Chotushkon: Triangles and Tragedies

The seemingly complex parallelepiped-like structure that encloses the title of Srijit Mukherji’s Chotushkon is a figurative representation of the plot which unfolds to reveal several twists and turns, surprising the audience with its sudden shift to a popular generic mode, which was unanticipated. But, for an alert viewer, the end should not come as a surprise: as it happens with several Hollywood thrillers, the more fastidious audience would constantly be nagged by the film’s prelude to the main plot. Beginning with a macabre suicide, the film leaps into a sophisticated world of filmmakers, three veteran and another struggling (completing the Chotushkon), who set out to make a film, which would be a bouquet of four shorts, each linked by a common theme: death! 

  

Actually, three different texts seem to operate without any apparent connection; and within those three texts, three other texts are inserted (shot in three different filters, green, red and blue), with a fourth text constantly signalling its possible emergence but never materialising. Interestingly, as this fourth text is anticipated with a lot of expectation, the twist comes with the audience realizing that they have been always already inhabiting this fourth text, without knowing. (If one notices the deployment of the three different filters, RGB, it would not be difficult to apprehend the fourth story. It's technically already there...the three filters merge to produce colour scale of the fourth story, the main story....it demands a little more attention!)

The plot gets even more layered as the characters within the main plot also realize that they have been made to perform within a text, plotted long time back. It’s as complex as the line structure that encapsulates the title! One really needs to pay attention to find one’s way out of this maze of overlapping fictions.

What makes Chotushkon an interesting watch is how the geometrical structure of the quadrilateral is deconstructed into a triangle, which becomes the base of, not one, but a triple tragedy. Srijit Mukherji seems to have come a long way from his Hemlock Society or Mishwar Rohoshyo to conceive something as intriguing as this. Located firmly in Tollygunje, the film to a great extent is auto-reflexive, concurring within it several intertexts (some a little too obvious, some subtle). This auto-reflexivity engenders a rare humour that undercuts the predominantly dismal circumstances in which the film starts, and seems to meander into now and then. Sample this: When Dipu (Chiranjeet Chakraborty, alias Dipak Chakraborty in real life) proposes a plot about an eccentric man, devastated at his wife’s death, he introduces his wife as Banalata and the framed picture shows Kirron Kher in her Devdas avatar. Several discourses are in operation here. First, Chiranjeet had played the treacherous lover to Kirron Kher’s Banalata in Rituparno Ghosh’s classic Bariwali. Kher also played Parvati’s mother Sumitra in Sanjay Bhansali’s 2002 adaptation of Devdas, and had appeared more comic than tragic in her exaggerated boisterousness. While Banalata is a victim of a man’s ruthless exploitation and is still remembered for her composure, poise and muted agony, Sumitra is etched in the memory of the Indian audience for her loudness and over-the-top, high-strung melodrama. The conflation of the two images (which also symbolise merging two different gharanas of filmmaking) in the framed photograph, therefore, appears hilarious, provided the audience could make the connection. This little scene also functions as a small tribute to Rituparno Ghosh who was supposed to play Jayabrata (the role now essayed by Parambrata Chattopadhyay). If Ghosh had played this character it would certainly have a different name.

And there's the unmistakable 36 Chowringhee Lane and Mr. and Mrs. Iyer connection. Aparna Sen had shot into fame as a director with the former revolving around a lonely Anglo-Indian English teacher, who is eventually betrayed by her favourite student. With Aparna Sen as the conjurer in the third film-within-the film, Mukherji makes it a palimpsest of her career as it were. Mrs. Meenakshi Iyer (Mr. and Mrs. Iyer) come together with Violet Stoneham (here Miss Havisham in the second film within the film, the Great Expectations link going very well with the English teacher in the third story) creating a thrilling memory game as it were. 

In another scene, towards the climax, posters of popular films hanging on the wall, act as interesting intertexts for the film in discussion. Through posters of such hardcore commercial films (specially, Protishodh and Troyee, which also hint at the theme) Mukherji makes a conscious effort to locate his own film in history.  The Aranyer Dinratri poster, on the other hand, becomes a literal reminder of the final setting: a bunglow in the middle of a dense forest. Sesh Anko again underscores the theme of murder and retribution. Nemesis? However, this could have been done far more subtly.

One of the primary strengths of the film is its cast: Parambrata Chattopadhyay is brilliant, in his easy-going, slightly effete and vulnerable disposition as the youngest of the foursome. Aparna Sen is restrained and it is interesting to note how she plays herself, but with a detachment. Chiranjit Chakraborty surprises by his performance which is comparable only to Dipankar in Bariwali. This time he speaks in his own voice though. Goutam Ghose is real, and delivers satisfactorily. But, it’s Kaushik Ganguly who leaves an indelible impression. The Payel-Indrashish-Rahul trio needed a lot more grooming though. They barley appeared as belonging to the 70s...the grey-scale did not help much.

Anyway, whether spring has returned to Tollygunje is difficult to confirm, but Chotushkone would surely contribute to expedite its arrival, given others also come up with equally interesting stories, not just a dumb Dev gyrating to cacophonous music in exotic locales and punching blood out of puppet-like goons. Bangla Cinema has always sustained itself on good storytelling, not on special effects or action (that’s why a Bangla Troy with Moonmoon Sen as Helen appears so classically hilarious); and Chotushkone tells the story well.

Goynar Baksho: Pishima’s pranks and women’s liberation

It was Rituparno Ghosh who had made Rangapishima immensely endearing with all her radicalism and open-mindedness, almost a decade back, in Shubho Muharat. In Goynar Baksho, Aparna Sen’s Rashmoni (Moushumi Chatterjee) with her mischievousness and libertinism and all her rancorous and benign spookiness, uncannily reminds of Rangapishima! Although it is true that Rashmoni is comparatively more rustic and acid-tongued than Ghosh’s Rangapishima, removed from her by several decades. Yet, it is hard not to think of Rangapishima when Rashmoni urges Somlata (Konkona Sen Sharma) to break moral barriers or embarrasses her with personal questions. The most glaring reminder is the cat which often acts as the receptacle of Pishima’s departed soul. This comparison, however, is not to decry Sen’s or Chatterjee’s effort to bring Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s Rashmoni to life. Both Rangapishima and Rashmoni would have their individual places in the history of Bengali cinema. 

            Goynar Baksho is an out-and-out woman’s film, if not feminist. Somlata’s independence which is earned through her intelligent business planning and Pishima’s unwavering support forms the core of the narrative. What remains glaringly ironical all through, and commendably so, is that complete liberation from patriarchal control seems possible only after the death of the woman. The film, which begins with Pishima’s death and creates a laugh riot when Pishima mischievously takes little revenges for the wrongs done to her in her lifetime, seems to suggest that it is in some imaginary afterlife that a woman can really become free. The patriarchal norms are mocked at and moral codes and taboos related to sex and body are made fun of, by a repenting Pishima who realizes only after death that what she has missed. There is no heaven or hell; there’s nothing called sin. Pishima returns with this superior knowledge to ‘save’ her nephew’s wife. When a younger Pishima hides behind the pillar and weeps helplessly while Ramkhilaon is beaten to death, the crime of sexual suppression which has destroyed millions of women’s lives screams out of the screen. As Ramkhilaon is thrashed mercilessly, the filmmaker whiplashes the audience. And immediately, the lights come up as the word ‘Intermission’ fades-in on the screen, giving the audience time to ponder over it, as it were.  

          

  While the film does border on the farcical at times, the raciness of the first half which keeps the audience in splits most of the time, does not allow much time to think of its shortcomings. A brilliant Moushumi Chatterjeee and an equally competent Konkona Sen Sharma adequately supported by a powerful ensemble cast of Saswata Chatterjee, Paran Bandopadhyay, Manasi Sinha, Pijush Ganguly, Aparajita Auddy, and Monu Mukherjee make some very weak scenes credible. But the debacle happens after the ‘Intermission’. The romantic track between Somlata and a mysterious man (Kaushik Sen) does not seem to have any bearing on the main plot. It is difficult to understand why Pishima all of a sudden urges Somlata to bed the man. While her dialogue, “Swami to ghar e porar saree’r moto…porey porey rong uthe gechhe…porpurush holo benarasi, baluchari, jotoi gaaye jorabi totoi garam…”, is delightful, the love story which is literally nipped in the budding stage, does not seem to have any strong foundation. I guess the filmmaker could have given a little more screen-time to Somlata’s agony or sexual frustration of being separated from her husband who was on a business tour for months. Only then, Pishima’s insistence on sleeping with another man could have appeared more believable.

            The second half gets increasingly boring and forced with the appearance of Chaitali (Shrabonti) and the Mukti-Juddho track. The introduction of the Mukti-Juddho seems rather forced, and the way it is represented is extremely amateurish and flimsy. Chaitali’s involvement with the warriors does not seem convincing enough, for she lacks the depth and seriousness such a woman should have. Sen’s delineation of this character is most flawed and a tad too negligent I suppose. It is further marred by Shrabonti’s perfunctory performance. Although I would not say she is miscast, she is certainly a major disappointment. 

                        Although technically brilliant and quite perfectly edited at least in the first half, Goynar Baksho has not been able to do complete justice to Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s original story. There are, however, some other positives: Debojyoti Mishra’s music scores really high; all the songs are extremely melodious and easy on the ear. Soumik Haldar’s camera creates the right kind of mood and ambience in every frame. 

            Pishima’s heroic spookiness, as was expected, is the unique selling point, and the film deserves a watch only for her, if not anything else. 

Image Courtesy: icetrail.blogspot.com; www.venkateshfilms.com.

 

Iti Mrinalini: Love, Life and…

I was actually expecting to see something like Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (1963) as the curtains went up on Iti Mrinalini, the latest Aparna Sen venture. Well, the Williams play and the Aparna Sen film do have similarities; but, of course, I gave up on the comparison much too soon. Any story of a successful commercial actor would have some parameters in common. In fact, Marilyn Monroe’s portrait that hangs in Mrinalini’s (Konkona Sensharma) room and is conspicuously focused on all through the film, speaks volumes to this end.
In a television interview, a few days before the release of the film, Sen said that she has never tried to convey any message through her films consciously; perhaps, no good artiste ever does that. But, somehow, Iti Mrinalini does send out a message, loud and clear; but, without being preachy or didactic, of course. I’ll come back to that later. In fact, not a single message; rather messages.
It’s not very difficult to see why Sen claims that Iti Mrinalini is the most commercial of all her films. Because the film is based on the life of some fictitious mainstream actor of Bengali films of the 1970s, it demanded a commercial treatment, no doubt. But, at the level of the plot too, the commercial aspect is much too evident. Actually too much happens in Mrinalini’s life. In fact, too many tragedies befall her, which, in a way, weaken the plot, as there is a prominent tendency to sentimentalizing. If good cinema refrains from being sentimental, this is definitely a flaw. But, seasoned audience of mainstream Bengali cinema of the 1970s, would be generous enough to give Sen the license to sentimentality; and I am sure I need not explain what I imply here. May be the screen life and the real life of the actor gets curiously mixed up. One may recall the unending series of trials and tribulations, a female protagonist of mainstream Bengali cinema generally underwent in those days, assisting a marvelous exercise of the lachrymose glands of the overly soft-hearted Bengali mothers and aunts (a construct, mind you) who poured into the theatres foregoing their usual afternoon nap. But yes, Sen has nowhere crossed the limits, for her Mrinalini is an apparently strong person.
The film has the structure of a bildungsroman: Mrinalini’s journey from the margins to the center. Although she accomplishes a lot in her professional field, she loses out on the personal front. Actually, more than anything else, Iti Mrinalini, is a love story. It’s the story of a woman who seeks love all through her life; but, it’s not that she doesn’t find any. May be she doesn’t find the kind of love she hankers for. Although Chintan Nair (Kaushik Sen) counsels her saying that she has never realized that love is of different kinds, Mrinalini does not seem convinced. A daughter out of wedlock, a non-committal lover who is inextricably tied to her family and who keeps on telling her that he would come to her one day…Mrinalini does not get the social recognition as a wife or a mother. She acts aunt to her daughter and keeps hoping that Siddhartha (Rajat Kapoor) would legally tie the knot one day. Exasperated she eventually breaks the relationship (“It’s over between us”), but it takes her long to arrive at the realization (assisted by Chintan, of course) that he too might have loved her in his own flawed way. It was love, nonetheless. Chintan becomes her friend, philosopher and guide, and defines for her another kind of love altogether. In fact, it’s a two-word message from him “Ami aschhi” (I am coming) that saves her from taking her life. The ‘message’ is that love may not only happen within socially approved structures of relationships only; love mostly transcends such constrictions. Although Mrinalini seems to accept what Chintan says, her reaction to Imtiaz’s (Priyanshu Chatterjee) betrayal appears a tad too immature. Why does she contemplate suicide? Hasn’t she seen enough so far as not to succumb to such duplicity?
Anyways, the film reaches a different level altogether in the end. Mrinalini is notorious for trying to control everything in her life. In fact, her young daughter calls her a control-freak. When she contemplates suicide, she says that entry on the stage of life was not in her hand, but she can certainly time the exit. But, little did she know that life was more absurd than it appeared to be. When thoughts of death finally desert her, and she goes out to walk her dog with a renewed enthusiasm for life, she is shot dead by a bullet targeting a young boy (Saheb Chattopadhyay) on the run. This very arbitrariness of life which Sen beautifully represents sends a chill down your spine. What you simultaneously realize is that you have come a long way off from the Naxalite 1970s Calcutta to dwell in a city where crime has become the order of the day. It’s difficult to guess who this boy is. But, the doubling of Mrinalini’s boyfriend Abhi does trace a journey of the city and the changing ideology of its young denizens.
I was absolutely overwhelmed by Konkona Senshrama’s mind-blowing performance; Rajat Kapoor does a decent job, and Anjan Dutt’s voice-over matches his personality well. The voice does not seem lent. Kaushik Sen imitates the South Indian accent really well, and delivers with aplomb. Even Saheb Chatterjee gives a believable performance. Kudos to Ananya Banerjee as Sohini, Mrinalini’s daughter. And last, but not the least, Aparna Sen herself. She is as glamorous as ever but she could have been a little more careful in imitating Konkona’s mannerisms.
And, of course, the songs! Am still humming Ajana Kono Golpo…I can’t really get over the magical spell of Bishe Bishe Neel…Debojyoti Mishra has done a fantastic job! The songs would stay on with us forever…and may be enough reason to go back to the theatre.