* This review contains spoilers
In a nameless town Rahul, a film student, is making his diploma film and when his leading lady Shruti’s father threatens to put brakes on her short lived career Rahul charms the father into acting as well. Rahul’s camera is always on and records each detail of the love story from the moment he falls in love with Shruti till the time they elope. Adarsh installs security cams in his relatives departmental and gets attracted to the salesgirl. He is up to his neck in debt and when the footage of someone getting shot on the store’s cam fetches money from news channels gives him an idea of making porn clip with Rashmi. The man shot in the store is a news cameraman whose life is going from bad to worse. He ends up saving a small time model’s life who tries to commit suicide after sleeping with a musician for a music video that went to someone else. Together they plan a sting operation on the musician that goes terribly wrong.
The one obvious question that you keep asking yourself throughout the film is just how much does Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (LSD) shock? Does it merely titillate or does it actually deliver. The answer is one big yes. LSD’s experimental outlook goes beyond the medium and tools. The film has long uncut sequences that run into minutes and some times the drama runs the risk of coming across as staged. But the near amateurish performances that Dibakar Banerjee extracts from all his actors proffer a sense of realism to the film.
It’s not unusual for a successful Hindi film director to go nuts with super budgets with each subsequent success but Banerjee comes across as an antithesis to the usual. Banerjee’s decision to work with a small budget and smaller names to follow up the much acclaimed Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye works out well for this is one crazy. Banerjee got the idea of one of the stories while visiting a departmental store that was in the process of putting up CCTV. This is the kind of mood that he has managed to instill in the narrative of the film; some where all the characters seem to float around the camera or the viewer. These are people who are drawn from the lives we lead and while that seems like a perfect hook we don’t really hope to get involved beyond a point. After all the people on screen might look like any one of us but are we really interested in striking affinity with voyeurs, misogynists, liars, cheats, spineless people who seem to be driven by some thing inexplicable. And yet some where we get involved.
In an interview Banerjee says that it’s better to an honest spineless person as opposed to some one who is dishonest about the lies they live. Some where you tend to agree with this kindergarten logic that seems to operate Banerjee’s creative world but you still remain distant with most of his characters. Unlike Khosla Ka Ghosla which redeemed just about every character by the end of film or even Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, which to a large extent resolves but doesn’t show redemption, LSD has a mixed bag. Using interwoven stories where the leads jump tales Banerjee some how manages to confers a sense of salvation for his characters. Like Pulp Fiction’s ending where a ‘dead’ Vincent walks out of the diner with Jules, here too witnessing Rahul, Shruti, Adarsh and Rashmi at the hospital in the last scene somewhere redeems Adarsh. Seeing a smiling Rashmi in the same scene also provides a sense of hope however small it might be that Rashmi will be fine wherever she might be.
Some where the digital platform has a symbiotic relationship with the film. The medium is effectively used in the narrative of the film and perhaps the platform played a great role in performances as well. It’s only the second story of Adarsh and Rashmi that truly warrants the use of the technology; shown from the security cam’s perspective each scene is well choreographed and truly takes the viewer into the story. The film’s digital platform might give LSD a very real look and feel but it’s really the writing that makes every character very believable. Banerjee returns to the same milieu that he knows like the back of his palm and extracts some really good moments. With Khosla Ka Ghosla he showed us a world that no one cared to notice and with Oye Lucky, Lukcy Oye he explored the dark side of the characters of that very world but this time around he truly bares their perversity for the camera.
The three interwoven tales each dealing with the titular words depict the world around us where no matter how bizarre we are fine with viewing anything that the camera has to offer. No matter which side of the fence you belong to LSD is undoubtedly a very shocking film. Sure we might have heard a couple of crazy lines in Monsoon Wedding, seen some wired things in Dev D (I still haven’t seen Dev D but have heard people talking of it as if it were the greatest thing since sliced bread) but LSD actually convinces for a brief period it convinces you that everyone in this world is vulgar. LSD is not only provocative but shocking and isn’t a film for everyone.
Given the subject of the film Banerjee could’ve justifiably gone overboard with the language and the level of nudity but thankfully keeps it understated so the less actually ends up being more. Just when Adarsh and Rashmi warm up to each other she warns him about the camera. Before turning off the camera he zooms in on the image and takes a long loving look at her on the screen. The next time when a sobbing Rashmi bares her body and offers her soul, a changed Adarsh can’t get himself to switch off the cam. It’s this single shot that packs in the entire essence of Love, Sex Aur Dhokha- does the line between a voyeur and victim still exist?
Image Courtesy: www.indiafm.com
