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Saturday 27 October 2012

History with Honesty and Authenticity


History with Honesty and Authenticity

Chittagong(2012) a review.

Dir: Bedabrata Pain

Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddique, Vega Tamotia, Delzad Hilwale, Barry John, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Saheb Bhattacharya, Anubrata Basu.


 
I must admit that my decision to see Bedabrata Pain’s Chittagong was fuelled by many facts, and some of them not remotely related to the film. There were numerous curiosities that led me to see it. Firstly, of it being made by a NASA scientist, who had shown immeasurable courage to forego a lucrative and highly prestigious job to venture into an unknown and unpredictable world of cinema, was something that pulled me towards the filmmaker. The fact that in this day and age, when a generation is motivated by monetary stability and the lure of occidental shores, someone, especially a Bengali, can take such a risk is commendable enough. Also, being somewhat of a serious amateur photographer myself, having an admiration for the inventor of the sensor technology that forms the backbone of every digital camera and DSLR that we see today would be inevitable. But when I went to see the film, I was very particular to leave all this baggage behind and put on my critical cap. The film would have to stand up in front of me and be counted, and I must say, I was not disappointed, not at all. 
The one thing that strikes about the movie is its almost ruthless honesty. An attempt had been made of portraying historical facts and the situation where the events make the characters and not the other way around, something which had been remarkably absent in the populist films which treat with the issue and episodes from our freedom struggle. Indian popular cinema has always treated our freedom fighters as idols and a sense of feigned idolatry makes the struggle a mere romantic exercise and takes the honesty and the ambivalence out of it. And it is precisely that Chittagong attempts to showcase.
The film showcases one of the forgotten sagas of Indian freedom movement. That of a revolutionary, Masterda Surya Sen, and his band of gutsy youths, the youngest of them, a boy of fourteen, and how they had the British rulers on the run. It portrays that same episode in Indian freedom struggle, known now famously as the ‘Chittagong uprising’ where a group of youngsters led by the schoolteacher Surya Sen carried out simultaneous raids on the armoury the European Club and cut down on the telephone as well as the railroads. The events are narrated through the eyes of the fourteen year old ‘Jhunku’ or Subodh Roy. The fact that we see the real Subodh Roy, at the end of the film in an interview is a ploy which works to lend the authenticity to the film. Something we have also seen in a cult film as Motorcycle Diaries.
Time and again I have to refer to those words, authentic, honest. The film tries to be honest and authentic to the core. The filmmaker seems to be aware of exactly what he wants and for someone who inhabited a world far removed from the cinematic, what Bedabrata Pain ultimately comes up with is commendable. The film captures beautifully the insecurities and poignancies of the revolutionaries. It never goes for idolatry and worships the figures as gods. We as audiences must realize that all great revolutionaries are humans after all and at moments of crisis they too have their doubts about their methods. The insecurities and self-doubts of the protagonist Jhunku mirror authentically that selfsame doubt which would be inevitable in any fourteen year old taking up guns against an empire knowing very well, that the next shot could be his last. Images, flood to mind when we see a young Jhunku with the rifle. Films like Kenneth Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley or for that matter short-stories like Liam O’ Flaherty’s ‘The Sniper’ can be drawn as parallels.
Manoj Bajpai as Masterda excels as does Nawazuddin Siddique, who after Kahaani and the Wasseypur films, have become one of the finest young crop of actors in this country. Delzad Hilwale as the young Jhunku delivers a good strong performance capturing the confusions of a youngster who has jumped into a cauldron he has not yet been able to grasp. But I guess the surprise of the crop was, Vega Tamotia as Pritilata Waddedar, who despite a minimum screen presence delivers a strong and finely tuned performance. Alexx O’Nell as the ruthless Charles Johnson, reminds us  of those individuals whose sadistic expression and revelry of executing power characterised many colonial regimes. The scene where Surya Sen’s fingernails are pulled off one by one reminding us of a similar sequence in The Wind that Shakes the Barley recalls this horror.
The film showcases history and that is the highlight of the film. The fact that the events narrated are historically true makes for the gripping drama as well as the characterised layers of the film. The material was already there and what the filmmaker needed was just to look, and he has done that wonderfully well. Particularly of note should be mentioned the cinematography by Eric Zimmerman which captures the landscape quite well. If any fault that might be noticed in the film lies in the script, co-written by Bedabrata Pain and Shonali Bose, which at times falls short of the intention of the film and one feels that some of the actors had to visually uphold on screen what the script lacked to backup such strong acting cast and plot. The music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is patchy and though at times it matches excellently with the sequence, at times it falls flat. Sometimes one feels, that sequences shot without any background score add more drama to the film. However the final song ‘Ishaan’ sung by the filmmaker himself is beautifully placed.
In general it must be said, that Bedabrata Pain’s Chittagong is a very honest and authentic attempt. Comparisons with another film on the same plot, Gowariker’s Kheley Hum Jee Jaan Sey (2010) would be inevitable, but it would be fair to say, Pain’s film is a far better rendition cinematically of the topic than the previous one, which unfortunately was one of those mindless Bollywood manufactured products. Chittagong is by no means a perfect film, but in the modern context it is a fresh outlook that had been lacking in this genre. As a cineaste Chittagong is a must watch, for it would be unwise to miss out on such a moving film.