Aar Ekti Premer Golpo

The story is delicately balanced between and among Chapal narrating his tragic story of being a closeted gay into the camera,the complexities arising out of Abhiroops open relationship with his cinematographer Basu and the sense of identification,empathy and belonging Abhiroop experiences through Chapals narration.

The first twist comes when Abhiroops brazen lifestyle,his way of dress and make-up,his body language,his speech patterns and the subject of his film are wrongly hyped by the Kolkata media forcing the team to cancel the shoot. Uday,a wild-life photographer offers his ancestral mansion in Hemapur for the shoot.

The second twist comes when Basus wife Rani arrives on location informing Basu in Abhiroops presence that she is pregnant. Abhiroops affair with Basu is threatened. There is a slight hint through a midnight sequence about the mutual attraction Abhiroop and Uday begin to share but it is not carried forward.

Abhiroop realises that his brazen way of living life openly and wearing his third gender identity on his sleeve leaves him as lonely,as alienated and as emotionally insecure as the subject of his film,Chapal. The film shows that time,education,culture and modernisation have not changed the common mans negative approach to the alternative sexual identities and orientation.

The structure moves back and forth as the past and present collide and collapse. When the film cuts to Chapals past as a young man,we see Abhiroop becoming Chapal and Basu becoming Chapals lover Krishna. Uday becomes Tushar,the young man who gave shelter to Chapal when Krishna disowned him after a clandestine relationship that lasted 20 years.

Rani,Basus wife,becomes Gopa,Krishnas wife while the production assistant Momo becomes the pretty and seductive Sheela who steps in as Krishnas new interest. As the film flashes back and forth,we realise that these are visualizations and fantasies of Abhiroop who begins to draw parallels between his life and Chapals. But each character duplicated in his visions stretches the audiences ability to reason and understand. This doubling could have remained limited to Abhiroop and Basu. The other characters playing dual roles sometimes appear to complicate the narrative.

Aar Ekti Premer Golpo is Abhiroops point-of-view. He is present in almost every frame sometimes subtle,often temperamental,but mostly,as vulnerable as a little child who calls up his mother on the cellphone whenever he feels lost. Behind his brazenness hides a man who is afraid of being left alone,like his subject Chapal Bhaduri,who,unlike Abhiroop,does not have a mother to call up. As Abhiroop,Rituparno practically plays himself on screen. As the young Chapal,he gives the right touch of fragile,feminine grace to the bejewelled,heavily made-up,Benarasi-saree-wearing younger Chapal who admits that he is a man trapped in a womans body.

Chapal Bhaduri as himself is outstanding. He portrays the pain of being a social outcast,the tragedy of being left alone,and finally,the voyeuristic exploitation of the movie camera he is forced to surrender to for that cheque at the end of the journey. There is no attempt either to evoke sympathy or to melodramatise his life.

It is Momo the production assistant who brings the point home. I think he (Abhiroop) is using Chapal to peg his own story on, she tells Basu once. Except Momo,the major characters are wittingly or unwittingly involved in a hide-and-seek game of emotional blackmail and quid pro quo.

Indraneil as Krishna fairs better than Indraneil as Basu,trapped in a no-exit love-life between wife and boyfriend. The same applies to Churni Ganguly who plays Rani and Gopa. However,her sweet-syrupy-and-soppy scene with Abhiroop rings false. Jisshu Sengupta is very good both as the soft-spoken,friendly Uday and the macho,soft-hearted and sexy Tushar. Raima is very good as the only character without any stake,the unobtrusive balancing factor in all interactions – personal and professional.

Debajyoti Misras fusion of the past and present in his musical score,Moinak Bhoumiks masterful editing and Soumik Haldars brilliant cinematography explore the delicate nuances of the fragile subject with the sensitivity and empathy it demands minus the sleaze it could have easily succumbed to. Both Kaushik Ganguly and Rituparno deserve kudos for their direction and creative inputs respectively.

Rating: ***

The film deserves four stars – direction,acting,music and cinematography. The film is more about the gay persons anxiety to belong to someone,to society,to friends and family than about the sexual implications inherent in a same-sex relationship.