#repost of old post
Devdas
This doomed love story by Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay written in 1917 as been adapted to the celluloid more than once but the one I watched last night was the old classic by Bimal Roy (1955) – music by Sachin Dev Burman and lyrics by Sahir Ludhianwi- cast – Dilip Kumar in the title role, Suchitra Sen as Parvati (Paro) and the ever graceful Waheeda Rehman as Chandramukhi. It generally doesn’t get better than that. Each of them is a master of the craft and despite the story being a melodramatic tragedy – subtlety is the key word of each and every scene. The entire 210 minutes of screen time- the cameraman has used minimalism to create maximum effect, making sure the pain and sadness dominate the screen and nothing else distracts it. The crisp editing makes sure that at no point does the movie drag. The melancholy music adds to the torment faced by the silent protagonist as he copes with the fact that he has lost the love of his life partly due to his parents’ and society’s disapproval of their relationship and partly due to his own folly. A couple of songs are based on the Baul tradition of Bengal. The depiction of the village life in Bengal in the early part of the 20th century is shown aptly so is the costumes of the actors. Do make time for this classic if you haven’t seen it yet.
-May 2020
