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DEVDAS (2002) is a beautifully mounted romantic melodrama based on a popular Indian novel published in 1917. When I first read about the film and its enthusiastic reception at Cannes, I had high hopes that this might become the first Bollywood film to cross over to arthouse audiences in the U.S. While watching it, however, it became clear that the class-conflict narrative would be a tough sell these days with its supremely overwrought tale of parental disapproval, family honor, unrequited love, and two beautiful women's complete and utter devotion to an irredeemably dissipated man who is left with nothing. It's also more deeply rooted in Hindi culture than the other Bollywood movies I've seen and would most benefit a viewer who had more than a passing knowledge of it. In comparing DEVDAS to MOHABBATEIN (2000) and TAAL (1999), the other Bollywood musicals I've seen, I would cite a few Hollywood parallels. DEVDAS is like a Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy MGM musical of the 1930s (e.g. MAYTIME, 1937, with which it shares some surprising similarities) to MOHABBATEIN's SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS or TAAL's BYE BYE BIRDIE. (When I saw MOHABBATEIN I also thought of WEST SIDE STORY and GREASE.) I enjoyed MOHABBATEIN and TAAL much more, but I was still gripped by DEVDAS and its high romantic expression of love through song, dance, and incredibly rich, poetic dialogue. It's a powerfully old-fashioned film, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
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