When a film casts the biggest superstar and the best actor of Bengali cinema of our generation pitted against each other in life and in performing arts, and head on acknowledges who is the better actor of the two and how that is often not enough for success; it makes a bold and highly self-aware statement about hard facts of life without being worried about any repercussions. Also, when a film’s story-line builds on the everyday mundaneness of daily lives, and thrives on its organic but predictable conflicts without trying to force-fit anything just for the sake of drama; one has to again applaud the fearlessness and the sure-footed awareness of the story-teller about his ability to touch lives without an attempt to manipulate emotions. Kaushik Ganguly and his profound new film Jyeshthoputro are brilliant examples of such confident and restrained poignancy!

Continue reading “JYESHTHOPUTRO : Melancholic Musings of Life” →

Gulzar, in one of his reminiscences of Pancham, had once said..

“Ye ghalat hain ki waqt guzar jaata hain.. Waqt, time eternal hain, permanent hain.. aur kabhi nahi guzarta.. Jo guzar jaata hain woh hum aur tum hain..”

In Churni Ganguly’s Tarikh, the three central characters Ani, Ira or Rudra could have easily said the same about life as it happens to them. The footprint that one creates during a lifetime on the minds and hearts of the near ones, or not so near ones, either in the real or virtual world’s timeline, becomes a permanent impression for life, even after people are long gone. The timeline hence gets frozen in eternity, and becomes a staggering documentation of what people stand for or cannot stand for in their lifetime – beliefs, fear, aspirations, insecurities, or passing emotions of joy, pain, envy, love, loss and everything in between.

Continue reading “TARIKH : The Refreshing Timeline of Emotions” →

Mukherjee Dar Bou is what happens when the intent of making a film about free spirited thinking against a regressive patriarchal backdrop gets terribly hampered by a writing style and character development heavily influenced by the daily bangla soaps of today! An important story about everyday women fighting their own insecurities and for their identities, while becoming the biggest enemies of each other as severely conditioned by the regressive societal upbringing and unconscious patriarchal thinking, gets completely lost in execution since debut filmmaker Pritha Chakraborty and writer Samragnee Bandopadhyay only know the over the top, theatrical and terribly cliched narration style to deliver their message. And it feels extremely sad when two women cannot shape the content about women in a dignified, poignant and effective way, and almost fall into the same trap of typical cliches that they want their protagonists to overcome and be victorious in life.

Continue reading “MUKHERJEE DAR BOU : Good Intent, Poor Execution, Forgettable Experience” →

Basu Paribar, just like the traditional grand mansion of the family, wants to encash nostalgia and grandeur to make up for the lack of soul and attachment in the overall narrative. Just like the family in question, in spite of all the materialism on the surface, the deep wide cracks appear all over the cinematic narrative, and inspite of all the drama built up around dark forbidden secrets of the past, it never comes together as a unit to leave a lasting impact.

Continue reading “BASU PARIBAR : Deep Wide Cracks” →

Chapter based hyperlink stories are nothing new to bangla cinema. Each of these chapters dealing with broken relationships, urban loneliness, existential crisis, or racing for peace against time is also nothing new. In fact we have see many of themes repeating regularly in Anjan Dutt‘s earlier films as well. So when he decides to package all these in a hyperlink format as three separate story tracks, and then tries to connect them all together in the final chapter called Finally Bhalobasha, it all appears like a forced gimmicky effort.

Continue reading “FINALLY BHALOBASHA : Finally Goes Nowhere” →

In the most simplistic terms, Kia and Cosmos, the debut feature film by Sudipto Roy is the coming-of-age story of a young autistic girl who has a far from perfect life and wants to get to the truth and only that in her own capacity. But watch closely and patiently, and this beautiful film is so much more than that.

Continue reading “KIA AND COSMOS Review : A Humane, Affectionate & Delicate Gaze At Life” →

‘Palki chale… Hun huna…. Gagon tale… Hun huna…. Aagun jwale… Hun huna…’ – It is a recurring phrase that is repeated time and again at various situations, and beautifully summarizes the crushing cycle of life that Bijoya depicts as a film! It wouldn’t have been an easy decision to make a sequel of Bishorjon – after all it was vintage Kaushik Ganguly whom we had seen after long, and whom we have not seen since then (Bishorjon review here). It was a deeply engaging story of Padma Haldar, Naser Ali, and Ganesh Mondol set across the Indo-Bangladesh cultural fabric, and though it had ended with some open questions, many of us had drawn our closures based on our interpretation of those characters and their motivations. Of course, Ganguly the director had other plans, and some of those interpreted closures fell flat on the ground as we got a sneak peak of Bijoya a few days back. We were not complaining though, because it meant that we could again embark on a voyage with the three central characters, and this time around the journey would become even more engaging with a tighter script and more nuanced storytelling!

Continue reading “BIJOYA : An aching lump of emotions” →