Ashchorjyo Prodeep [2013]

Anik Dutta’s linguistic prowess was proven in his hilarious debut film Bhuter Bhabishyat, and his adroitness at using humour through wordplays, innuendoes, puns, wisecracks and ironies, for the purpose of socio-political satires, was in full display here in Ashchorjyo Prodeep. Though one might find the script and dialogues too loaded and over-indulgent at times, with a slight overdose of double entendres, the film succeeded in inducing belly-laughs as well as somber introspection on account of the lacerating commentary on rabid consumerism. Based on a short story by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, this covered a couple of days in the life of a typical middle-class Bengali man (Saswata Chatterjee), who is not particularly fond of his job, lives in a cramped place at an Old Calcutta locale, is married to a buxom and openly unsatisfied lady (Sreelekha Mitra), has very few material possessions and demands, and secretly fantasizes on a Bollywood sexpot (Mumtaz Sorcar),. His unspectacular life of conveniences and compromises, however, takes a U-turn when he stumbles upon an antique magic lamp and makes the acquaintance of a dark-suited genie (Rajatava Dutta) who is ready to make all his latent desires come true. His incredible joy at this fortuitous development, unfortunately, transforms into despair over the course of the day as he ends up experiencing more than he bargained for. The insipid music videos and a few weak moments apart (which ought to have been edited out), this tacit morality play, with the simple fun of the previous film replaced by darker humour and hues, managed to be an engaging watch. Saswata and Rajatava were excellent as were the cinematography and production designs.

Director: Anik Dutta
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire
Language: Bengali
Country: India