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.
