So, so you think you can tell,
heaven from hell, and blue skies from pain...
- Pink Floyd (Wish you were here)
We are all humans, so we are all imperfect. Or maybe vice versa, we are imperfect implying we are all just humans. But in this imperfection, as I devoutly keep repeating, we define our identities. Our search for definition leads us to demarcate ourselves sexually, geographically and finally and above all else, religiously. And thus we become Man and Woman, Indians and Americans, and Hindus and Muslims...
Thus, we live in our well defined shells of flimsy boundaries, we brothers of the same blood, devotees of the same Sun, and smilers of the same smile. And then, when ravaged winds encroach upon these boundaries, we forget about our so called imperfections, and turn ourselves into protectors of religion. We decide that an eye for an eye is a just punishment for someone who has threatened our identity, our morality, our self...
At the other end, we have the law and constitution, lines written on pieces of paper. Lines that have now become the guidelines of how as Humans we must conduct ourselves individually and socially. And we have the protectors of that law, who live within the boundaries of that what is written on those old sheets of paper. We have two kinds of protectors, we have two lines of thought, we have two sides of the coin and as Govind Nihalani tries to say, we have Dev, a man who tries to walk that razor's edge...
Lots of stuff might be written about the movie by now, including the plot and the other necessities and unnecessities. So, I will not delve into the plot. I will just elicit what struck me about the movie. Dev, according to me, is a movie about ideologies, or rather the clashes of ideologies...
We have Dev (Amitabh), who believes that the constitution defines how he would conduct himself, how would enforce himself, how he would deduce the right from the wrong... And we have Tej (Om Puri), Dev's best friend, who believes that realities cannot be based on laws that were written half a century ago, he believes that a perfect law system cannot hold itself in an imperfect and volatile world today.. And this clash is set against the backdrop of communal violence and riots..
And against this backdrop of violence and mismatched ideologies, we have an incident that scarred these differences further... Dev's son, Armaan, who Tej thought of as his foster son, is killed by militants.. Militants, who as protectors of their religions.. A militant, who as an individual is not a criminal... because by definition, he is protecting his boundary, his identity... Dev, who still continues to stay within what the law defines, while Tej, starts looking at each representative of that religion as a potential traitor and militant...
And against this backdrop, we have Farhaan (Fardeen Khan), who due to events, launches a personal vendetta against Dev, in his seek for dignity for his religion.. And then, we have the politicos, who use all of them as pawns.. We have the government, who decides that law, while also blatantly violating it, because as apparent, the law is imperfect because it does not accomodate for the conditions of today.. Thus, two sides of the law, one representing the rigid boundaries etched on rotting pieces of paper, and another, that caters to the populace, religion and sentiments.. Which is right and which is wrong is what Nihalani has tried to convey...
The film, though very complex deep under, tries to tread the fine line of classes and masses and fails miserably.. It tries being out the differences in thought processes innumerable times... It keeps banging into you what who represents and because of all this, Govind fails to bring out his views on the same... Dev is unshakeable in his thoughts, and so his Tej... Till the very end, neither of them budges from his stance... A very fine point of the movie is the thought process of the two foster parents in the movie and how each foster parent reacts to incidents..
Tej, who is shattered by Armaan's death and abhors every Muslim because he sees a murderer in all their faces, and Dev, who regards Farhaan his foster son, he who has in accordance with the written law, punished wrong doers and protected the rightoeus.. Who is right? Who is wrong?
Of particular interest is the climax, wherein we are ensured of the ideologies of Dev and Tej... Dev is again another Govind Nihalani movie that leaves the intelligent viewer unhappy and the bored viewer asleep... Nihalani tries to push the logistics of the characters down the throat multiple times, till you do not have the stomach to take any more...
Performance wise, all have done a decent job. Amitabh is great as Dev, while Om Puri is striking in his characterisation of Tej. The drilling down process is carried out via a number of drinking sessions between Dev and Tej, which is again stretched at times.. Fardeen and Kareena carry out their respective jobs in their usual manner... Finally, its a director's movie and we all know when a master has failed.. And Govind has failed.. because in the end, he leaves us confused as to what he tried to convey...
