Devdas at Cannes

          It was India Day at Cannes last Monday, May 20. Producer-Director Sanjay Leela Bhansalis’s classic film Devdas , yet to be released in India, was screened at the prestigious 55th international film festival in the French city on May 23, Thursday. A three-day tribute retrospective of Bollywood’s great showman Raj Kapoor had already begun on Tuesday. The films shown were Aag, Raj’s debut, Barsaat, the first hit, and Awara, which became famous outside India.

A delegation, led by India’s Information Minister Sushma Swaraj, included some Bollywood stars and film personalities.

          Devdas is one of the latest screen adaptations of a classic novel, written originally in Bengali, a regional language with high literary traditions. Rabindranath Tagore is the most famous name, a poet-dramatist and Nobel laureate who wrote in Bengali.

         Devdas is the story of a tragic love: Paro, an independent –minded , irrepressible girl is married to an ageing landlord. Her love Devdas hits the bottle and turns to Chandramukhi, a nautch girl, with a golden heart.

          Devdas was a made into a film back in 1935 by a director called Pramathesh Barua. Singer-actor KL Saigal played the central role. The second version was directed by famous film maker Bimal Roy. Top stars of the day – Dilip Kumar, Suchitra Sen and Vyjayanthimala – played the three roles. Another attempt was made in 1970 to produce a third version, but it never materialized.

-India Overseas
May 23, 2002