Non-spoiler alert :-) This review does not give away any critical parts of the film and leaves the viewing experience intact for the reader.
What do I like about Love, Sex aur Dhoka (LSD)?
Enough has been said by the critics - comparisons to films from world cinema with similar elements - the famous ‘Blairwitch Project’ for its ‘raw’ feel, the Irani film ‘Ashkan The Charmed Ring and other stories’ for it’s ‘hyperlinked storytelling', and so on.
There’s truth in the gushing reviews coming out of this corner. Yes, the experiment with form is bold, and deserves kudos, standing out as it does, even within in the multiplex genre, thanks largely to its voyeuristic cinematography.
On the other end of the viewer spectrum are the hardcore mainstream Bollywood film buffs, whose take on the movie range from ‘boring’, to ‘meaningless’ to downright ‘vulgar’. These are the same folks who will happily swallow the same love story for a millionth time, even if its done with no conviction, and make excuses for ‘commercial Hindi cinema' being “like this only”.
Some of these people are friends who loved ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’ (Director Dibakar Banerjee’s first outing), thought he’d lost the plot partially with ‘Oye Lucky, Luckly Oye’ and are downright disappointed with ‘LSD’.
While I don’t sit comfortably with this group, I confess that generally speaking, with films, I swing both ways. I’m as entertained by films from Korea and Tehran, as I am with creations by Raj Kumar Hirani and David Dhawan.
For me, a good film must have integrity, must have a story to tell and must make me feel a range of emotions during the telling.
I believe that LSD does all three things.
For those who have not watched the film yet, it’s already out on DVD so go get it. (Rs.149/- on Moser Baer, the release accompanied by veiled accusations from the Director that he intended to include censored scenes, Director’s commentary, etc, but the company jumped the gun and released the DVD in a tearing hurry, to beat pirates.)
LSD, in a nutshell, captures the fortunes of three pairs of people – the first is a star-crossed filmi couple, whose lives are set over the undercurrent of a caste-divide. The second is an unlikely couple who work in a supermarket, a not-so-good-looking girl and better-looking boy, the latter wanting to take advantage of the former on camera. The third is a TV sting reporter and a wannabe music-video starlet, both out to expose a Mika-type Bangra-pop casting couch sleaze ball.
We see the first story through the lens of an amateur video camera used by the boy and girl to make their diploma film for a local media institute. The second one is shot on the security camera of the store where the couple works and the third, through hidden spy cameras favoured by sting reporters.
The actors are all first-timers, and they have all done a great job.
The storyline is strong, always believable, and is told through tight screenplay, very little fat surviving the final cut.
The dialogues simply crackle and this, along with Dibakar’s incredible eye for the characters and situations that he has been exposed to, growing up in Delhi, makes for the kind of believable dark humour that justifies the cult status that he is slowly acquiring.
From ‘Khosla…’ to ‘Oye…’ to ‘LSD’, each of Dibakar’s film characters has been ‘in-character’ in each line of dialogue and action, adding up to stories that reel you in as a viewer.
LSD tells the three stories convincingly, never straying from the voyeuristic genre that it chooses for itself from the first shot of the film. If the audience sits through first ten minutes, it quickly grows a voyeur’s eye and is richly rewarded through the rest of the film. So, full marks for the film on maintaining its integrity.
I only wish that Dibakar had, on both of his outings after ‘Khosla…”, resisted the desire to cash in on first film’s success and warned audiences in pre-release interviews that his subsequent films were vastly different from ‘Khosla…’ He could have won over more of the 'mainstream' film goers; if they had been forewarned, they would likely not have felt as cheated.
Next, LSD has 3 clear stories to tell, and builds in neat hyperlinked overlaps between them too, Justforkix. Beyond these obvious stories, for those willing to see it, the film also holds up a non-preachy, larger mirror to us, revealing the camera-ridden society that we have become; reflecting how so many of us now want to live our lives larger-than-life, 15-seconds of public fame at a time.
Lastly, in each of the tales, the emotional graphs of the characters are clear and endearing; the naïve innocence of the young Adi Chopra-fan couple, the see-sawing emotions and morals of the boy and girl in the supermarket story and finally, the desperate desire of the small-town wannabe starlet contrasted with the self-defeatist morality of the sting reporter, who finds himself unable to sell her sex-sting tape.
I saw these characters as real people, and felt with and for them.
Two small points I’d like to make before I end this piece; one, a lot of the dialogues are explicit and I wonder if the theatrical release had them, even with an ‘adults-only’ certificate. If so, the Indian Film Censor Board has come a long way, and good for them.
Two, the film ends with a song that captures the restless angst of the youngsters who are growing up in the new India, where cameras are becoming as ubiquitous as mobile phones (and are often the same device, which Dibakar may have left out of him film for sheer want of on-screen time). The lyrics of this song are penned by Dibakar himself and are quite good. So there’s another facet to the already creative guy.
My 2-paisa opinion: LSD is a paisa-wasool film for anyone with an open mind, willing to be entertained and well worth the DVD buy. If there’s a Director’s cut with commentary coming out, I’m going to plonk the extra dosh for that too.
