LSD: Movie Review

wrote this one for our college magazine... dunno will be selected by our revered editor or not...

Cast : Anshuman Jha, Shruti Raj Kumar Yadav, et al.
Director: Dibakar Banerjee
Rating: 4.0/5

LSD: Lysergic acid diethylamide. One of the most potent narcotic and one of the expensive. On the contrary, this one was not that expensive of a movie. But it was a potent one. It took me to such a high that I had to take a break. If you like actor wooing the actress, some naach-gana at exquisite locations around the world, some action in the middle then chances are negligible, better say none, you will like this one. But if you like reality being thrust into your face, or you like phrases “cut the crap” & “call a spade a spade (or better say... don;t call a spade a spade, call it a shovel)” in letter and spirit, I hope you will love this one with your life. Dibakar Banerjee’s third film on the trot which made me think.. again! Khosla ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! were masterpieces. OLLY experimented with Paresh Rawal’s multiple ‘character’. This one, with the help of some shaky handycam and store camera shooting, brought out of the closet some of the human baser instinct which most of us deny to possess, Voyeurism being one of them.

Three stories loosely webbed into one. The first one: A small sleepy town with a tacky little film Institute in which Rahul and Shruti come close to each other during an amateur movie making. They see themselves as the reincarnation (that word being a stretch) of Raj and Simran from DDLJ while they film their own version of the movie. They end up marrying , of course, without the consent of girl’s family and hence the consequences. Some people should find the dialogues between the two people kind of cute.

The second one: Somewhere in the same town, cameras are being installed at a One-Stop-Store. The person responsible with the surveillance, Adarsh, is challenged by an acquaintance to hook up with one of the store girls. And, then follows the challenge to film her up in the ‘act’ with him (Adarsh) by the store cam, of course for a good some of money. Now, at this moment it is interesting to see the vacillations of a layman. The man apparently is in love and is in a desperate need of some money to pay off his debts and hence keep the gundas off. Will he or will he not??

The third one: In some other corner of the town, Prabhat, a TV journalist is sent on a sting operation by his TRP hungry lady-boss and he messes it up again. He is on a brink of a breakdown. The boss is not happy with his mixing of ethics with the dirty work, her wife also unhappy with the meagre income. He attempts a series of suicides and by some quirk of fate meets a girl, Naina, who has been asked for ‘compromising’ by a Hip-Hop Star, Luki Luka, in lieu of a video. Now, this one is the perfect story any journalist would give his left hand for. Prabhat and Naina come closer over a number of attempts to seduce, blackmail and threaten Luki.

The movie scores a big point in the area that it doesn’t forces any moral lessons down your thought. DB has provided the perfect food for thought. He won’t tell you how to gobble it, he won’t mind how you chew and digest it.

NY Times called LSD as the latest in series of avant-garde offerings stripping the Indian film industry of decades of inhibition. It is also said that when DB spoke his mother about the project, she didn’t repeat the name of the film because she didn’t want to use the word “Sex.” When one of my friends asked me How is the movie I answered, “It could be the story of you, me and everyone.”

In three simple words, Go Watch It!!!