I did not get to see the film Antaheen earlier. Maybe I skipped seeing it deliberately , to watch it without the hype and the hoopla of being a golden harbinger of the "New" Bengali films. So. this evening , I settled down to it, with time on my hands, mobile phone switched off, and after an extremely rare great afternoon nap.
The storyline is difficult to narrate, as I sometimes wondered whether there was one. Abhik Choudhury (Rahul Bose) , a Police Officer and Brinda Menon (Radhika Apte), a Star Ananda reporter are chat mates and do not know their identities. They meet in common circles which includes Abhik's brother Ronno(Kalyan Roy) and his separated- but -still -friend-wife Paromita (Aparna Sen), who also happens to be the marketing manager of Star Ananda. Abhik's aunt is Sharmila Tagore who looks after him and thinks Jasmine Tea(!!!!) is a solution to many problems.
V.K.Mehra (Shauvik Kundragani) is developing a property which has some irregularities (which are never quite revealed) and he had a stepdaughter who died in an accident for which he was blamed by his wife(Mita Vashisth). These characters are connected together by a few wonderful scenes of Kolkata, brilliantly penned songs by Chandril and Anindya, a magnificent musical score by Shantanu Moitra, and competent performances by skilled actors. Mention must be made of Radhika Apte who brings an innocence, intelligence and freshness into her role which for long periods command our attention.
However, the real stars are Avik Mukhopadhyaya , the Cinematographer and Arghya Kamal Mitra and Rabi Ranjan Moitra , the Editors. Abhik creates some wonderful frames, gloss, watershots of incredible relevance and beauty, and his lighting is mostly spectacular and accurate. Arghya Kamal's work is fascinating and instructional. He sets up scenes with a minimum of cuts and he holds the mood of the film throughout with elan. This is a "Mood" film and any deficiencies would have ruined it irrecoverably. Special mention must be made of Biswadip Chatterjee's sound designing, where even the twirling of a metal coin on the ground adds to the superior technical quality of the film.
These were the achievements of the film. The look of the film was international--but not its contents. The style was commendable but not its impression.
The greatest failure was probably caused by the creators who happened to come from the Ad world. The film does not deliver as it should have. It deals with a microscopic portion of Bengali Society. It is a walk through a world dominated by whisky, English poetry, photography, cell phones, parties and potted plants and fancy lampshades.
There is no conflict, no great intellectual relationships, no telling moments of personal relationships. The plot and the script are weak and contrived. Can an adult mature couple separate because one blames the other for going off on a photography tour during which the father in law dies ? Can a mother actually keep on blaming her husband for years for sending a driver to fetch her daughter from school and thereby getting involved in a fatal accident? Do police officers and journalists get such easy ,relaxed lifestyles in such comfortable surroundings?
The interplay of words in the script is contrived, artificial, familiar and oft-repeated. How I raised my hands in frustration when I heard ad nauseum, the word "adjustment" as the key words in marriage, in the best style of marriage manual books. The episodes of the unknown afternoon male telephone caller and the response from the elderly Sharmila smacks of the Bengali short story style of the seventies and eighties. The scene of the confident adult, self sufficient female reporter crying (yes, crying) on hearing that her friendly superior was leaving, bordered on the ridiculous. The famous Bengali sentimentality had to come out in this unbecoming and obviously forced way!!!
Finally tragedy strikes and the heroine dies in an accident . Or was it a murder? The Director deliberately leaves it unclear. As a fall out Ronno and Paromita start their journey back to reconciliation. Again, the meandering plot was going nowhere, and it was half expected that the Climax would be like this. The Death thus appeared inevitable and bland. In a film with almost nil high voltage value, perhaps this situation could have been exploited better.
I could go on and on, but there seems to be an obvious discrepancy in the script, as if two persons had written it. Was Shyamal Sengupta the only script writer, or were there inputs from the director?
Overall, the film is eminently watchable, specially in the DVD version at home.That should satisfy the Director Aniruddha Roychoudhury. But for the discerning viewer, it leaves behind an endless(Antaheen} disappointment of an opportunity missed , and our hopes dashed of seeing a significant, rememberable Bengali film.
Sreya Ghoshal in a song for all times...
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