Twen­ty years on, Dev­das is still a per­fect Bol­ly­wood intro­duc­tion for the uninitiated

There are a lot of movies that come and go that can be deemed pop­u­lar or con­sid­ered a cul­tur­al moment in the cin­e­ma, but few that instill an obses­sion among the movie-going pub­lic. While in the U.S. cul­tur­al dis­perse­ment from films often takes place in the form of toys and mem­o­ra­bil­ia, in India it takes place in re-enact­ments, recitals, cloth­ing, and dance sequences.

I was in India dur­ing the sum­mer that San­jay Leela Bhansali’s epic romance Dev­das – based on a clas­sic nov­el by Sarat Chan­dra Chat­topad­hyay – was released in 2002, and you couldn’t go two blocks with­out peo­ple blast­ing its Hin­dus­tani clas­si­cal-influ­enced sound­track on the streets or wit­ness a group of girls re-enact­ing the chore­og­ra­phy of Mad­huri Dix­it and Aish­warya Rai in the song ​“Dola Re”. Cloth­ing stores had peo­ple ask­ing for the same designs of saris and sal­wars worn by per­form­ers in the film. If you’ve seen the videos of audi­ences in Indi­an movie-the­aters going absolute­ly nuts dur­ing var­i­ous moments in S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR in 2022, then imag­ine just that for screen­ings of Bhansali’s film 20 years ago.

With a pro­duc­tion cost that became the largest in Indi­an cin­e­ma his­to­ry at the time (₹500 mil­lion), Dev­das was an inex­plic­a­bly near-per­fect cul­mi­na­tion of tal­ents hit­ting the peak of their pow­ers at the same time. San­jay Leela Bhansali was con­sid­ered a ris­ing auteur in Bol­ly­wood, hot off of his 1999 block­buster Hum Dil De Chhuke Sanam. Aish­warya Rai (who plays Paro) was unde­ni­ably the biggest actress in Bol­ly­wood at the time, while Shah Rukh Khan (the tit­u­lar Dev­das) was still reign­ing supreme as India’s high­est paid and high­est pro­file superstar.

Mad­huri Dix­it (Chan­dra­mukhi) and Jack­ie Schroff (Chun­ni­lal), who were some of the biggest stars in the coun­try in the late ​‘80s and ​‘90s embraced sup­port­ing roles in the movie. Ismail Darbaar’s sound­track is per­haps the film’s sin­gle biggest touch­stone. It was an anom­aly at the time, tak­ing its cues from clas­si­cal tra­di­tions of Indi­an com­po­si­tion while West­ern hip-hop and pop influ­ence had begun flood­ing most Bol­ly­wood film soundtracks.

The sto­ry sur­rounds a man named Dev­das Mukher­jee who comes back to India after study­ing in Lon­don. Many in the neighor­hood believe he will mar­ry his child­hood friend Paro, but his wealthy fam­i­ly is con­flict­ed because of her rela­tion to nau­tan­ki (Indi­an com­e­dy the­ater) per­form­ers who they believe to inde­cent. The refusal sends him into a down­ward spi­ral of alco­holism and to a broth­el where he meets a cour­te­san named Chan­dra­mukhi; a love tri­an­gle forms.

Shah Rukh Khan’s lead role is one of his most pow­er­ful – he stum­bles, lurch­es, and plays up the the­atrics of his love for Paro and his child­like sub­mis­sion to his over­bear­ing moth­er. He com­mands and melts near­ly every inch of the frames he is in, match­ing Bhansali’s direc­to­r­i­al ener­gy spark for spark.

The film’s oper­at­ic melo­dra­mat­ic style, influ­enced by Gold­en Age Bol­ly­wood (which had its own crit­i­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly laud­ed Dev­das adap­ta­tion) and specif­i­cal­ly Bhansali’s own idol leg­endary film­mak­er Guru Dutt, plays per­fect­ly to the film’s roman­tic tragedy. Its huge set-design, recre­at­ing vil­las of 1950s West Ben­gal, and its lux­u­ri­ous décor of con­trast­ing reds and blues in dance sequences put high­light mood and emo­tion at the fore­front of the film’s visage.

Bhansali is not one for sub­tle­ty, and his take on the sto­ry, which is set in a poor Ben­gali neigh­bor­hood, is trans­formed as a loud, lucious, and bois­ter­ous king­dom of spoils – upon its release it was crit­i­cized for being too osten­ta­tious, to which Bhansali said ​“Lis­ten, I was born and brought up in Bom­bay, where peo­ple shout at each oth­er from the win­dows of flats on oppo­site sides of the streets… my talk is full-throat­ed, my expres­sions full-blood­ed. I can­not make a film with­out melodrama.”

Dev­das pre­miered out of com­pe­ti­tion at the 2002 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val before its the­atri­cal release in July 12^th, hot off of Lagaan’s inter­na­tion­al run the pre­vi­ous year which cul­mi­nat­ed in India’s third Oscar nom­i­na­tion for Best Inter­na­tion­al Film. After years of Indi­an cin­e­ma being ignored beyond the bor­ders of the coun­try, there were high pro­file Indi­an movies pre­mier­ing at galas in the West once again. It became the high­est gross­ing Indi­an film of the year and was con­sid­ered a box-office hit in both India and the UK, also gar­ner­ing a BAF­TA nom­i­na­tion for Best Film Not in the Eng­lish Language.

But what helped trans­late a movie like Dev­das to West­ern audi­ences? It’s a film I often rec­om­mend to peo­ple as an intro­duc­to­ry point to Bol­ly­wood movies because it’s informed by Bollywood’s 20^th cen­tu­ry but made in the 21^st cen­tu­ry. It encom­pass­es both the detailed artistry and the­atri­cal act­ing of Gold­en Age cin­e­ma as well as the the­mat­ic bold­ness of 2000s Bol­ly­wood, which became much more lib­er­at­ed in its sex­u­al­i­ty and its depic­tions of vices like alco­holism and debauchery.

The song and dance sequences also com­pre­hen­sive­ly show­case all the vary­ing styles often found in Bol­ly­wood films. They range from cute and teas­ing (“Beri Piya”) to epic love bal­lads (“Hame­sha Tumkho Cha­haa”) to clas­si­cal raa­gas (“Kaa­he Chhede Mohe”). The film encom­pass­es both the ener­gy and vari­a­tions of a masala film – films that incor­po­rate mul­ti­ple genre ele­ments into a sin­gle enter­tain­ing sto­ry – and an ele­vat­ed drama.

Bhansali’s atten­tion to detail in set design (by Nitin Chan­drakant Desai) and his work with leg­endary cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Bin­od Prad­han blend togeth­er in bril­liant reds, blues, and yel­lows. The film has an ethe­re­al and gar­gan­tu­an feel to it that envelops you in its world com­plete­ly. It’s an immer­sive expe­ri­ence that plays as the per­fect gate­way to the ingre­di­ents that make up many oth­er Indi­an films.

In the 20 years of its exis­tence, cin­e­ma has cer­tain­ly changed, but people’s appre­ci­a­tion for movies that go for broke no mat­ter how flawed the result, remains. If you see your­self in awe of huge films that play up the dra­ma, rev­el in their elab­o­rate look and feel, and still take inspi­ra­tion from the mas­ter film­mak­ers of yes­ter­year, then Dev­das is more than worth your time. It’s a tes­ta­ment to a style of cin­e­ma that believes it can be every­thing for every­one all at once.