Whether it is format, story or point of view, Dibakar Banerjee has always pushed the envelope as a filmmaker. The man who introduced a new idiom of filmmaking with the provocative three-in-one film Love Sex Aur Dhokha (LSD) close to 15 years ago is now ready with its follow-up. Dibakar claims that LSD2, releasing in theatres on April 19, is “more of an animal than the first film”. A t2 chat

The trailer of Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 (LSD2) is unlike anything seen in a long time. What have the reactions been like so far?

When something like this comes out, you always keep getting messages. The words from those messages that I remember are ‘hilarious and scary at the same time’. Another person wrote ‘audacious’. Then someone wrote that it looks like nothing that they have ever watched before. These are the kind of messages I am getting. Beyond that, I don’t know.

In the disclaimer that you put a day before the release of the trailer, you said that LSD2 presents an ‘authentic picture of life’. Is it really wise to depict anything authentically in this age of instant outrage?

The more outrage you get, the more it is proven that you have shaken something, you have provoked something, you have woken up some dormant emotion. If LSD2 doesn’t do that, then there is no point. The whole point is to look at our authentic lives and laugh at it, get scared by it, get fascinated by it, get turned on by it. That is the dangerous mix of our virtual lives. It is sexy, inviting, alluring, depressing and dangerous. It is like a black hole that eats you up. If one doesn’t make a film about these things, then why be in cinema in the first place? So the more the provocation, the better.

Was there a trigger that made you want to make LSD2?

There are many, many instances. I fell off my chair when I realised that there exists a huge viewership for something that is as kinky and, at the same time, as irrelevant as underarm hair. I realised that the virtual world is the ultimate world of fixated fetishes. I found that very interesting.

Dibakar Banerjee

For someone who hasn’t been on social media, what formed your research for a film on the vagaries of social media?

I have never been on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Orkut. I made ad films for MSN Messenger but never used it.... I don’t need to be on social media, I am quite fulfilled in my real life. I am interested in the virtual life but I am not interested in living it out...

I am surprised you still remember Orkut!

I saw my seniors, older brothers and relatives get on to Orkut and I used to wonder what is this, why do people do this?!

What formed your research for this film?

One of the things that I had to research well is the inner life of the third gender. I am a straight male and I really had to get into their lives to understand what it is to transition. That it not only involved the biological part... a large part of it is the psychological part of being a man or a woman and the sociological aspect of the world accepting you as one or the other.

While researching the film, I was confronted with the horror of transphobia. I am not surprised easily, but I did get surprised. Let’s just say that I have very low expectations from humanity! (Laughs)

Is your exploration of the third gender in LSD2 an extension of that extremely powerful last act in Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar where you made Pinky, played by Arjun Kapoor, embrace his feminine self and also celebrate it?

Very interesting question. Maybe I am interested in gender, maybe I am interested in pushing the boundaries when it comes to depicting gender on screen. I haven’t seen it like this, but your question is definitely making me think. After Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar, I made a film called Tees, which is a Netflix original, and I think it is my best work. But Netflix hasn’t released it because they don’t think it would be ‘safe’ to release it at this point. That is a film of mine that nobody in the world has seen till now. That has a transgender character and LSD2 has two transgender protagonists.

Your disclaimer video asked audiences not to watch LSD2 if they couldn’t dissect it later and have a conversation about it with their families and friends. Don’t you think viewers in India today are far more evolved and accepting than they were earlier?

This kind of a video we did even for the first film. It is an LSD tradition. With Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2, I wanted to tell the kids to wait a few more years and then watch the film. Fourteen years after LSD, it is a different world today. The youngsters who will be watching LSD2 would have been kids when the first film released. For them, this is a standalone film... it just has a ‘2’ at the end of it.

LSD 2 is a film for today because whatever I have seen, lived and experienced in the last 10 years, it is all there in the film. I am a part of the audience, I live the lives that they live. I am not worried about alienating the audience.

The LSD format doesn’t adhere to any conventional norms of filmmaking. What were the biggest challenges of putting this film together?

The biggest challenge was the budget. LSD2 is a tight-budgeted film but a very ambitious film like the first one. It was also a challenge to find stories that are alive within the zeitgeist of today. I wasn’t interested in security cameras or hidden cameras. We were looking at life from a completely new angle which did not exist 10 years ago. So we had to reinvent the grammar of shooting, filmmaking, editing and sound.

The last and the biggest challenge was Ektaa (R. Kapoor, co-producer) and my constant conflict with each other on envisioning the film as it would come out to the audience. For Ektaa, it is very important that the average youth audience catches this because she really wants them to see this film. She was coming from that point of view and I was coming from my filmmaker’s point of view and there were heated arguments between us. But that was a challenge I liked because it moulded the film in fire.

Also, the use of new styles of music was a challenge. LSD2 is a far dangerous animal than LSD. It is threatening, it is more of an animal than the first one. There is a lot more simmering in this one.

Most films mollycoddle the audience, they please the audience, they pander to the audience.... So the audience goes in with some preset expectations which are formed in collusion with the filmmaker. But all those laws will be broken when you come in to watch LSD2. We don’t want to offend you and, therefore, we would rather tell you beforehand what this is about. So that you are kind of prepped for it and can enjoy it better.

How has Dibakar Banerjee evolved as a filmmaker since LSD?

I don’t know about evolved or different. I know that I have more EMIs to pay than I had 14 years ago! (Laughs) I have much less hair. I am the parent of a teenager and a pre-teen. At the same time, I am still that 27-year-old looking at himself in the mirror and saying: ‘Wow, I am actually making films and surviving!’

Unlike many other filmmakers, my existence is a lot more precarious. I am walking a lot many more tightropes and juggling a lot many more balls. But life is much more interesting than it was 14 years ago, which could mean that I have become a risk junkie! (Laughs)

Almost two decades in the business later, what do you think is the audience expectation from a Dibakar Banerjee film?

I don’t know, honestly. I don’t look at my films as some huge things. Filmmaking, for me, is a necessity. Films are something that I have to make, finish and move on to the next one. I think most of my films have tried to be different from the ones I have made prior to that particular film. I can only say that expect the unexpected.

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