There
is
no
love
in
any
quickly-digestible
packages,
little
on-screen
sex,
and
a
whole
lot
of
dhokha
in
Dibakar
Banerjee
third
and
most
tricky
film…Tricky,
because
the
characters
are
constantly
talking
and
living
their
lives
on
camera.
We
see
them
as
they
are,
stripped
of
all
vanity,
ridiculously
self-serving
but
still
capable
of
bouts
of
guilt
and
caring.
Love
Sex
Aur
Dhokha
is
a
mirror-image,
and
more,
of
a
world
that
has
made
up
its
mind
to
sell
its
heart
and
most
of
its
soul
to
the
camera.
There
are
three
stories
in
the
film
rolled
together
less
by
design
than
chance.
Unlike
other
episodic
films
this
one
doesn't
flirt
with
finesse.
Instead
Banerjee
fornicates
with
ferocious
realism
born
out
of
a
desperate
generation's
craving
to
make
a
place
in
a
society
that
recognizes
you
for
your
financial
rather
than
emotional
or
intellectual
prosperity.
The
first
story
entitled
Superhit
Pyar
hits
you
in
the
solar-plexus
when
the
father
of
the
rich
girl
Shruti
(Shruti)
and
her
newly-married
husband
Rahul
(Anshuman
Jha)
are
taken
to
a
desolate
highway
and
hacked
to
pieces.
This,
after
we
see
Rahul
the
director
making
a
film
with
Shruti
in
the
lead
that
looks
a
Bhojpuri
version
of
Dilwale
Dulhaniya
Le
Jayenge.
Love
does
just
hurt,
it
hacks.
Nothing
that
has
come
before
prepares
us
for
the
savagery
of
the
dying
moments.
Banerjee's
narrative
is
relentless
in
its
pursuit
of
a
cinematic
language
that
comes
closest
the
unalloyed
colloquialisms
of
every-
day
life.
These
are
character
you've
probably
seen
melt
in
the
melee
of
the
humdrum.
Nikos
Andritsakis'
cinematography
picks
out
these
characters
from
their
allotted
anonymity
to
place
them
in
positions
that
are
always
compromising,
sometimes
poignant
and
funny
but
brutally
honest.
It
couldn't
have
been
easy
for
the
cinematographer
to
deliberately
distort
the
images
on
screen
as
per
the
camera-recordings
of
the
characters.
Imperfection
in
this
case,
is
a
given.
Distortion
a
demand
of
destiny.
The
spoofy
spirit
of
the
pre-climactic
segment
of
the
first
story
Superhit
Pyar
shifts
gears
in
the
second
story
Paap
Ki
Dukaan
where
a
desperate
social
climber
ironically
named
Adarsh
(Raj
Kumar
Yadav)
lures
an
innocent
salesgirl
in
a
supermarket
Rashmi
(Neha
Chauhan)
into
the
backroom
for
some
MMS
sex.
Significantly
the
man
who
wants
to
make
money
out
of
on-camera
sex,
is
half
in
love
with
the
clueless
girl,
and
is
tempted
to
switch
off
the
camera
when
he
finally
gets
to
the
sex.
But
the
conscience
can
go
to
hell.
It
will
find
plenty
of
company
there.
The
third
and
by
far
the
most
well-rounded
and
incisive
story
Badnaam
Shohrat
finally
throws
forward
a
conscientious
protagonist.
The
growing
fondness
between
the
closet-idealist
of
a
journalist
Prabhat
(Amit
Sial)
and
the
miserably
unhappy
item
girl
Naina
(Arya
Devdutta)
is
a
savage
indictment
of
'news'
as
we
see
it
today
on
television.
Go
take
a
bite
of
this
sound
byte.
The
grotesquely
caricatural
pop
singer
Loki
Local
(Herry
Tengri)
in
the
third
story
is
a
savagely
satirical
symptom
of
a
sick
society
looking
for
instant
gratification.
It
isn't
as
if
every
moment
in
this
tightly
packed
sardine-can
of
excitable
emotions
is
savage
brutal
and
aggressive.
The
sensitive
moments
just
creep
up
on
the
creepy
moments
nourishing
bathing
and
mollifying
the
savage
exterior
of
a
world
gone
ruthlessly
and
desperately
selfish
and
immoral.
Dibakar
Banerjee's
creates
a
digital
world
resorting
to
desperate
measures.
His
characters
are
ordinary
people
extraordinarily
challenged
by
the
sheer
obligation
of
day-to-day
living.
While
these
characters-social
'mess'-fits
symptomatic
of
a
new
materialistic
'muddle'
class-record
all
their
moves
and
action
on
self-operated
cameras(shaky,
hazy,
lazy
and
sometime
crazy
but
always
a
window
to
their
souls)
the
director
records
their
stories
without
overt
cinematic
interventions.
This
is
where
the
film's
main
problems
props
up.
The
director
vision
is
so
unified
to
the
way
the
characters
see
themselves
that
a
section
of
the
audience
may
feel
it's
watching
a
hugely
self-indulgent
work
that
wants
to
keep
the
'cinema'
out
of
cinema.
The
material
binding
the
three
stories
is
edited
like
a
home
video
where
the
relevance
of
the
characters
depends
on
our
off-camera
familiarity
with
them.
The
people
in
Love
Sex
Aur
Dhokha
need
no
introduction
or
back-projection.
They
are
who
they
are,
without
the
participation
of
cinematic
devices.
Banerjee
almost
sneaks
in
on
these
people
to
violate
their
non-privatized
lives.
The
characters
personal
spaces
are
already
violated
by
self-deployed
cameras.
Dibakar
Banerjee
doesn't
act
the
voyeuristic
director
even
when
the
girl
in
the
supermarket
is
on
the
ground
making
love
with
the
desperate
guy
who
has
spent
all
his
time
and
effort
to
get
her
there.
Why
is
there
no
triumph
in
his
love-making?
Love
Sex
Aur
Dhokha
is
not
a
film
about
celebrating
the
end
of
an
individual's
right
to
privacy.
It's
a
rigorously
recorded
pseudo-documentary
about
people
who
have
thrown
all
caution
and
discretion
to
the
winds
because
they've
no
choice.
The
film
never
belittles
or
sentimentalizes
the
characters'
lack
of
choices.
While
inventing
a
unique
format
of
cinematic
expression
Dibakar
Banerjee
has
not
emotionally
emasculated
the
characters.
Even
when
they're
doing
it
for
a
camera
their
emotions
are
not
out
of
our
range
of
vision.
In
terms
of
technique
this
film
gets
as
rough
and
jolting
as
any
film
can.
The
actors
look
like
reality-show
rejects
making
a
last-bid
attempt
to
prove
their
worth.
They
got
the
point.
This
is
a
film
that
has
no-reference
point.
Except
the
people
we
see
all
around
us.