The Indian film Devdas (2002/I) was directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. As I've learned, Devdas is an important Indian novel, written (coincidentally) in 1917. The movie stars Shah Rukh Khan as Devdas, a handsome young man who has returned from law school in England. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan plays Parvati ('Paro') the young woman who has waited for him for ten years. Madhuri Dixit portrays the dancer and courtesan Chandramukhi.Although Devdas and Paro are in love, caste and financial differences cause their families to keep them apart. The movie follows that plot line until the end. Of course, because this is a Bollywood film, there's plenty of dancing along the way. To director Bhansali's credit, the dancing is integrated into the plot, rather than just popping up randomly. And, of course, it's amazing, colorful dancing.The lead actors are capable, seasoned professionals. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit are impossibly beautiful. The costumes and sets have to be seen to be believed. If you like Bollywood movies, you'll love Devdas. I certainly enjoyed the film. However, for truth in reviewing, I have to say that we didn't stay for the full three hours. However, I saw enough of the film to feel comfortable reviewing it.More important than the film itself is what it represents. Believe it or not, a curator's dream became real a few years ago. Rochester's George Eastman Museum acquired over 100 35mm prints of Indian movies. The theater in which they were stored was scheduled to be destroyed, along with all of these treasures. A team from Eastman, assisted by students from UCLA, saved almost all the films during the last hours before destruction. To their surprise, they found a treasure house of movie posters as well. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. I hope someone makes a movie about it!We watched this film at Rochester's wonderful Dryden Theatre in the George Eastman Museum. It was shown as part of the series, "Stories of Indian Cinema: Abandoned & Rescued." It's amazing to watch Devdas on a large screen, but it will work well enough on a small screen. If you love Bollywood films, or if you want to sample a Bollywood film, Devdas would be the perfect choice.

The movie is based on a Fiction Bengali story by Sharat Chandra Chatterjee but it can be applied to real life too .Devdas is a upper class guy who lives his life according to his wish much to the chagrin of his practical family and society (In India). He is a rebel not only to his family but to himself. He has a childhood friend Paro which then transforms into a romantic relationship. Paro and Devdas are absolutely in love with each other. But as is true in fiction as in real life, Love is something extremely dangerous. It is risky fraught with dangers to life itself !. But people who are in Love hardly care about this. They live a life moment to moment without thinking about either the past or the future. As is usual someone else gets into the way of Love and as it happens in real life more often than not it is your own family which comes into the way.So Devdas's family is opposed to their union especially his dad. Devdas goes against his family but in that moment of weakness he is not strong enough and loses Paro forever. He realizes his mistake but it is too late. Paro is already prepared for her marriage.Resigned in love, Devdas loses himself. He drinks and drinks only to forget Paro but he cannot. Meanwhile, a courtesan Chandramukhi seeing the pain of Devdas falls in love with him.The story moves on with the tragedy of Devdas's death. As is always the case Love could kill you and it does kill Devdas.There is a saying - Love is a slow suicide and how true it is.

Devdas is an amazing movie and one of Bollywood's best! It released in 2002 after which the movies of the time as well as actors, directors and writers began making better quality films in an attempt to be up to par with this one! If you don't speak Hindi, I suggest you still watch this movie with English subtitles, as from the first frame to the last it is very entertaining and keeps you with the film at all times. The colors, acting, storytelling are all brilliantly done and it truly is a love story to be remembered. The songs are very catchy and Madhuri Dixit and Ashwariya Rai are Bollywood's biggest actresses and both looked the absolute best in this film than any other they have done. Shahrukh Khan too is brilliant as the lover who lost.This movie Definitely, Definitely is a keeper that one would want to buy on DVD to keep in their collections and EVERYONE I know has watched the whole film/certain part of it repeatedly!

That is true. Bollywood films do base a lot of their ideas off of Hollywood movies, down to the point of plagirism (they even have used recent movies, such as Hitch, for material as well), but Devdas is not one of these cases. Counting this version, it's been remade three times. I know one time was in the 1930s, and in the 1950s, and in theatrical adaptations It is a Bengali novella by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay written in 1917. Sorry, but it was a good thought anyway. Just so you know, I got the information off of wikipedia, from the article concerning the movie, and it is not made up data by any means. There have also been several television adaptations. Devdas is a Bengali story, and a famous one at that. As the author of the article said, "The novella powerfully depicts the prevailing societal customs in Bengal in the early 1900s, which are largely responsible for preventing the happy ending of a genuine love story." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devdas