20 years of Devdas and how Sanjay Leela Bhansali came to Bollywood’s rescue at another moment of crises

Paro fervently runs through the corridor after she learns that her beloved Devdas is breathing his last right outside her house, passing pillar after pillar as her Sari dramatically trails with her, and finally reaches the long stretch of the courtyard. Her husband's voice booms from the balcony, as he orders the watchmen to shut the gates. As Paro reaches closer, her wails of 'Deva' get shriller and more anguished - and we see from Devdas's POV a blurry image of someone coming to her. Just as Paro reaches close, the gates shut on her face - and Devdas vehemently shivers as he pulls one last breath of air.

But here’s the twist - in Saratchandra's novel, Devdas was already dead when Paro came to know about him lying outside. Also, Paro was never banished from stepping out of the mansion, so her sudden outburst was more puzzling for her family members than a rebellious move that had to be squashed. “Where is the drama in that?,” perhaps Bhansali had asked himself, as he was finishing the final draft of a screenplay that couldn’t be more different than the other two popular film versions, made by P.C.Barua and Bimal Roy in 1935 and 1955 respectively.

Frankly, one doesn’t acknowledge Bhansali’s audacity enough - in reimagining a much-revered classic on a scale that was polar-opposite to the source material but accommodated the maverick filmmaker’s vision. Bhansali knew very well that the purists would come after him, for this nearly blasphemous deed. But he did what he knew best - lavishness and melodrama.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali started his career with a film like Khamoshi (1996), which while displaying his flair for melancholy and narrative musicality, still was pretty humble and grounded in its projection. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), the film that brought him to the top league, too was rooted in contemporary times, despite all its melodrama and heightened emotionality. It was only with Devdas, a film set in the early 20th century, that the maverick filmmaker found just enough distance from the contemporary times and great turf to explore his flair for operatic melodrama.

One might ask here, given that Hindi films have always been larger-than-life, what set Bhansali's work apart? The answer lies in an interview the director gave around the time Devdas was released, where he repeatedly used the word ‘Kaarigari,’ to talk about cinema - This sense of ‘Kaarigari’ (craftsmanship) is exactly what has been at the core of Bhansali’s filmography, where the filmmaker has kept at his pursuit of aesthetic craftsmanship, sometimes purely for its own sake - a pursuit that was largely missing back then from Mainstream Hindi Cinema, which rarely explored film-making as an independent art form with its own set of aesthetics and grammar. The convention was to use it as a messenger for telling stories often driven by morals and values that usually cater to the majority audience’s sensibilities and worldview (when not going for an ‘anything-goes-masala-entertainment, that is).

Our idea of larger-than-life has then confined to moral grounds, with stories about too-good-to-be-true hero figures, often poorly translated as fake or unreal, which in turn rendered the mainstream filmmakers somewhat complacent - Except the likes of Guru Dutt, Vijay Anand and Raj Khosla, filmmakers rarely approached making films from an aesthetic viewpoint. The grandiosity of visuals, if at all achieved, was mostly used to distract us from the narrative coherence, or to serve as a pleasant-looking backdrop. When our films had to show the rich, they often went garish. When we had to aim for grandeur, we just went big.

In the late 90s, with films like Dil to Pagal Hai and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a certain kind of flashy swankiness appeared on the screen, that was more in tandem with the audience’s lifestyle aspirations for wealth and affluence. An aesthetic sensibility was still missing from the mainstream, something we didn’t realize until Sanjay Leela Bhansali came into his own, especially with Devdas.

Writing taut, plot-driven narratives has never been one of Bhansali’s strengths, but out here, he almost wears the allegation with pride. His sense of music and lyricism *is* the writing Bhansali is interested in, and Devdas is unabashedly laden with visual poetry, driving purely on the emotional intensity of its big and small moments. The way the sound of an anklet blends with a tear falling from Devdas’ eyes, or how the visual of a dying Devdas transitions to the shot of Paro’s Alta-stained feet tainting the white marble, or how a sheet that Paro has been swirling covers the frame entirely as it falls, only to reveal Devdas longingly looking at her - that desire for creating an aesthetically emotional experience is visible in every frame of Devdas. It’s the way he uses a build-up or lull in background music to begin and end his scenes, bringing a certain fluidity to the narrative. There are scenes built around minor, wordless moments which carry great force, like when Devdas first looks at Paro in the moonlight. ‘Bairi Piya’ is an elaborate moment that pushes the story forward and conveys everything about the passion and volatility of the relationship between the two lovers because, in Bhansali’s films, these musical moments that carry an emotional charge *are* the story. (The only other mainstream filmmaker I can think of being this meticulous about the aesthetics of their films, atleast until the early 2000s, is Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who made films like Khamosh, Parinda and Mission Kashmir, and was coincidentally Bhansali’s mentor in the late 80s and early 90s - there is an intense biopic waiting to be made about these two passionate artists who passed out from the same school and yet chose two opposite ways.)

However, these aesthetics in Devdas, while impactful on their own, do not stand out or feel ornamental - the opulence of the Havelis is in astounding sync with the grandeur of the emotions. (And with actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit & Aishwarya Rai headlining the film, Bhansali couldn’t have a better lead cast which is capable of bringing as much melancholy to their parts as much flamboyance.) The characters don’t merely converse, they almost croon their lines, very often replete with the alliterations, rhymes, and rhythms akin to poetry. When Devdas’ mother rejects the proposal by Paro’s mother, it’s not a quiet conversation over dinner, but a moment of societal humiliation in the midst of a gathering, surrounded by hundreds of guests. When Devdas finally takes recognition of his loss, he mourns it by literally setting fire to a room full of documents. The fiery anguish doesn’t remain internal anymore - It’s as if Bhansali curates the melodrama of his writing to keep it in sync with the lavishness of his visuals.

This has also meant that Devdas often avoids some complex interpersonal equations of the novel and conveniently fabricates soap opera-style villains, first out of the Devdas’ sister-in-law Kumud (essayed to near perfection by Ananya Khare), and then Paro’s son-in-law (Milind Gunaji) who fuels Paro’s in-laws against her. In Bhansali’s Devdas, our protagonist comes across more like a misunderstood hero than a self-destructive man-child. And yet, these narrative choices only make sense for a film that goes either for a bang or a whimper.

Bhansali continues to retain a larger-than-life quality for his narratives by constantly referencing our mythological texts. Devdas and Paro’s mothers are named Sumitra and Kaushalya respectively (the names of Lakshman and Ram’s mothers from Ramayana). Chandramukhi often likens her love for Devdas to Meera’s devotion to Krishna. Bhansali might sympathize with Devdas for his self-destructive ways, but he cannot help but compare his passionate yearning to that of Krishna while comparing Paro’s pious love to that of Radha. It was not at all surprising when Bhansali later found himself going back to period dramas like Bajirao Mastani and Padmaavat, which helped him imbue his films consistently with similar iconography. Even in a film like Ram Leela that is rooted in current times, there is a sense of other-worldliness to its universe. (I am not counting Saawariya, where Bhansali went no-holds-barred in his attempt to create a fantasy land, which perhaps got a little too much for the audience to handle).

But what makes Devdas a relevant subject for introspection is how it had arrived at a time when Bollywood was undergoing yet another major crisis. 2002 was objectively the most unsuccessful year for the Industry, with films bombing at the box office left, right, and center - thanks to the Piracy boom that had really fractured the box-office attendances. The biggest of star casts or directors could barely help the producers recover their costs that year. During a time like this, Bhansali finished his magnum opus that was in making for almost 30 months. It was the most expensive Hindi film made up until then, with a budget of 50 crores. Nothing can come close to the tenacity of K.Asif while making Mughal-e-Azam, who filmed it over 9 years, after first starting the project in 1946 with a different set of actors - but Bhansali came somewhat close. Only 3 films besides Devdas were certified a ‘Hit’ in 2002 (Raaz, Saathiya, Ek Choti si Love Story) - and out of these four, only Devdas had a budget exceeding 10 crores. The stakes were much higher, but Bhansali’s madness for his vision paid off.

In the last 20 years, it almost feels like Hindi Cinema has come full circle. With the emergence of multiplex cinema and the success of smaller films, we saw a gradual shift in the audience's taste. However, it only took 2 years for audiences to go back to a hunger for the larger-than-life. In 2022, we are again witnessing great anxiety amongst the bigwigs of Bollywood after some of their biggest ventures have left with a whimper. The smaller budget films aren’t cutting it out anymore. Heck, even a film like Samrat Prithviraj was not impressive enough for its audience.

However, while films like RRR and KGF 2 have broken multiple records playing on mainstream testosterone-driven template, and one could argue about their merits, one cannot deny that they achieved a certain scale and visual extravagance they had aspired for and promised to the viewers. Clearly, that’s the kind of spectacle the audience wants again now - nothing less will do. As biggies like Shamshera and Brahmastra near their release dates, the pressure looms on them large - of delivering the big old spectacle Bollywood was once known for, and Bhansali still is.