--- নিশ্চিন্ত এখন
উপদ্রুত বাংলাদেশ , আর কেউ নেই যে কড়কাবে
বিদ্যুচ্চাবুকে এই মধ্যবিত্তি ,সম্পদ ,সন্তোষ
মানুষের। তুমি গেছো ,স্পর্ধা গেছে ,বিনয় এসেছে
পোড়া পাথরের মতো পড়ে আছো বাংলাদেশে ,পাশে
ঋত্বিক , তোমার জন্যে তুচ্ছ কবি আর্তনাদ করে ।।
ঋত্বিক , তোমার জন্যে তুচ্ছ কবি আর্তনাদ করে ।।
----- শক্তি চট্টোপাধ্যায়
Meghe Dhaka Tara (2013): A look in.
Dir: Kamaleshwar Mukherjee
Firstly I would like to state that director
Kamaleswar Mukherjee deserves kudos for even attempting to gauge a subject as
maverick as the mind of Ritwik Kumar Ghatak. Meghe Dhaka Tara, not the one made by the maestro, but its namesake
is first, not a biopic, in the traditional sense of the term, in a way say, a Hitchcock (2012) or even the Martin
Scorsese directed The Aviator (2004).
The film tries to get into the mind of the genius that was Ritwik Ghatak.
The film which opens with a disclaimer of ‘no
resemblance to living or dead’ bears as the protagonist, a maverick, alcoholic,
disillusioned filmmaker by the name of Nilkantha Bagchi (ironically the name of
the character Ritwik Ghatak himself played in Jukti Takko o Gappo) played superlatively by Saswata Chatterjee.
While attempting a review, it would be an abysmally insignificant attempt to
gauge how far realistically, the film portrayed the character, or even the
persona of perhaps India’s most misunderstood cinematic genius, as that would
be missing the point whole heartedly. The disclaimer, at the start of the film,
one feels, too acts as a cinematic device almost, denouncing any clichéd ideas
prevailing and subsequent expectations of a biopic. The film takes a multilayered
narrative, almost stream-of-consciousness evoking a plethora of surrealistic
images and icons throughout, and perhaps this would be the right attitude to
portray Ritwik Ghatak.
Getting into the mind of the genius who created everlasting images of Ajantrik, Nagarik,
Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komalgandhar, Subarnarekha and others is a daunting as
well as an important prospect. Standing in this late capitalist market oriented
world, where compromise is coined as adjustment, the experience of a life, a
journey of a man who never ever compromised, gave in or gave up his ideologies (and
suffered for it, suffered miserably), is utterly necessary. As a filmmaker,
more than his early allegiance with left wing politics, what one feels
identifies him is his understanding of the collective unconscious of the
audience that he represented. He wanted to be a people’s artist, in the most
honest sense of the term, and his entire corpus is magnificently lit, by the
indigenous iconography and images, be it of the “chhou”, or of the “bohurupi”,
and of the ‘great mother archetype’1, that characterised his films,
and of the collective unconscious of his art. Kamaleshwar Mukherjee’s film,
focuses on this mind, and punctuates the narrative with the archetypal visions
that fascinated the Ghatak. The film does justice to Ghatak’s early
fascination, his ‘weapon’, theatre. The film captures the moment, the time, the
mood of the post independence era and the turbulent period of the 1970’s and
the narrative flows through the twin vehicle of cinema and theatre. The
Chevrolet of Ajantrik, seamlessly
carries the child of Bari thheke Paliye
and all merge with the recurrent images of the mother, be it the dying ‘Bagdi
bou’ at the rail station or the final climactic, ‘okal bodhon’ performed by the
santhali woman inside the psychiatric ward. Ritwik Ghatak becomes a kalpurush
in this film, through whose vision we encounter a long lost history, a fluid
history of this country, of the partition, of the life, of the conflicts all
merge and flow like the Titas into an
overwhelming crescendo of Beethoven’s 5th.
Kamaleshwar Mukherjee’s Meghe Dhaka Tara makes demands of the audience, and it would be
difficult to wholeheartedly accept the film, unless one is aware of the period
and the cinema that the man represents. Shot in monochrome, Saswata Chatterjee
gives possibly is best performance till date as the troubled genius, Ananya
Chatterjee as his wife, is superlative. Abir disappoints. Special mention must
be made of Subhasish Mukherjee as Bijan Bhattacharya. Debojyoti Misra’s haunting
soundtrack coupled with a masterful use of Beethoven is praiseworthy as it
captures the mood and the almost celestial conflicts raging in the mind of
Nilkantha Bagchi. Samik Haldar’s cinematography is almost reminiscent of Ritwik’s
own episodic mode of images.
One criticism that might be levelled against the
portrayal is that Ritwik Ghatak is equivalent to a drunkard, is a cliché which
possibly the film tries to exploit, and Saswata’s acting verging on the
melodrama. However, the defence I would put is the film never tries to capture
the genius in his entirety, as that is impossible. Milos Forman also in his Amadeus(1984) captures Mozart in his
madness and genius, a man who composed an entire life’s work without any
revision whatsoever. However, as Satyajit Ray aptly pointed, that despite the madness,
Mozart definitely had a more restrained and mature side to him also, otherwise
the discipline required to compose a Marriage
of Figaro or a Don Giovanni would
not have been there. However, the madness was a part of the figure. Same goes
with this film, country liquour might not be all there is to Ritwik Ghatak, but
definitely it is one part of it. Ritwik was not always mad or maverick, and it
would be clearly discernible to any reader reading his keen technical analysis of films in his
book, “Cholochhitro Manush ebong Aro
Kichhu”.
As the film draws to close, there is the flow of a
barrage of emotions, guilt, awe, perplexity that one feels in the heart and
mind. The monochrome changes to colour and Ritwik Ghatak seamlessly leaves the
cinema as he once famously said, he would merging with the collective
unconscious of his ‘Bangla’, a 'Bangla' devoid of the 'Purba o Paschim' that he loved and lived, and from which
we have cordoned off ourselves. A devout follower of Luis Bunuel, Ritwik Ghatak
once said of Bunuel, “the uncompromising, truthful”, Ritwik Kumar Ghatak
himself, was no different.
Notes
1. Ritwik
Ghatak, Chalochhitro Manush Ebong Aro
Kichhu. Kolkata: Dey’s, 2005,
p.146. IMAGE COURTESY:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php fbid=532785973448706&set=a.490236891036948.1073741825.410412072352764&type=1&theater
