Jiyo Kaka

Jiyo Kaka shows how one need not fall back on a romantic angle,or show blood and gore,or an item song to make an entertaining film.

Actor-writer Rudranil Ghosh has written a part-autobiographical,part-fictional story about three youngsters,as different from each other as chalk from cheese,bond in their common love a dream to make it in films. Wrik (Rahul) wants to make Bollywood and Hollywood kind of films but is currently forced to do a job he hates; being run down while assisting another young director. Asif (Rudranil),a talented script writer,worships avant- garde Ray,Ghatak and Sen. Amit (Abhiraj) is a wannabe Shah Rukh Khan,is currently a junior artiste under an agent who exploits him. Jiyo Kaka,a phrase the three friends are fond of repeating,symbolises the do-or-die spirit of these young dreamers. Do they do or do they die? The rest of the film offers some answers through laughs,tears,touching moments of strange bondings and some suspense that sadly falls flat.

The three share a room in a dingy locality of Kolkata. An entire wall of their room is plastered with pictures of celebrities of cinema across the world. The other wall is filling up slowly,much to the disgust of their landlord who threatens to throw out the trio as they have not paid three months of rent. The three have no clue about making a film or about the seamier side of the film industry. Everyone turns them down. The final blow comes from Tollywoods top actress Neelanjana Gupta (Rituparna Sengupta) who throws them out of her make-up room for asking her to produce their film! They decide to kidnap her,extort a ransom and produce the film with the ransom money.

The kidnapping and what follows changes the mood of the story from dreams to reality to coincidence to a melodramatic climax. Parambratos desperation to impress all kinds of audience in general and his producers in particular in his directorial debut creates frissons that interrupt the flow of the entertaining narrative. The kidnapped taking over the show from her kidnappers,amateurish and bumbling enough to use mens underwear as masks during the capture,is the best part of the film. But her turning over to the side of her captors and being completely bowled over by their script,their naiveté and their determination to see their dream realised,though narrated very well cinematographically,rings false logically. The arguments,discussions,debates,fights and differences among the three young men who take potshots at the simple Amit who has a soft corner for Nilanjana,are done very well. Soumik Haldars beautiful cinematography follows the trio as they move sporadically across the crowded Kolkata streets,inside their wall-papered room,on top of the terrace of the building,and in the darkened interiors of the bungalow where they have held Nilanjana captive. Neel Dutts title-song Jiyo Kaka is wonderful. One night scene beside a lake in Bolpur showing Nilanjana belting out a Tagore song in the moonlight as the three young captors look on fascinated,is one of the most cinematographically- telling moments in the film. The trio successfully get under the skin of the characters they portray and so does Rituparna as Neelanjana. Kanchan Mullick as the two-faced,double-dealing star secretary does well but the villainous image does not suit him.

Jiyo Kaka shows how one need not fall back on a romantic angle,or show blood and gore,or an item song to make an entertaining film. This is precisely why the character of the nutty don (Shilajit) does not jell at all. He wears cricket whites,has his bumbling henchmen wear them too,decorates his den with shimmering cricket balls hanging from the ceiling that resemble shimmers off a Christmas Tree. He is always thrilled about his cricketing lingo and his non-existent intelligence. In fact,If you take away the Shilajit factor,Parambrato might have had to find a different way to end his tale,but Jiyo Kaka would then have been a much better film.

VERDICT: ***

Three-stars each – for direction,acting and cinematography

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