A niche film

Biren (Arun Mukhopadhyay),who runs a small tea-place in Manmatha’s office,is terrified when there is a bomb blast in a site under construction in his slum. Thrown out of his business,he wanders around picking up leftovers from the chicken vendor,vegetable seller,cigarette shop and tea-stall. He asks everyone,“I have nothing to fear,do I?” Selim,an anti-social,decides to play on this fear. He pulls out a gun,forces it into Biren’s trembling hand,sticks it to his head and asks him to pull the trigger. He thinks the magazine is empty. The terrified Biren pulls the trigger and falls dead. His terror was real,his death a cruel joke. Selim reports the ‘accident’ to his mafia boss. “I have nothing to fear,do I?” he asks,terrified out of his wits.

Manmatha has brought his suicidal and depressed nephew,the US-returned MBA Rohit (Chandan Roy Sanyal) back to his plush apartment in a high-rise. The balcony is littered with toys the neighbour’s child keeps dropping. From the fear that drove him into depression,he steps into fears of remembrance. His marriage to the beautiful and enigmatic Rongili (Rituparna) is dead. His relationship with the intellectual Kamalini (Sreelekha) is dying. The proud Rongili is dogged by the fear of her failed marriage and the baby she aborted hurt by Rohit’s cowardly response to her pregnancy. “One of us must die,” she says,her way of escape. Rohit strums his guitar out of tune in the buff,strips himself in front of the mirror and flashes the remote to watch scenes of man-made disasters in silent mode. Then,on a partial lunar eclipse night (Angshik Chandragrahan),in a dream-like trance,he watches Rongili dressed up elaborately for a self-inflicted Sati with silver-faced,head-covered women singing and preparing her for the final immolation. It is the most beautifully visualised and choreographed scene in the film. But it lacks poignancy because it does not jell with Rohit’s character,persona and experience.

TECHNICAL EXPERTISE:

Amar Kono Bhoy Nei Toh is mind-blowing in every sense. It stands by itself as much as it belongs to the triptych. Arun Mukhopadhyay’s performance is unforgettable. The third story is the flashback of the first. Rituparna invests the enigma the character has with minimum dialogue. Sreelekha sparkles in an atypical characterisation of a woman who makes her boyfriend feel inferior and angry. Chandan’s Rohit is refreshing and charming,but definitely not like a US-returned MBA character is expected to be. Anjan Dutt and Biplab play themselves naturally. Roopam Islam’s background score and the songs on the soundtrack are perhaps the only elements that are quintessentially Kolkata,other than the film’s language. The editorial and cinematic ‘bridges’ to jump from one scene to another focussing on the highways and main roads seem incoherent and confusing specially when the camera goes awry and takes somersaults. Indraneel Mukherjee’s cinematography capturing the slums,the dimly-lit hospital ambience,the mood-lighting in the apartment and the semi-silhouetted figures of Rongili and Rohit is moving. Argya Kamal Mitra’s editing blends the story segments smoothly but fails in those highway-shot,fast-track ‘bridges.’ Suman has paid close attention to the sound design,to highlight the shifting moods of the characters. Mahanagar@Kolkata is more character-centric than place-centric.

The city,in its modern labyrinthine form,offers the ideal environment for a film that combines several genres in one without confusion. Can the residents cope with the constant state of fear the city places them under? Mahanagar@Kolkata that draws a very mixed response for its structural experiment,explores the fear that has taken over the lives of the people of Kolkata,cutting across caste,class,age,occupation and sex.

RATING:
One star of this niche-niche film goes to the entire acting team,one to the cinematography and one to Suman’s courage to place on celluloid,three very cinema-unfriendly stories by one of the most brutally incisive contemporary authors in Bengali literature – Nabarun Bhattacharya.