Yes sir, agreed. For example, I took my mother to a romantic movie and she dint want to stay beyond the interval. It will take a long time for ppl here to appreciate a movie without merely looking at the females in the movie or certain scenes which is not yet openly accepted by Indians. We are ok with the fact that our population is in the top three, but if the very fact is shown on movies, its a no!!

Sindhu.V.Iyer said...

i loved ur review.. I got the whole narration from a friend and have been wanting to watch it eversince, sadly haven found time yet!now, wanna watch it all the more after reading your review.. very neat review di!