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Has it been 10 years already? Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus relaunched an old story of unrequited love and gave Shah Rukh Khan the image of the lost romantic. A decade later, Devdas still remains one of the grandest films ever made.
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Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus Devdas' found its place in the '10 Greatest Movies of the Millennium' list compiled by the Time magazine.
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A decade after it was released in seven languages, the grandeur of Devdas continues to enamour an audience in the West bred on expensive Broadway classics and technologically advanced science fictions.
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It was Bhansali's ode to India's best known unrequited love story. It premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival and was India's official entry for the Oscars in 2003.
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At that time it was India's most expensive film at Rs 50 crore.
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The film, based on a 1901 novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay of the same name, is one of the most popular adaptations in the history of literature after Romeo and Juliet, with several regional versions.
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At the time of its release, the film was critiqued by the Indian media as painting an affluent picture of India's zamindari system that bordered on the incredulous.
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The film starred Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai, Jackie Shroff, Smita Jaykar and Kirron Kher in the lead roles.
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For the Western audiences, the wide staircases, balustrades, chandeliers and horse-drawn Phaetons were a window to a mysterious opulence of a country they associated with wild animals, honey-skinned women with kohl eyes and films that were mini musicals in themselves.
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The reputation of Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai's fabled beauty preceded them in overseas screenings.
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"The piece is played with such commitment that the tritest plot twists seem worth believing - and dancing to, in nine nifty production numbers. But the fervid emotion is what makes the thing sing," the Time said of Devdas.
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Devdas is a visual ravishment, with sumptuous sets, fabulous frocks and beautiful people to fill them; it has a grandeur the old Hollywood moguls would have loved, Time said of the film.
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Ismail Darbar and Monty Sharma's music was the toast of the film fraternity. It remains one of Indian cinema's showcase films even though the acting bordered on screeching melodrama.
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At the heart of it was an irresistible love story, not unlike that of Christian and Satine's in Moulin Rouge.
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The film was released in six languages: English, French, German, Mandarin, Thai, and Punjabi.
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The story revolves around the wastrel son of Sir Narayan Mukherjee, a zamindar in pre-independence Bengal, who sets the ball rolling when he returns home from a law school in England.
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The dance numbers, the Bengali dialect and over-the-top melodrama were the high points of the film that combined a time-tested story with grandeur.
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Madhuri Dixit played the role of nautch girl Chandramukhi.
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Devdas was India's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2003.
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Aishwarya Rai played Parvati Chakraborty, Devdas' childhood sweetheart and the cause for his downward spiral.
