area = forms.DecimalField(max_digits=20)

raise Exception(type(a.get('area',))

float(a.get('area', '0'))

area = form.data['area']
#area should be <type 'unicode'>
area_float = float(area)

a = u'1.34'
a_float = float(a)
type(a_float)
>> <type 'float'>

if form.is_valid():
   # Form is valid, so do stuff with the form data
   # e.g. send email, save to DB etc.
   area = form.cleaned_data['area']
   # more code here