Abhay Deol who starred in Anurag Kashyap's 'Dev D' had earlier accused the filmmaker of glorifying the titular character in the film. In an interview, Anurag has now reacted to his fallout with Abhay Deol and his remarks on 'Dev D'.
When Anurag was asked about Abhay’s comments about glorifying the titular character in 'Dev D', he told Zoom that he has done what he wanted to do, and what he has seen. He said he likes films to be very real and doesn't want to give unnecessary redeeming qualities to a character. He gave the example of his film, 'Kennedy' and said, “In Kennedy, when people feel sympathy for the psychopath character, I’m saying, ‘Question yourself’. You get one redeeming quality, and you say, ‘Bechara’.''
Anurag added, “The problem isn’t with the character; the bigger problem is with you. Ask yourself why you’re enjoying watching such behaviour. Ask yourself why you’re cheering for some things despite feeling uncomfortable about others. Those who point fingers should look inwards. That’s how I test the audience. Filmmakers here are so dishonest, forget making grounded films, they have no idea if they’re even making Indian films…”
Earlier, in a social media post Abhay wrote a long note on 'Dev D'. He wrote, “In my version Dev gets shot by the police (he becomes a drug dealer) outside Paro’s house and dies just like in the book. Chanda does not fall in love with him, and neither is she ashamed of being an East European high class escort (again, in my version). She’s the strongest character of the three, and isn’t afraid of being judged. She does empathize with Dev, seeing how broken he is, and I went with the ‘prostitute with the heart of gold’ theme from the book''.
Abhay was also not happy with the film's ending. “Anurag felt a happy ending would make the film more accepted by the audience, and his twist was to have Dev and Chanda fall in love. My vision was too dark! I went with the flow…”, he said.
