Bengali cinema beyond Ray

The National Center for Performing Arts hosts a film festival that's determined to introduce you to cinema beyond Satyajit Ray

If you've been hearing stories about the resurgence of Bengali cinema, here's your chance to get behind the trend. The National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) is organising Bangla Bidesh, a screening this afternoon of contemporary non-mainstream Bengali films. Autograph, Shukno Lanka and Moner Manush are part of the line-up.

Although the films are varied in theme and treatment, they illustrate a common pointu00a0-- about blurred boundaries between parallel and mainstream Bangla cinema.


Bengali superstar Prosenjit Chatterjee in a still from Moner Mashu

Interestingly, two of the three films, Autograph and Shukno Lanka, look at the Bengali film industry, while exploring loneliness and betrayal.

In Shukno Lanka, modest, unassuming actor Chinu Nandy (Mithun Chakraborty in a stellar performance), ekes out a living by playing bit parts but never lets go of his dreams. Director Joy Sundar Sengupta (essayed competently by Sabyasachi Chakraborty) offers him the role of a lifetime, exposing a not-so-sensitive side to the acclaimed filmmaker whose path to greatness is brutal and exploitative. "Its layered structure in terms of both, time and space make it a complex film," says director Gaurav Pandey.

Srijit Mukherji, director of Autograph, takes a route often traversed by filmmakers, choosing to pay homage to Satyajit Ray in his first outing. The film, which stars Prosenjit, Nandana Sen and Indraneil Sengupta, is reminiscent of Ray's seminal Nayak.


Mithun Chakraborty plays modest, unassuming actor Chinu Nandy
in Shukno Lanka

With obvious overtones of the classic, it, however, takes off from where Nayak ended, suggesting what might have happened if Nayak didn't end the way it did. Prosenjit's portrayal of matinee idol Arun Chatterjee is fraught with the charisma and vulnerability of a superstar, while Sen's idealistic, bubbly Srin is full of youthful energy. Director Shuvo, Srin's live-in boyfriend, is serious and ambitious. The film is a complex and ruthless portrayal of the warmth of human relationships transforming into isolation and loss.

Moner Manush, Goutam Ghose's latest film which bagged the Golden Peacock for 2010, is about 19th century mystic poet, philosopher and composer Lalon Fakir. Nothing could be more relevant in our troubled times than Lalon's inclusive philosophy, which rose above caste, creed and religion and embraced humanity.

"Since there is no significant documentation of the great baul philosopher's life, I had to create the character from scratch with just a handful of his songs to fall back on," says actor Prosenjit Chatterjee about one of the most powerful roles of his career.

At: Little Theatre, NCPA, 3.30 pm onwards.
Call: 66223724/ 54
Entry is free. Seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis