A pastoral love tale

Technical Expertise
Achin Pakhi is a pastoral love tale. But will this love story of a bygone era set against a rural backdrop appeal to the contemporary,urban audience? Achin Pakhi is a remake of Monpura,a Bangladeshi film,a box-office hit. It is based on a segment from Moimansingh Geetika Panchali. Subrat Dutta and Manali Dey exude an air of sparkle,established star faces might have failed to bring across. Duttas performance is outstanding precisely because it is straightforward,simple and without gimmicks. Manali in her large screen debut shows promise,if not so much in her body language,then through her mobile face. But their diction is too pure and does not carry the dialectical nuances of the area – Machranga Dwip near Taki on the Icchamoti River. The mutual love at first sight is too sudden but in keeping with tales of legendary love. Sudip Chakraborty as the insane Tanu is very good.

Achin Pakhi has the typical rubber stamp of an Anjan Das venture – low-key treatment and soft-footed approach. But the story is melodrama- friendly so the low-key approach might not work where loudness is the bottomline. It is a cinematographers film. Cinematographer Aseem Bose caressingly pans across the Ichhamoti River with his camera. It is almost entirely an outdoor film,moving back and forth to and from a dilapidated bungalow where Achin lives alone,cooks for himself and has only his animals,mynah and himself to talk to,to the village,the river,Pakhis hut surrounded by fish-nets,etc. In prison,he draws sketches of Pakhi on the wall and talks to her. From the first frame of a drenched body lying in the darkness of night till the closing frames of Achin boating aimlessly on the Ichamoti waters,fantasising his lost love on another boat,decked up in bridal costume,till the boat reduces to a blob and then blends into the river waters,Achin Pakhi is a visual delight. Das uses folk music for the songs taken from the original film. The songs are good but some of them do not quite fit in.

Boses camera explores every area of cinematography focussed on a riverscape – long-shots and medium shots of the river,mid close-ups and close-ups of the lovers faces offering relief from the dark ambience of the film. Shot almost entirely in natural light,there are mesmerising shots of Rai Sahebs boat arriving on the island. The night shots are lit by the waving light of Pakhis flamed torch in the distance. At another end,we see the lights of the police boats come to capture Achin. Boses camera captures the infinity of the river with the horizon rising across,mainly in shades of gray. The editing needed to be tighter because the first half drags its feet with repetitive shots while the second half picks up but hardly has much story left.
Rating
One star for acting,one star for cinematography and one star for the directors choice of locale.