New Delhi: ‘Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2’ is releasing in theatres on April 19, 2024. Indie filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee, who directed the first film ‘Love Sex Aur Dhoka’ then starring newcomers Rajkummar Rao, Nushrratt Bharuccha, has also helmed the upcoming film featuring transgender actor Bonita Rajpurohit. As per the makers of the film, Bonita is the first transgender woman to lead the film. While Banerjee is all set to create a new benchmark with ‘LSD 2’, let’s take a look at how the director broke conventions with his first film,’Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ which released in 2010.
5 Reasons Why Love, Sex Aur Dhoka became a one-of-a-kind film
Real-life story inspiration
‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ was inspired by several real-life sex scandals, including the DPS MMS scandal. In an interaction with The Economic Times in 2018, Banerjee had shed light on how he wanted to build a context to the MMS’ in his film, and why that became the primary reason behind filming the context and backstory of any relationship that lead to the sex tape.
‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ connects three stories that deal with issues of honour killings, sexual exploitation and voyeurism, after drawing from several real-life MMS including incidents, humanising them, and creating a sense of empathy for the otherwise ostracised people( who were in reality part of such tapes)and understanding the whys which led to the videos in the first place.
Digital format
As per several reports, ‘Love, Sex aur Dhoka’ is the first Indian film which was shot in the digital format. Filmed using a guerilla-filmmaking technique, a major part of the film was shot on a handycam.
An amateur film camera, night-vision cameras, a security camera, spy camera and an underwater camera, are some experimentations with form, Banerjee employed for his script. All of the anthologies in the film are told from the camera’s pov( point of view) as if the camera is a character-narrator telling the story.
Newcomers actors in Love Sex Aur Dhoka
Dibakar Banerjee and the team of ‘Love, Sex Aur Dokha’ decided to cast newscomers and unknown professional actors. The film’s cast included the likes of Rajkummar Rao, Neha Chauhan, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Anshuman Jha, and Amir Sial. Atul Mongia, who was the casting director of the film, also acted in the film.
Mongia is said to have auditioned around 15 people a day for three and a half months to cast the 75 characters in the film. As per an Outlook report, he screened 2000 actors and auditioned 1000 of them.
Portrayal/filming sexuality
While the promotion materials around the film’s release with pictures of two bare backs of actors, an ‘A’ certification and several cuts by the censor board led many to think ‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ will be an entertaining film to titilate the senses, this Dibakar Banerjee film came as a surprise to many. A simple film with three anthologies with a common thread of sex tapes, that wreack havoc in the lives of the characters.
What was different in the ‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ was that the filmmaker tried to trace the backstories of each of the characters involved in the sex tapes with the use of a camera, as a narrator character itself that treats sex and desire as part of an inherent, bigger, socio-political fabric rather than just the act itself.
Love, Sex Aur Dhoka reviews & box office
‘Love, Sex aur Dhoka’ received a poistive reviews from critics. The film was called a ‘masterpiece’, ‘must watch’, ‘path breaking’, polarizing, ‘courageous and raw’and more. Many called the film a truly experimental film.
‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ was filmed under a budget of Rs. 2 cr, and collected Rs. 9.8 cr, as per a Bollywood Hungama report. Despite releasing in a small number of screens in India, the film’s reviews spread from word-of-mouth and it managed to do decent business at the box office.
Meanwhile, Banerjee’s ‘Love, Sex Aur Dhoka’ in the times of internet, is releasing on April 19, 2024 in theatres.