Love, Sex Aur Dhokha - Movie Review

I watched LSD on video because it zipped out of the screens before I went. I liked Dibakar Banerjee's earlier works (Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky) so I dutifully went for this. I did not make much sense of this movie though. However it was as different and spunky as his other movies. Here is someone who will experiment and tell stories differently.

On a broad note LSD is three different stories. One of love, one of sex and another of dhokha. Or actually all three stories have all three elements woven into them anyway. The first is the love story of a young director making a film for his diploma. He falls in love with the girl who plays his heroine. However she comes from a rough, coarse and rich family that has rather strict and violent views about everything and especially love etc. Though young director manages to convince the father and gives him a role in the movie as the girl's father, the prospect of marriage being acceptable to the family is bleak. The two elope, everything being recorded on the handycam by the young director, and the young couple call the girl's family at night hoping for a rapprochement. The father says he has no issues now they are married and sends a car for them. The happy young couple get into the car. The car stops midway. The couple are united together.

The second story is centred around a convenience store cum coffee shop. The manager is a chap who is going around as an MBA, a relative of the owner. His friend installs the CCTV in the shop and they figure that they can sell a scandalous sex tape made on the shop floor for money. Manager needs money because he owes some to loansharks. They plan to seduce one of the salesgirls. While in the process, he falls in love with her. There is a shooting incident in the shop where the girl to be seduced shows some quick thinking and saves the guy from dying. It also happens that the young director's wife is her friend and they all sit one afternoon and share a beer. All is going well until she hears of some sad news, and in that mad frenzy, one thing leads to another. The manager gets up to turn off the video, but on second thoughts leaves it on. He needs the money.

The third story is that of a sting operator who rescues a dancer looking for a break from a pop star in his music videos. She is disappointed that he promised her a video and went and gave it to some other girl and jumps in a lake to commit suicide. Sting man tells her they can make a sting op catching the pop star fellow making indecent propositions. They pull it off but the editor feels that the story is not complete. He'd deny it. So another sting in anticipation of the denial would really nail him. So the girl goes back for another sting. The pop star pops a gun and shoots - hitting the sting operator. Oh, and it's in the convenience store where the other two parties have met. He survives. All tied up. All stories blending nicely no? All stories have handy cams or video cams giving us the voyeurship.

I did not get what the film was saying except that it portrayed three highly plausible love stories that we read about in newspapers everyday. The stories are well told though. To me the interesting part of these stories is more about what happens after since I have heard of these stories already. Maybe everyone goes on with their lives in the movie. Maybe Dibakar left it open as he did Oye Lucky. I do hope he starts closing up the movies though. It makes movies more interesting if the film makers think of what happened next, instead of the audience.

But despite my reservations, this guy is serious talent and I will watch all his movies.