LSD - Review

Well for starters, this is strictly not a film review. I do not have an audience that I need to cater to, so this is more of some of my thoughts and ramblings on the entire experience of watching the movie “LSD” at South City Mall.

This was the first time I was going to watch a movie in Gold Class and I had for company the long legged and lissome Raghu; it truly promised to be a day full of fun and gaiety, in the old sense of the term. We made our way to the cinema hall along the EM Bypass; on the way we were greeted by life-size cut-outs of our beloved KKR heroes: Agarkar for once trying to catch a ball, Shahrukh Khan squatting (as they say, both for life and KKR, shit happens) and Saurav Ganguly leaving a ball outside the off stump (very akin to his blistering innings against Rajasthan Royals where he gave an education on chasing down targets and brought it down to exactly 36 runs needed in the last over). At the hall, much to our dismay Raghu and I had to share a couples’ sofa. Luckily we could shift to single seats a little later.

Finally about the movie; it is perhaps one of the most important Hindi movies in the recent past. I do not use the word good or bad, rather important as I truly think this marks an epoch in contemporary Hindi cinema. It is not only about the use of the handheld camera, which is slightly disconcerting in the beginning but one soon gets used to it. The movie consists of three independent stories that are intertwined with each other in a non-linear storyline. “Non-linear storyline”, yes I had heard the term a lot when Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminey” was released, but frankly I could not understand the reason behind the hype. But this is a movie, which so effectively used the non-linear story line, that one realizes the beauty only in the last scene and is left wondering what happens at the chronological end of events.

The first story (Superhit Pyaar) is of a film school student, Rahul directing a B-grade version of “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge” for his diploma and simultaneously falls in love with the heroine of the movie, Shruti. The plot is the typical rich girl, poor guy falling in love but the narration of the story and particularly the gruesome ending is hardly predictable. Some of the wittiest and funniest lines of the movie are in the exchanges between Rahul and his prospective father-in-law who Rahul convinces to play the role of Amrish Puri of DDLJ; the best thing is that the humor is never labored and is totally natural with Hindi gaalis actually used in real life being thrown in for good measure.

The second story (Paap Ki Dukaan) is about betrayal in love and a how a departmental store employee, Rashmi is exploited by a wannabe-MBA type guy, very aptly called Adarsh. Adarsh perhaps falls in to love with Rashmi, but that never stops him from selling the video of their sexual encounter in the store, so as to make a quick buck and pay off the loan sharks chasing him.

The third story (Badnaam Shohurat) is about the world of voyeurism and sting operations taking over mainstream media. A journalist Prabhat is pressurized by his editor to forsake the values and ethics of journalism for the sake of sensationalist news. Prabhat meets Naina, who is struggling to make her name as an item-girl and not too bothered in making compromises to get her big break. They plan a sting operation on a famous pop-singer, Loki Local which goes wrong, with Loki shooting Prabhat, the location of the shooting being the departmental store of the 2^nd story.

On the whole, the movie LSD disturbs and provokes you. The movie has its scenes of macabre violence and black comedy, the killing of Rahul and Shruti in the first story and the suicide attempts of Prabhat and Naina in the last story respectively. People will either love it or hate it, but it’s a movie one cannot ignore. Dibakar Banerjee has firmly established himself as on the brightest directors in India, in the hallowed company of Anyrag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and Shimit Amin. Adi Chopra, please see the movie, not only for the homage it pays you, but also as a lesson in film making.

PS: I was loitering about in the South City mall after watching the movie. I could not help but notice that in the Spencer’s departmental store the Kamasutra condoms were placed just next to GluconD tubs. I was reminded of Strategic Product placement of MarMan-1 and our teacher, whose pet examples in marketing were always about contraceptives.