Bengali Review: 'Baishey Shrabon' is stunning

New Delhi: Srijit Mukherji calls his 'Baishey Shrabon' a dark and violent thriller. Dark it is, but so stunningly dark.

The way Kolkata streets melt in with Goutam Ghosh's poetry and then washes away with the rains that are so common to the city - leaves a little bit of Kolkata in every heart watching the movie.

'U-Turn' is a big turn-off

As a film critic, it bogs me no end when I discover that a director (Animesh Roy) who perhaps began a film with hope in his heart and dreams in his eyes, loses interest in it and allows it to be shot, edited and screened on its own steam.

What ‘steam’ is left when the acting cast is drawn at random from anywhere and everywhere with just two familiar faces and little known names to match them? Where the scriptwriter cannot make up his mind whether he wants to make a thriller, a ghost story, or a psychological murder mystery?

'Sara Raat' is not a classic

Sara Raat is produced and directed by Ranjitmul Kankaria. It is the celluloid adaptation of a novel of the same name by noted litterateur Sailajananda Mukhopadhyay (1901-1976) who was himself a screenplay writer and director.

Beginning with Patal Puri (1935), Mukhopadhyay went on to direct 16 more feature films spread over a span of two decades. Published in 1959, Sara Raat was a very popular novel and raised a lot of debate and discussion because of its unconventional take on husband-wife relationships that sustains till this day.

Jeet is the sole saving grace in 'Josh'

Quick on the heels of Jeet’s comeback project Wanted, Ravi Kinnagi presents him with a completely new screen image in Josh. Has Jeet been able to live up to this faith? Yes, yes and yes. As Indra, he invests life into the varied shades of the character that covers light romance, song-dance numbers, drama, melodrama and action.

The story is practically coming out of our ears with slight permutations of the beaten stuff. Indra falls in love with Anuradha (Srabonti) at first sight. But this ‘sight’ is via a DVD she has mailed to brother Rajeev (Anshuman), Jeet’s bosom friend.

'Target' is the same old story with a new hero

So we have seen all the revenge-action flicks we possibly could. But what can one do if scriptwriters and directors have run out of ideas and fall back on routine stuff churned out again and again and yet again? We hardly have much choice but to watch and extract some entertainment from the stuff that is handed out in somewhat different presentations.

Target, as the name suggests, is a drama spilling over with blood, gore and action.

'Musalmanir Galpo': Botched attempt to film Tagore

The story of Musalmanir Galpo, unlike most Tagore creations, is very cinema-friendly, message-oriented and carries a strong woman-centric statement.

It weaves itself around a young Brahmin girl called Kamala (Mumtaz Sorcar). As an orphan, this beautiful girl, talented in music is brought up by a kind uncle (Biplab Chatterjee) and an unkind aunt (Anamika Saha). Her life changes on her way to her husband’s home when a dreaded dacoit attacks the group to abduct her. She is rescued by Muslim philanthropist and social activist Habir Khan (Sudip Mukherjee).

Sameera's 'The Voyeurs' is dark and brooding

Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Ami Yasin Ar Amar Madhubala, unlike most of his films, carries a scathing social comment on the dehumanisation of the individual who, at some point of time, finds himself so enslaved to sophisticated surveillance techniques that human interaction holds no meaning for him.

Dilip (Prosenjit) is a young man who lives alone in a sparse room in a dingy Kolkata bylane and makes a living out of installing surveillance infrastructure. The only ‘friend’ he has is a framed, black-and-white portrait of the beautiful 1950s' actress Madhubala who he carries on his monologues with. So, when his small town buddy Yasin (Amitav Bhattacharya) joins him in search of work, he finds it difficult to communicate with him.

Keep away from 'Bondhu Esho Tumi'

'Bondhu' meaning friend, is the current flavour of Bengali masala film-makers of B- and C-grade for their film titles. Who decides this grading? The audience and the critics, of course. If there is little or no audience in the theatre screening a certain film, then there are no guessing games to play about the quality of the film.

Partho Sarathi Joardar’s Bondhu Esho Tumi produced under the banner of MCP Films uses the bondhu in the title quite liberally to include a ‘will-love-you-till-I-die’ relationship between Rahul (Sujoy), the hero and Raima (Tanya) the heroine that happens before you can click your computer mouse. The ‘friendship’ angle does not exist.

Mithun's 'Shukno Lanka', brilliant acting scale

Shukno Lanka tackles a subject rarely explored in Bengali cinema – the junior artiste. The title is a metaphor for the junior artiste who, like a dry red chilli which Shukno Lanka translates to, is mandatory in every Indian dish/film but is neither recognised nor appreciated.

Chinu Nandy (Mithun Chakraborty) is a junior artiste for around 30 years. His life is one long struggle hopping into a tramcar to knock at studio doors looking for work to be gained through humiliation, oppression and insults. His life with wife Bela (Angana Sen), a content couch-potato in a small one-room flat in a dingy bylane where the local youth keeping ragging Chinu mercilessly, is like a refreshing balm that smoothes the pains away.

'Ekti Tarar Khonje': Much ado about nothing

Ekti Tarar Khonje, directorial debut of Bengal's best known cinematographer Abhik Mukherjee, is about Abhishek (Shayan Munshi), a young, orphan from the suburbs who moves to Kolkata to become an actor.

Before leaving, he discovers to his shock, that he can see flashes of the future through his gift of foresight. His friend Dev (Rudranil Ghosh) helps him find a roof and an audition.