Poignant toast to Calcutta

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Aditya Vikram Sengupta's Once Upon A Time in Calcutta (OUATIC) is a magnificent portrait of Kolkata in transition, evoked through deeply felt, finely etched characters. The film, in Bengali, is Sengupta's third feature, after his Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love, without dialogues), winner of the Fedeora Award for Best Young Director in the Venice Film Festival's Venice Days section in 2014, and Jonaki, that was at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam. OUATIC and Seemab Gul's Pakistani short Mulaqat (Sandstorm), produced by Abid Aziz Merchant, are the two South Asian films currently playing in the Venice Film Festival's Orizzonti (Horizons). Mulaqat is a coming-of-age story, in which a Karachi schoolgirl navigates the tricky terrain of internet dating in a conservative Muslim society.

OUATIC explores the relations between two key characters, Ela Chakraborty (Sreelekha Mitra, wonderful), a small-time TV host and bereaved mother, who is estranged from her husband Shishir (Satrajit Sarkar), and her step-brother Bubu (Bratya Basu), owner of a once-spectacular, now defunct stage theatre in Kolkata. Laid low by fate, Ela seeks independence and love, determined to make something of her life. In contrast, Bubu's worldview is frozen in amber and nostalgia; he lives alone in the theatre, but for an old retainer; catatonic, fantasising about the revival of the theatre, even as he scorns property developers. There are also two men pursuing Ela - old flame Bhaskar (played by economist Arindam Ghosh; suave, bhadralok) and chit fund company owner/property developer Pradipto (Anirban Chakrabarti) and she plays along for her own reasons. Inspired by true events, the film comments on the contemporary realities and politics of a rapidly urbanising, globalising, post-communist Kolkata.

One of the highlights of the film is decidedly the cinematography of Gökhan Tiryaki, regular cinematographer of Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep). In contrast to the Biblical painterliness of their pastoral landscapes, here Tiryaki reveals an extraordinary eye not only for urban snapshots, like the dinosaur sculpture and the flyover, with backlit iron girders and a train traversing the nightscape, but marvellous empathy for the characters' emotional landscapes. As for the poetic way he shoots staircases in the film deserves a whole essay by itself: the city's in-between spaces, between the now and the aspirations of tomorrow.

The direction is artful, with superb craftsmanship, evoking the troubled soul of a city through its characters. Mitra carries the film on her shoulders, playing a has-been with a quiet defiance and unputdownability. Basu, veteran film and theatre actor and Bengal's Minister for Higher Education and School Education, plays the paranoid step-brother with a magisterial minimalism. Sengupta's screenplay is meticulous, but somewhat sprawling, with multiple character arcs, even as he comments on the chit fund scam, corruption, flyover collapse and wanton ‘Tagorification' of the city, with mass produced busts of Tagore and remixed Rabindrasangeet. The film weaves a rich tapestry, with an ensemble cast of delicious characters, all struggling to get by in Kolkata, including Raja (Shayak Roy, terrific), Pinky (Reekita Nondine Shimu, convincing), Shaheb (Kamal Chatterjee, a most gallant goon) and the absolutely delightful dog breeder Baby-da (Arijit Chakraborty). The screenplay, with a wildly lurching destiny for Ela, reveals a deep empathy for each character, refusing to judge even the wicked ones. Bhaskar is also a marvellously realised, conflicted character: he is morally upright as a city engineer, yet he has an extra-marital affair without compunction. Sengupta, who also edits, could have been somewhat crisper. Dutch musician Minco Eggersman brings minimal, effective touches; and Hindole Chakraborty and Bruno Tarriere's sound design is rich.

This France-Norway-India co-production is backed by Sengupta's For Films (India), Catherine Dussart Productions (France), DUOfilm AS (Ingrid Lill Høgtun, Norway) and Wishberry Films (Anshulika Dubey, Priyanka Agarwal, Shashwat Singh, India). Berlin-based Pluto Film is doing international sales. I will for long remember that fabulous top shot of sleepy labourers in yellow hardhats, herded into a truck in the darkness, with a plaintive shehnai that pierces your heart. This is what great cinema looks and sounds like.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com