Byomkesh Pawrbo (Byomkesh Episode)

This is second in my series of Byomkesh Bakshi’s stories turned into movies. First one was Sujoy Ghosh starrer Satyanweshi. Byomkesh Pawrbo is based on the story Amriter Mrityu by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.

This came as an episode “Amrit Ki Maut” in the Rajit Kapoor starrer TV series. You can find it on youtube https://youtu.be/UR7Vcm1G9P4.

Directed by Arindam Sil, Byomkesh Pawrbo stars Abir Chatterjee in the role of Byomkesh and Ritwick Chakraborty as Ajit Bandopadhyay.

Unfortunately, Indian cinema has not been successful in promoting its regional movies to the entire country. It’s quite woeful that aimless Hindi movies find mass market but good content from regional players never reaches an audience. With advent of Amazon Prime and Netflix, this is changing. According to this Forbes article,  Bengali movies have found an international audience – “Writer-director Arindam Sil’s Byomkesh Pawrbo, the latest in a series of films featuring cerebral Bengali sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi, has been acquired by Amazon for international markets, not just its soon-to-launch Indian service, in a multi-title deal with the producer Venkatesh Films.”

Hotstar while not advertised like the two above also has impressive regional content with subtitled movies.

Coming back to Byomkesh Pawrbo…

The movie starts with Byomkesh rescuing a minor girl from trafficking in Kolkatta while his wife Satyabati (Sohini Sarkar) believes he is giving a speech as a function organized by the writer’s guild. Soon Byomkesh is invited by the government to look into some smuggling of illegal arms, left by the British after WWII at Dooars. Byomkesh sets out to Dooars accompanied by Ajith and Satyabati.

The suspicion is on four prominent businessmen with the money and power to carry out these dealings namely Nafar Kundu, Badrinath Das, Biswanath Mallik and Jamuna Das Gangaram. Sukhomoy Samanta (Sumanta Mukherjee), the local head of police is to help them in their quest.

Once they reach the destination, Byomkesh and Ajith find the police head very unwelcoming and he also broadcasts the news of their arrival to all and sundry. This irritates the duo. Soon Byomkesh meets all the businessman and is unable to put his finger on the real culprit. All of them have something to hide. Amidst all this, a simpleton from the village Amrit is shot dead in the jungle. Amrit’s friends feel guilty as they sent him into the jungle and approach Byomkesh to take on the case. Before dying Amrit had claimed that he had seen a ghost in the form of a black rider atop a black horse in the jungle. Amrit dies near the house of a local quack Sadanand Sur and Byomkesh finds horse’s hoof prints near the back wall of his house. While he is investigating the area Sadanand who was away on business to Kolkatta turns up. As he is about to open the main gate of his house, there is a blast and he is killed.

Suspecting a relation between the two murders and the smuggling of black arms, Byomkesh enquires about who owns a horse and learns that all the four businessmen including the police chief owned a horse. This further complicates the matter.

The rest of the story is how Byomkesh entraps the actual smuggler and forces the truth out of him.

Arindam Sil has given a more macho look to his Byomkesh as compared to the original character. Sujoy Ghosh was much more intellectual in his approach, more reminiscent of the arm chair detective. Abir Chatterjee is more muscle and disguises and charm. I guess this makes him more relatable to the masses, my preference of course is the more laid back version 😉

Over all the movie managed to keep the suspense till the end, you can’t say for sure who is the culprit. The stories of Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay are more suited for a TV series. And that’s why you will find the TV series faster paced. However, the director has adapted this when well by introducing the various subplots and alternate lines of investigations. Some songs have been added to give mass appeal but they don’t really seem out of place.

I quite liked Ritwick Chakraborty as Ajit Bandopadhyay unlike Anindya Chatterjee as Ajit in Satyanweshi. Also, this version of Ajith was truer to the character and brings clarity for Byomkesh from his reading and writings. Abir Chatterjee as Byomkesh while not the best rendition for me, but still fits the bill. Some more chutzpa would have brought some colour to the more hands-on interpretation of Byomkesh. Sohini Sarkar as Satyabati doesn’t add any significance to the movie, but is unobtrusive and helps in adding precious minutes to the length.

It’s an interesting suspense drama which will keep you glued.

Do Watch.

Ennum Eppozhum (Forever and Always)

Manju Warrier and Mohanlal are two of my favourite actors. Few can replicate their talent as well as versatility.

Ennum Eppozhum is a simple story of a journalist Vineeth N Pillai (Mohanlal). He is a senior journalist with a women’s magazine. While he appears to be lazy, unkempt and late for everything, he is respected journalist with many path breaking stories to his credit. There are references to his mother who is portrayed as a larger than life, principled and well respected lady. Now no more, she was apparently also a friend\colleague of the owner of the magazine. The publication is now being headed by Kalyani (Reenu Mathews), the daughter of the owner. She is London educated and has a lot of new ideas for the success of the magazine. She and Vineeth don’t get along.

One day there is a news about Advocate Deepa (Manju Warrier), who protested the bad state of roads after falling into a pothole which prompted the high court to question the government. She is applauded by all and Kalyani wants to do a cover story about Advocate Deepa. Against her wishes, her mother tasks Vineeth with this assignment.

Deepa is a conscientious lady who lives with her daughter, is a lawyer and dancer and stands up for what she believes is right. Her neighbour is retired postmaster Kariachan (Innocent) and his wife, who dote on her daughter and always look out for her. She is close to her friend Farah (Lena Abhilash) who visits her from Palakkad occasionally.

Vineeth tries to interview Deepa but she refuses repeatedly. This leads to a scuffle between Kalyani and Vineeth and he ends up resigning. Later he joins back after Kalyani’s mother intervenes. Meanwhile, Deepa and her daughter meet an accident while she is riding her scooter. Vineeth is near them at the moment and rushes them to the hospital. There Deepa receives a court notice from her ex-husband for being an irresponsible mother and the lawyer takes away her daughter.

Vineeth vows to help her. He by chance bumps into the taxi who had hit Deepa, and learns that this was all done at the behest of the ex-husband. Deepa takes it to court and regains the custody of her daughter.

Unfortunately, the movie hardly has any story. There is nothing wrong in telling the story of two ordinary people, but then for it to be worthwhile, they must be put in some extraordinary situation. Even though these roles are a forte of Manju Warrier, unfortunately here she fails to leave a mark mostly because there is no story. There are some comic moments but they are also half-hearted and fail to create an impact.

The director, Sathyan Anthikkad failed to utilize a stellar star cast and misses the mark completely. Music is good and there were a couple of songs I quite liked.

Not much to watch though except maybe for a feel-good time pass.

Can skip.

Dookudu (Daring)

I remember planning to watch this movie on big screen, somehow never got around to doing it. Finally saw it on Hotstar recently where its available with subtitles.

The movie starts with Shankar Narayana (Prakash Raj) who is a popular leader and an independent

MLA from Shankar Nagar (in Hyderabad) during the time of NTR. Shankar Narayan is an honest man who loves his people and has dedicated his life to them. He is a widower, lives with his son Ajay and his brother’s family. Shankar has three close followers namely Sivayya, Meka Narsingh Rao and Ambarpet Ganeshan and his close rival is the highly corrupt Mallesh Goud who vows to destroy him. One day while going for a function, he meets with an accident and is presumed dead along with his brother.

The timeline moves to the current time where we see the Police commissioner in Mumbai being questioned by media about the illegal activities of a local don Nayak (Sonu Sood). Here we see the entry of larger than life hero Ajay Kumar (Mahesh Babu), mercilessly beating up some goons. He is part of a task force charged with arresting Nayak, headed by Nassar (Murthy). Ajay’s identity has been hidden from the media for the success of the operation. To get to Nayak, Ajay captures Guru Talwar who is a close aide of Nayak. Since no one knows where Nayak is, Ajay learns that the way to get to Nayak is through his brother Bunty who is sometimes seen visiting his girlfriend in Istanbul, Turkey.

Ajay and his team go to Turkey. There he bumps into Prashanthi (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and falls in love with her. Prashanthi, her mother and younger sister are in Turkey for a fashion designing competition which Prashanthi won.

Ajay successfully captures Bunty, and when Bunty calls Nayak, Ajay shoots him. Nayak believes Bunty to be dead. The team returns to India.

Meanwhile, we see that Shankar Narayan didn’t actually die in the accident, but has been in a coma ever since. He has a miraculous recovery and the doctor tells the family that he should be kept away from any shock and should stay happy to aid quick recovery. Shankar Narayan’s one desire was that his son should also stand with his people and be a leader like him.

To take care of his father, Ajay puts on a huge act. He rents his old house in Hyderabad and pretends to be the leader his father wanted him to be. Even the newspapers and TV shows are modified to reflect that his dad's beloved leader NTR is still alive and is the prime minister of the country. The entire act is quite hilarious. Ajay enlists an aspiring actor Padmasri (Brahmanandam) to help him with his drama. Padmasri believes that he is in a reality show being sponsored by Nagarjuna TV channel.

Meanwhile Bunty confesses about Nayak’s close associates to Ajay namely Mallesh Goud, Meka Narsingh Rao and Ambarpet Ganeshan (his father’s erstwhile followers). Ajay is quite unaware of his connection with these men. Nayak returns to Mumbai and kidnaps the police commissioner and sends a warning video to Ajay. Ajay brings Bunty to exchange for the PC. In the fight that ensues, Nayak escapes and Bunty is picked up by Shankar Narayan’s old aide Sivayya. Ajay recognizes Sivayya and runs after him while Bunty dies when he is hit by a train. Ajay captures Sivayya and learns that Sivayya was trying to kill Bunty to get to Nayak. He also learns, that is father was not injured in the car accident but was murdered in a conspiracy by Mallesh Goud and Nayak. Sivayya also learns that Shankar Narayan is alive and goes to meet him.

With this new-found knowledge, Ajay plans his revenge (what a coincidence that his personal and professional enemies are the same 😊). Ajay plans an intricate plot where he pretends to be a film director with some granite land to sell in Bellary. He tricks Meka’s PA and an aspiring actor Bokka Venkata Rao (M. S. Narayana) to get close to the trio of Mallesh Goud, Ganeshan and Meka. He kills the first two in encounter and Meka is later killed by Nayak himself.

Nayak is captured by Ajay and killed unknowingly by Shankar Narayan.

Ajay and Prashanthi also get married in between this revenge drama. Shankar Narayan learns the truth behind the deception and is happy that his son did all this to take care of him.

And they all live happily ever after.

As you can see, the story line of Dookudu is quite complex with many twists and turns. This I would 

say, is a huge differentiator for the movie. From a regular action revenge drama, the various subplots keep the movie lighthearted without compromising the main theme. The flipside is that the movie is way too long (almost quarter to three hours) and at times you just want the villain to come on to the screen quickly. A little crisper editing and fewer songs (songs are below average anyways) would have brought it under two and a half hours and it would have made all the difference.

Having said that, Dookudu is out and out full family entertainer and mostly credited to Mahesh Babu. He has a brilliant screen presence which is almost unassuming. This helps to keep it real in spite of larger than life action sequences. Supported well by Prakash Raj, Brahmanandam, M. S. Narayana and Sonu Sood. Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Prashanthi is ordinary bordering on irritating. You just want her scenes to be over quickly. Like I said music is nothing to write about and the movie could have done with fewer songs. Writer Director Srinu Vaitla definitely has the winning formula (much better than our own Rohit Shetty I must say).

All in all, if you need a lighthearted entertainer to watch with the entire family, this is the movie for you.

Do watch.

Swayamvaram (One’s Own Choice)

Since the time, I started watching Malyalam movies and did some research on great directors of our times, I have been trying to get my hands on Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s movies. And it’s as hard as it can get. While University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the United States has started a Adoor Gopalakrishnan Film Archive and Research Center, to get subtitled restored DVDs of his work in India is no mean feat.

I was ecstatic when I discovered the subtitled version of his first directorial debut Swayamvaram on YouTube. It’s a dream come true.

I sometimes rue the fact that it is so easy for us to get Kurosava or Fellini or Bergman in India but if we have to find restored and subtitled works of Adoor Gopalakrishnan or Ghatak or Padmarajan or K Balachander, its next to impossible.

Modern interpretation of Sita’s life and choice from Ramayana,

Swayamvaram is the story of a newlywed couple Vishwam and Sita who have eloped from their home town. The opening sequence is an almost five-minute sequence of a bus ride. Five minutes to convey the excitement of the love-struck couple, the hope for the future, to start the life together – nothing can come in their way, not a bother in the world. It will make all the those who have lived this moment at least once in their lifetime sigh. And all this is conveyed through mere expressions, ‘cause the only sounds you hear are the sounds of the bus.

The couple start their life in an upscale hotel. There is another almost eight-minute sequence with no dialogue, only the sounds of the sea as Vishwam and Sita lose themselves on the beach or the sounds of the train from a nearby track.

For a moment, it reminded me of Kurosava. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any detailed critique of the movie on the internet. There are moments in this sequence which for me set the tone of the movie and which stay with you throughout the movie. It’s not just a couple strolling on a beach. This movie is as much about the craft making films as it is about the story, probably even more. For me, the ominous burden of the choice these two make in their lives start from here, especially for Sita.

Very soon the realities of life hit Vishwam and Sita and they move to an ordinary hotel. Vishwam is a struggling writer and has written a novel “Ecstasy”. He tries to get it serialized in a local daily, but is rejected. The dilapidated and shady condition of the hotel, makes the two move to a small house, almost a hut with an old widow and a prostitute as neighbours.

Vishwam after a few days of joblessness gets a job in a private tutorial college as a Zoology lecturer.

Life seems to get better but not for long. The owner of the tutorial is a fraud and very soon Vishwam finds himself again without work. You see Sita all this while settled, happy with her life, in love with her man supporting him through it all. She tries to find a job as a sales girl but is unable to as she cannot afford the Rs.1000 deposit they demand. Vishwam then gets a job as clerk in the nearby factory. His struggle for a job in shown with the lovely backdrop of the class struggle and communist undertones which probably made the political scene of Kerala at that time.

For those who read the reviews I write, compare this with the trivialised Bangladesh liberation struggle which partly forms the backdrop of Aparna Sen’s Goynar Baksho. There its almost forced to be part of the story, it has no place in while in Swayamvaram it forms an unobtrusive backdrop, merely a reflection of the times the story is set in.

Sita is soon pregnant and life seems to go on predictably for a while. Sita has a dream while sleeping one of the nights. (the subtitles were basic, so not sure if my interpretation is correct) Someone is trying to pull her down a pond when she bends down to pick some flowers. She thinks it’s her father. She tries to look for Vishwam but is unable to find her anywhere. For me this again grounds the viewer to the fact that all is not well and somewhere Sita already feels the burden of her choice.

Sita and Vishwam have a baby girl. Sita as a pregnant lady is one of the most realistic rendition I have seen on screen. In fact, it was applauded by many master filmmakers. The way she sits and pick up the pot after filling it with water, her gait when she walks, it’s as if she is living the character not just playing it on screen.

Unfortunately, Vishwam falls critically ill. By the time, Sita could call a doctor he dies. Everyone around her tells her to go to her parents, an old colleague of Vishwam invites her to come and live with his family. Sita steadfastly refuses. In the closing sequence, we see Sita looking at the picture of proverbial Sita from Ramayana and a closed door, resolute in the choices she made.

This movie also reminds me of Deepti Naval’s Ankahee (a must watch) where the last dialogue in the movie summarizes it all – Zindagi har kadam par aadmi ka apna chunaav hai…

There is a thing about great film makers, they make you live the movie not just watch in onscreen. Every frame tells the story. Swayamvaram hardly has any dialogues, it’s the sounds that carry the movie forward. This technique was used for the first time in Malayalam cinema where ambient sounds formed the leitmotif for the life of Vishwam and Sita.

Madhu (Vishwam) and Sharada (Sita) have done a stupendous job in bringing Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s characters to life. For me, Sharad as Sita especially stands out. You can see she literally lived the character. She hardly has any dialogues, but then she doesn’t need any. Her expressions and eyed and body language convey it all. Sharada is a delight to watch as Sita.

I know this movie is not everyone’s cup of tea. But for those who love the craft of filmmaking should watch this for the sheer perfection the movie is.

Must watch.

Goynar Baksho (The Jewellery Box)

While I am still deciding if I want to write the review of Bahubali, I ended up watching this Bengali movie on Amazon Prime.

Directed by Aparna Sen Goynar baksho includes a stellar star-cast of Moushami Chatterjee, Konkona Sen Sharma, Srabanti Chatterjee, Saswat Chatterjee amongst others.

The movie is the story of Somlata (Konkona), her husband’s aunt Rashmoni (Moushami) and her daughter Chatali (Srabanti).

The story starts pre-independence where at eleven, Rashmoni is wed to a middle-aged man who soon dies leaving her a widow at age twelve. As were the customs, she must wear a white sari, cut her hair and eat bland vegetarian food. Being a child still all Rashmoni has is her jewellery box with 5000 grams of gold. She lives with her brothers and their family who have now moved to West Bengal from Faridpur, now in Pakistan.

The men in the house are good for nothing with no work. On top of it the two brothers have an ongoing court case to decide which family will inherit the house. Debts start mounting given the fact that men have mistresses and gamble.

Somlata who is a newlywed in the house, accidently discovers that Rashmoni has died while sleeping. In a hilarious turn of event, she sees Pishima’s ghost who instructs her to steal the jewellery box and hide it so that no one can find it. Pishima who is foul mouth, vile and bitchy ghost scares the simple Somlata to no ends.

Soon the family is on brink of poverty and none of the men in the house do any work. Heeding her mother-in-law’s advice, Somlata encourages her husband to start a saree shop. She pawns some jewellery from Pishima’s box for the business capital. Pishima’s ghost creates havoc for that and keeps on haunting and scaring Somlata. She only steps down when she realizes that Somlata has named the store “Rashmoni Saree house” after her. She guides and advises Somlata on various business affairs to help her run the store. In a humorous almost lyrical sequence, Somlata’s in-laws are haranguing her to find out how she got the capital to start her business, when “the ghost” Pishima whispers their weaknesses in their ears and they back off. I wish Aparna Sen had continued in the same way for the rest of the movie – it would have been a master piece. In another sequence, a man besotted by Somlata follows her every day and Rashmoni eggs her on to take on a lover. Finally, the store does well and all is settled. We see the jewellery box passed on to Somlata’s daughter Chaitali (played by the same actor who plays the young Rashmoni). She is in love with the son of an erstwhile house-help whose grandfather was once in love with Rashmoni. She ultimately gives off the jewels to the cause of Bangladesh liberation.

The movie starts off on a humorous light-hearted note. Moushami Chatterjee as the cursing, foul mouthed tricking ghost of Pishima is par excellence. Treated unfairly because she was widowed at such a young age, she spares no one. In her old age, everyone suffers her only because they eye her jewellery box. Once dead, the ghost realizes that there is no sin or virtue and come back to help and haunt Somlata. This take on unfairness in the way the world treats men and women differently is light hearted yet hard hitting.

Unfortunately, after the first half Aparna Sen loses her way. The story becomes disjointed with too many lose ends. The story of Rafiq, the man besotted with Somlata is left with no conclusion. The liberation war is unnecessary backdrop and Chaitali’s role in it is hardly convincing with no screen time.

Konkona Sen has played Somlata with a lot of restraint and panache at the same time. Srabanti is much more convincing as young Rashmoni then as Chaitali. Saswat Chatterjee, the cheating no-good husband of Somlata fails to leave a mark.

The movie belonged to Moushami Chatterjee as Pishima’s ghost 😊

While a tighter script and crisper editing would have made a huge difference, still can be worth a 

watch.

Can Watch.