- Release Date: 19/04/2024
- Cast: Paritosh Tiwari, Swastika Mukherjee, Bonita Rajpurohit
- Director: Dibakar Banerjee
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha 2 (LSD 2) is one of the most shocking, chaotic, and disgusting films that one can expect to see in mainstream Bollywood. At the same time, it is also one of the most honest, daring and artistically brilliant pieces of cinema that I have seen coming out of Bollywood in recent memory. It is no surprise that the film comes from the man who gave us films like “Dev D”, “Oye Lucky Lucky Oye”, “Byomkesh Bakshi”, and his crowning glory, “Khosla Ka Ghosla”. Everything that I saw in LSD 2 is taken straight out of real life and is presented in a manner where all the chaos surrounding it is cut out, and we are given a focused and dramatic point of view on just a fraction of the entire story that has been developing before we hopped in as the audience and will continue to develop long after the credits in the film have rolled.
Do not walk into this film expecting something similar to “Love, Sex Aur Dhokha. There is nothing normal, entertaining, or engrossing about this film. On the contrary, the cinematic presentation and the voyeuristic approach to the storytelling that Dibakar Banerjee takes will encourage a large chunk of the audience to feel disgusted and just walk out. I was watching this film in PVR, City Centre on a Sunday. About 15 people were watching the film on a 4:40 pm show, and out of that, at least 10 people walked out before the film culminated. The majority walked out before the interval, with the remaining walking out halfway through the second half. As I watched the film with all attention and persuasion to not walk out myself, I understood and acknowledged each of those walkouts and attributed it to a plethora of reasons. The presentation in particular is so in-your-face and laced with such physicality and griminess that it is bound to upset many.
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Noor (Paritosh Tiwari), a trans woman, is taking part in a dance reality show, “Truth Ya Nach”, with her boyfriend, Prakash. The show is judged by Sophie Choudhury, Tusshar Kapoor, and Anu Malik and hosted by Mouni Roy. We only see a brief portion of Noor’s entire journey where she is a close second to the top contestant of the show and brings in her mother into the show to boost her score and increase her chances of winning. When that doesn’t work out as expected, Noor makes some interesting choices that have as much to do with her insatiable desire to win the show as it has to do with her insecurities as a trans woman. The exploration of the various angles that result in the choices that Noor makes is the core element of this story. Banerjee makes her character speak out about her evolving biology which led to some instant walkouts in the theater. I was repulsed too, and then I paid attention and realized that through this very discussion, the director was drawing our attention to the man’s insecurities of being lesser than a woman biologically and losing the man she apparently loves in the process. This, no matter how bizarre, was also in many ways heart-breaking and tragic. The people involved in the show always pull the right strings and influence Noor and the others just as much as is required to make them take some drastic actions when it comes to being in the show and putting out the version of themselves that they want to. The depiction of these inner workings of the show, though demeaning to any and every show of this nature, felt extremely real and well-researched. That is also the problem with this portion, as it makes this portion even more unnerving and difficult to watch. By the end of it, Noor has lost everything that she was fighting for. She is still shown carrying forward we do not know to what end.
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Kullu Biswakarma (Bonita Rajpurohit), a transgender woman, is rescued by people after she is brutally assaulted. Investigations reveal that she was sexually assaulted by 5 men, but Kullu complains about only 1. She is a contractual employee with a reputed company and works as a sanitation worker in a metro station. The company swings into action in her favour and lodges a complaint with the police to bring the perpetrators to justice. However, as the investigation progresses, it is revealed that Kullu might be doubling as a prostitute in addition to her work at the station. This changes everything for her employers, who for so long were hell-bent on bringing the perpetrators to justice but now are more concerned about safeguarding their company’s reputation. Things take a bizarre turn when Kullu’s live-in partner is picked up by the police to dictate her future course of action, and she takes some drastic steps to get her partner out of prison. This is another extremely tragic and difficult-to-digest portion of the film.
While any human being will relate to the tragedy and desperation of Kullu and all that she is forced to do, it also raises questions and points to the overall hypocrisy of the organizations and NGOs that call themselves defenders of people like Kullu. Through this one portion, Dibakar Banerjee tears apart the thin veil that covers the pathetic condition of the poor and disadvantaged transgender individuals, shows how they are actively participating in the flesh trade, raises questions on the morality of society as we know it, and most importantly, shows how easily the organizations and NGOs are ready to throw these people under the bus if their interests come under threat.
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Gamepaapi (Abhinav Singh), a prolific gamer and streamer, is targeted by someone in his audience who releases his objectionable photos. Gamepaapi is disturbed by this turn of events, but things take a bizarre turn for him when he realizes that the demeaning pictures and the altered gender identity, they bring for him actually result in him getting a lot more subscribers than before. Gamepaapi is vying for 10 million subscribers, and he reaches that number, but in the process, he loses his sanity and himself.
This portion of the film shows us the dangerous online universe that is fast becoming an ever-present reality for many in India. The madness of following one’s online heroes, the dangerous extent to which bullying can go, and its possible violent results are presented here as one of the best envisioned and created red flags in the creative scape about this particular digital evil. This portion ends in something that will be difficult for many to decipher and be on the same page with but made perfect sense to me.
By the end of this portion, Gamepaapi gives up on his life in the real world and takes over a digital avatar in the metaverse, living only there as an avatar made of zeros and ones. This is to document the disconnect with the real world and reality that the internet and its abuses are causing to the people who are making it their world and how ill-equipped these people are to live a real life and how quickly they can lose their sanity for something that doesn’t even have tangible meaning.
The Daring and Astounding Direction by Dibakar Banerjee:
One has to be a genius and out of his mind at the same time to envision and direct a film of this nature. Many reviewers are citing this film as chaotic, and it is chaotic without an iota of doubt. However, if you look closely, there is a clear path that the story takes through that chaos. There is nothing in the film that is not tied off in the end. There isn’t a single character that doesn’t serve a purpose. There isn’t a story beat that is not milked to the end of its potential. Putting out a screenplay like this that feels chaotic on the surface but makes complete sense when you look at it closely and from the perspective of the characters that it sets out to document is one of the most difficult things that Banerjee could have pulled off with such efficiency.
If that was not all, he does one better by extracting unbelievably realistic and gut-wrenching performances from his ensemble cast. This film wouldn’t have been the same had it not been for the shattering performances. The story flows through the range of emotions that the characters portray, and it also gives them meaning. This might be true for any film or series, but in this case, it serves as one of the defining elements. The realism that Banerjee ensures in his ensemble cast was something that I was in awe of.
Banerjee understands the modern context, and he knows exactly where his characters sit in the world. He uses this understanding to not only ensure that his characters act in a way that ensures they deliver the maximum emotional and dramatic payload but also to elevate the sense of disgust and discomfort that is at the core of the film’s impact and power.
Final Words:
Don’t go by the reviews of this film. No film critic can judge or foresee how an individual will react to the visuals and dialogues that make up the presentation in a complicated and crazy film like this. You need to watch this film for what it is. You might end up hating it to the core, but that’s okay. That will be a feeling that you take back with you after giving this film a fair chance. If you are baffled by it like I was, it would at least give the director his due for the immense work and creativity that he has put into this film. We need more experiments like this in Bollywood, and I am confident that we will get many more like this from the likes of Dibakar Banerjee.
Rating: 3/5 (3 out of 5 Stars)
The views expressed in this article are that of the reviewer and do not reflect EastMojo’s position.
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