First with Khosla Ka Ghosla, Dibakar Banerjee introduced us to a typical middle-class Delhi family and their dreams, then he gave us Lucky, the Punjabi con artist who takes us through the different strata of Delhi society and now, he brings out three different stories about love, sex and dhoka (betrayal) that use the backdrop of varied Delhi cultures as a canvas on which this vivid picture is painted.
Dibakar Banerjee’s film links the movie camera to a CCTV and the CCTV to a spy camera via three different stories to tell us, we are being watched. He interlinks the stories wonderfully, without being too obvious or too intelligent. The stories are nothing different from what we once read in the papers, but it’s the way that they are told that captivates us. The characters, treatment and most importantly the background score and the music make this film awesome. Love, Sex aur Dhoka has a hidden agenda to shock you with this reality. Honestly, I wasn’t shocked at all.
‘The relevance would have been awesome four years ago,’ says the sister.
True that. Four years ago rich fathers had their daughters’ poor lover boys murdered, four years ago boyfriends were taking the country by the storm with recorded clips of private moments with their girlfriends and sting operations were oh-so-hot…
Today, sting operations happen, but they don’t really rock our world (they trend on twitter, I’ll give them that). MMS, CCTV footage scandals do happen, but they don’t shock us like they did back in the day and four years ago, a father having his daughter and her lover killed was unthinkable or rather shocking to read in black and white.
In the last four years, media has desensitized us. We don’t dwell on these incidents, we see them, discuss them over coffee or in the train and we move on. We read about a businessman who had his Muslim son-in-law murdered, we discuss it for a few days and then the same businessman goes on to sponsor an IPL team owned by a Muslim. We read about a girl being attacked by a random man at Gateway of India, we read about a couple chopping up a man’s dead body into pieces and then we pick up our cup of tea and go about our business.
This film would have rocked the nation if it came out four years ago, but who would have put their money on a film that doesn’t have a definitive love story? Who would put money on a film that has ‘camera’ as a central theme? Dibakar Banerjee could get the funding for this film because of the success of his previous films. And the censor board passed this film, because we are an audience that won’t get disturbed by such stories.
I love the film for the way it tells its story, for the music and for the sheer joy of seeing Dibakar Banerjee’s ability to use the right aspects of different societies existing in Delhi to tell a story. It deserves its credit for being a good film for that reason. There’s no social change or awareness that it will bring about. Don’t dream honey, worse has already happened.
And for a change it’s good when real life seems an exaggerated version of reel life, and not vice versa.
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