Honesty is hard to find in mainstream Hindi movies and for it to succeed as a concept is almost unthinkable. The scope for pretence and falsehood, however, is ample.
LSD comes at a time when Karan Johar is 'allegedly' coming of age as a film-maker, Shyam Benegal is going mainstream, the literary giant, Chetan Bhagat is horrified that Bollywood copies without due credit (not only from mediocre movies but also from classic fiction), SRK and Aamir Khan are gradually moving away from films....more and more into sports ventures and social causes and the Bachchans have decided to counter public scrutiny by clarifying every single detail about their personal lives through regular press meets, blogs and of course, twitter, because as fans, we have a right to know it all.
The timing for LSD could not be more appropriate as the country overdoses on reality on television. Couples break up/make up/make out on facebook and spy on their spouses on prime time television; ministers tweet their frustrations with the government they represent; blood brothers fight over property at press conferences and arranged marriages find a whole new meaning on television where women queue up to marry Rahul Mahajan and if we can still believe what we see, they actually do!!
LSD explores and exposes the voyeur in all of us. Is it true? Of course, it is. Do we like to hear about it? Of course, not. And it is this shock value attached to something that all of us practice or partakes of, in our own lives is what makes us such hypocrites and such attempts, laudable.
Won't rant. Will just mention a few things that caught my attention and captured my imagination:
1. The three elements of Love, Sex and Dhokha run as a thread through all the inter-related storylines instead of taking the commonly tread path of all stories going their different ways until they converge..usually at an airport or as a result of some tragic accident or simply because the director decides to connect the dots at some point in the movie. But as is expected in this age of spy cams and live footage, there is more of 'S' and 'D' and less of 'L'.
2. The storylines are not unique, so to speak, but that is not a lack of originality on the part of the makers and is attributable to how 'real' these situations are and could be. To me, that is a great achievement.
3. The use of the camera/s as if if were a real character in the film was amazing. The use of digital cameras and spy cameras adds to the rawness of the sub-text and the drama lies in the situations that these characters gets entangled in over the course of the film.
4. The cast was well-picked and yes, all of them could act fairly well. May be they were NSD graduates..may be not (I just find it very funny when pseuds talk about theatre actors as a blanket category...Oh...he is awesome..he does theatre or he graduated from NSD...he should not be wasting time on that daily soap and my favourite...he is so underrated as an actor... he comes from a theatre background, yaar!!)
They looked believable in their parts and comfortable in their so-called (to use Bollywood lingo)..bold skins.
5. What is commendable about Dibakar Banerjee is his fearlessness. He is three films old...all three on completely different themes....the Indian urban middle class, the charming conman swindled by a doctor, and then this...the dark world of technology and titillation. Having picked up national awards for both his films (not that it means anything anymore....Arjun Rampal..the 'handsome piece of wood' has also won one), he seems strangely relaxed and unconcerned. His kind of nonchalance is rare yet not arrogant.
I just hope these honours do not corrupt the simplicity and satire; honesty and humour in his work that many of us have come to love. I also hope that LSD-the movie about voyeurism attracts more than just a voyeuristic audience.
