Saturday, October 19, 2013

Mishawr Rawhoshyo: Mummified in Mediocrity



Mishawr Rawhoshyo! The exoticism and thrill embedded in the title ends in the title itself. Srijit Mukherjee’s latest is chic and smart, but lacks the edginess of a thriller. The disappointment grows steadily having set in at the very outset. The unforgivably miscast Prosenjit Chatterjee’s atrocious English and pretentions of intellectualism grate on the nerve from the very first scene which is, however, occasionally alleviated by Aryann (Santu), the only saving grace of the film. Prosenjit is the last person any Bengali can imagine in the garb of Kakababu, and he adds insult to injury to the character by performing it rather badly. In fact, the film should have been called ‘Chokher Bali’ or ‘Eyesore’, the title alluding to Prosenjit’s awful performance and even more agonizing screen presence. The biggest flaw is that Santu appears brighter and more intelligent than Kakababu, and the audience all along misses with a sigh a younger Soumitra Chatterjee or any other intelligent yesteryear actor who could have essayed the role with panache. Mukherjee could have cast some Bollywood actor, rather than let his film sink. Prosenjit cannot be cast in every other role; he might have a mass appeal (but am sure he was never popular with the educated metropolitan audience), and he does not have the polish or learning to perform such literary characters like Kakababu. It’s blasphemy to cast him! Just note how Prosenjit appears like a fish out of water in the JNU campus! You cannot but feel sorry for the poor chap. Sunil Gangopadhyay must be turning in his grave. 



If Prosenjit wasn’t causing enough anguish, Mukherjee brought in his own interpretation to the original story and linked it up with the revolution in Egypt. The idea was indeed novel, but the execution is terribly confused, perfunctory and shallow. No serious research seems to have gone into it, and the lack is glaringly visible in every single frame. In trying to contemporize the story, the filmmaker forgot to work on the mystery bit, and failed big time in packing the right kind of punch to let the thrill build-up. He ended up making an unpardonable mockery of the Egyptian Revolution. Despite Indraneil’s honest effort, the revolution which is in its rudimentary stage fails to appeal to the audience’s sympathy, for the filmmaker only skims the surface of it, not bothering to plunge deep.

The film actually tends to push you out of the theatre every time Sujan and Swastika Mukherjee appear on the screen in their pitiable middeclass-ness. No adjective can actually convey how agonizing they are; in fact, they have done more harm to the film than Prosenjit! And be prepared to be tortured by Santu's middleclass nyaka romance with a dolled-up nyaka girlfriend. Whatever it is, it is tortuous all along!


Mishawr Rawhoshyo, is totally rawhoshyo-less, and would remain in people’s memory for being the first Bengali film which had given plenty of screen time to the Sahara Desert. That would be its only claim to fame!  What Mukherjee has forgotten is that people have access to much better ‘detective’ films produced across the globe, thanks to the internet, and films like Mishawr Rawhoshyo can only cause embarrassment to the highly informed audience of the present day. Mediocrity being Tollywood’s forte, nothing could be expected from these directors; and Bengali Cinema would continue to revel in shoddiness, occasionally looking back nostalgically to a bygone of era of watchable films. 


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Photo courtesy: en.wikipedia.org

Accessed on 19 October 2013.