When Abar Byomkesh
was released earlier this year amidst much fanfare and trailing sky-high
expectation, I was eager to see how Abir Chatterjee performs this time. I’d
liked his performance last time. This time, too, it wasn’t too bad, if not
better. However, the scar on his face goes unexplained. It is a visible scar,
and the director could easily formulate an alternative Byomkesh mythology tracing
its history to some childhood fight, something serious enough to transform him
into a satyanneshi (detective; literally, the seeker of truth). As it
is, the scar makes Byomkesh more of Mr Chatterjee than Mr Bakshi.
A viewer would like the background-score,
especially when it unfurls in full length during the opening credits. A nice
hotchpotch of the theme-music of Batman and Tintin franchises, it helps set up
the viewer for some adrenaline-rush. That is something the viewer comes
expecting to the cinema, only to be fed with domestic trifles. There’s no scope
for any adventurousness, with the unimaginative director not sure whether to
stick to the storyline of Chitrochor or stray. Stray he does a lot, and
unnecessarily. The strayings could have been made stirring. They tickle you at
the wrong spots.
An ill-researched film, it fails to catch the
ethos of pre-independence India. Bengalis, especially the intellectuals, were
then not known for their alcoholophilia. Bengalis, like the British, were more
used to having tea-parties. This unnecessary change, added to the unrealistic
clothes Rajani, the doctor’s paramour, deprives the viewer from a journey to
the past, a must for a Byomkesh film.
Is realism a necessity? No, this film invites
the viewer to imagine ‘visual asides’. There are scenes when two parties, not
quite on the best of terms, are both hide from a third party, and pretend that
they can’t see one another. The viewer has to pretend, for it’s hard and
not worthwhile to imagine that there’s nothing wrong with it. If
theatrical imagination is what the director had aimed at, he could’ve filmed
his scenes inside his studio, or still better, made a play to aid the ailing
Bengali theatre.
Indeed, I’m not so much bothered about the
film as about why this couldn’t be made better. I’d list the causes roughly as
this:
Reason 1: Kolkata film directors are myopic creatures.
They can’t think of featuring an actor not known to them outside their
‘parties’.
Reason 2: They’re first ‘intellectuals’, next filmmakers.
So, their main effort is towards making an ‘intelligent’ film (or, at least
taking up an ‘intelligent’ story for it), rather than making a ‘film’. As the
end-result, we have unintelligent non-films.
Reason 3: Unfamiliarity with the language (Bengali, in this
case) and its regional variations (or, richness, to be more exact). The
director should not forget that the vast majority of Bengalis don’t talk like
affected Kolkatans.
Reason 4: Refusal to take time. Ignorance of regional
films produced in other parts of India. A cursory familiarity with Bergman and
Ray is not enough.
Reason 5: Quite frankly, lack of expertise.
Reason 6: Pseudo-urbanism/urbanity.
I wouldn’t say I could
go on. There are still promising directors working on interesting projects.
India is a land of promises. D L Ray said (read, says), ‘That land is made of
dreams and bordered by memories.’ Works best for Bengal and its recent filmic
endeavours.
I have come across people who’ve liked Abar
Byomkesh. How do you translate this? The Return of Byomkesh, perhaps? I
should say, it’s more the return of mediocrity.
Come on, don’t we have film-directors and
actors in the villages?
