LSD : The new La Dolce Vita

The Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that, "La dolce vita was too important to be discussed as one would normally discuss a film.... The camera moves and fixes the image in such a way as to create a sort of diaphragm around each object. As each new episode begins, the camera is already in motion using complicated movements... like a quotation written in everyday language".

The same thing can be said about Dibakar Banerjee's LSD. Banerjee, armed with his digital camera, has done what Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bhardwaj have only threatened to do. Where Dev D, Gulaal, Kaminey and Ishqiya showed embers, LSD shows us real fire. With one movie Banerjee has taken us into a brave new world. It will be a challenge for the viewers and the industry to follow him.

"You want video or no?" says a pop singer in his luxury caravan, unaware of the camera capturing his casting couch. Its a sting operation and the girl who is carrying it out throws playful glances at the camera as if to advertise herself. It is at once a shocking and voyeuristic shot.

Dibakar Banerjee's LSD is a culmination of three parallel, intertwining stories. The first is an amateur film-maker who follows the mockumentary format to make an unbelievably cheesy version of DDLJ. In the process, he falls in love with the actress. He elopes with her but is eventually caught. He captures the whole story on a hand held camera right up to its gruesome end. The second is a supermarket salesgirl who unwittingly gets stuck in an internet sex video. The third is a failed reporter, who tries to nail a pop singer for casting couch with his sting operation.

Banerjee's thesis is that the knowledge of a camera peering at us radically changes our behavior. That even everyday people become part of a voyeuristic experience is an ugly and realistic theme. His characters are overly insecure and unlovable, yet they are portrayed with compassion and unsympathetic realism.

LSD's importance and success will, most probably, not be understood in the short term. Much like Mughal-E-Azam, Sholay, Balachandar's Maro Charitra and Mani Ratnam's Anjali, LSD may have changed Indian cinema forever. Like La Dolce Vita, its greatness will be understood in the coming decades.