Wednesday 23 November 2022

Lal Darja (The Red Door) [1997]

 Reality, dreams, memories, and fantasy coalesced quite freely in Lal Darja, with its mystifying title referring to the potential path to freedom, escape and happiness, as well as – ironically – something that's destined to remain hopelessly unattainable. However, despite what its intriguing premise might suggest, it was also a film seeped in bleak realism, existential crisis, and despair. In this seeming dissonance – between its subtly grand formal crux and downbeat lyricism – and the heavy use of allegories, lay its strength as well as relative blemish, especially the weightiness and tonal unevenness in this otherwise wry, understated and melancholic work. The movie’s protagonist is Nabin Dutta (Subhendu Chatterjee), a dreary and increasingly withdrawn middle-aged dentist who’s in a clear state of quandary – the relationship with his wife has collapsed irrevocably, his teenage son refuses to speak to him, and he’s even started making some rather silly errors at work. His gloom and acute loneliness are manifested by an inexplicable disease that’s causing impotency and plaguing his emotional stability – and for which he visits a gaggling doctor (Haradhan Bandopadhyay) who possibly doesn’t exist –; sardonically juxtaposed by the sense of perplexity he continually experiences on account of his  easy-going chauffeur who’s happily married to two women, including the coquettish and alluring Maloti (Indrani Haldar) – something that could just be a figment of his imagination as well, even if that isn’t explicitly established –; and alleviated to some extent by his regular falling back to his memories of growing up in the tranquil environs of Cherrapunji when he believed that he had the power to open the eponymous red door, on the other side of which lay the answers to all his wishes.







Director: Buddhadeb Dasgupta

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama

Language: Bengali

Country: India

Saturday 19 November 2022

Tahader Katha (Their Story) [1992]

 The understated palette, languorous pacing, and moody poetic realism in Dasgupta’s haunting and eloquent film Tahader Katha, were strikingly counterpointed with its bristling undercurrents of fury. It formed a fitting companion piece to the director’s next work Charachar, in that the protagonists of both films were fragile and eccentric outsiders – a disillusioned and tormented former freedom fighter, and a passionate bird-lover, respectively – who’re at complete odds with the society for being square pegs in round holes. Shibnath (Mithun Chakraborty), finally released upon India’s independence after having spent eleven years in prison during the British Raj, has been left utterly broken both physically and psychologically – he even spent three years in a mental asylum and still carries the ravaging scars of PTSD – on account of relentless torture, harsh conditions and solitary confinement. Further, the horrors of partition – during which his wife (Anashua Mujumdar) and kids who were forced into becoming refugees from East Bengal – and the pervading human corruption that he witnesses as he’s finally reunited with his family – manifested in particular by his former comrade Bipin (Dipankar De) who trumpets himself as a great patriot in his efforts to become an elected politician, despite minimal contributions – leaves him angry, cynical and disenchanted… so much so, that he alienates everyone around him and withdraws into a melancholic shell. Buoyed by Mithun’s alternatively muted and ferocious turn, and the sublime portrayal of rural Bengal – through long takes, gentle pans, sublime vistas and disarming 360-degree camera turns – its circular arc reminded me of Angelopoulos’ devastating tour de force Voyage to Cythera, where too a former rebel finds himself stranded in an alien land upon returning home after many years in political exile.







Director: Buddhadeb Dasgupta

Genre: Drama/Political Drama/Existential Drama

Language: Bengali

Country: India

Sunday 13 November 2022

Charachar (Shelter of the Wings) [1993]

 Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Charachar – adapted from a Prafulla Roy novel, and made in a phase when he was crafting one acclaimed arthouse film after another – is a tender, understated and poignant parable on the existential crisis of an eccentric, misunderstood man – a misfit and an outsider, like most protagonists in his oeuvre – who’s finding himself unable to reconcile to his livelihood. Lakhinder (Rajit Kapoor), a young and simple guy residing in a tiny hamlet with his wife (Laboni Sarkar), earns his living as a bird-catcher. He spends his days with the middle-aged Bhushan (Sadhu Meher) – whose beautiful teenage daughter (Indrani Haldar) has a soft corner for the dreamy Lakhinder – in uninhabited fields and forests in order to cater to a local dealer. He, however, has developed such a deep love for birds, that he’s finding it increasingly difficult to accept them confined within cages, and hence keeps releasing them. As a result, his debt and therefore impoverishment are constantly on the rise, which in turn has taken his marriage to the brink of collapse, as his intensely frustrated wife has secretly started an affair with another man (Shankar Chakraborty) who bestows gifts on her. As he keeps sliding into an alternate world unencumbered by practical expectations and daily rigmarole, that transition gets permanently sealed upon a trip to Calcutta, in order to sell their birds to another dealer (Manoj Mitra) at a higher price, that ends on a devastating note for this sensitive guy who was already teetering on the edge. The film is filled with marvellously photographed vistas of rural Bengal and a lonesome, poetic atmosphere, thus ironically making it an incredibly benign counterpoint to Hitchcock’s The Birds.







Director: Buddhadeb Dasgupta

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Rural Drama

Language: Bengali

Country: India

Wednesday 9 November 2022

Grihajuddha (Crossroads) [1982]

 The sub-genre of paranoia/conspiracy thrillers – covering political corruption, institutional malfeasance, sordid machinations of large corporations, covering up of inconvenient truths using compromised agencies, and unravelling of the rut, amidst an atmosphere of secrecy, disillusionment and fatalism – was incredibly relevant to the political zeitgeist of the 50, 60s and in particular the 70s. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, rooted to the Bengal/Calcutta milieu, but surely well-aware of this genre trend, amalgamated its facets into the backdrop of Naxalite movement and its explosive face-off with the industry-government nexus, into his early film Grihajuddha. Quite atypical to his oeuvre, it was gritty, confrontational, discomfiting, and defiantly positioned to the left in its bristling critique of the state, big business, and complicity of those aspiring for class transition. When a senior labour union leader, who’s stumbled upon some murky information involving the steel giant where he’s employed, dies under mysterious circumstances – ostensibly in an accident, but possibly murdered by his powerful employer – and firebrand union leader Prabir gets beaten to death by lumpen elements thereafter, lives of three people get transformed irrevocably. Nirupama (Mamata Shankar), the latter’s soft-spoken but morally resolute sister, is arm-twisted into relocating and forced into taking a job in the same organization due to severe financial stress; Bijon (Anjan Dutt), once an idealistic guy who followed Prabir and had a relationship with Nirupama, is compelled to go into hiding, but returns completely changed into a cynical guy who’s decided to move on; and Sandipan (Goutam Ghose), a journalist who’s committed to uncovering the conspiracy despite his slimy boss’ stonewalling. The film’s production and post-production aspects were rough, even stilted, at times, but its political and moral compass were fierce, uninhibited, and unwavering.

Note: My earlier review of this film can be found here.







Director: Buddhadeb Dasgupta

Genre: Thriller/Political Drama/Conspiracy Thriller

Language: Bengali

Country: India