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Unconvincing reflections of urban distress

As a director, Anjan Dutt is seen to have confirmed interests in certain sections of urban society that have worked…

Unconvincing reflections of urban distress

Anjan Dutt in a scene from Aami Ashbo Phirey

As a director, Anjan Dutt is seen to have confirmed interests in certain sections of urban society that have worked in films like The Bong Connection and Bow Barracks Forever. But there have been disappointments that have prompted him to move in different directions in search of effective means of artistic expression. A brief encounter with Shakespeare was a major disaster.

Experiments with his own variation of the commercial idiom had left him equally confused. He has repeated himself with human drama in the hills and later with thrillers till screen adaptations of life in Darjeeling and Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s detective adventures lost their early sparks.

Finally he tried a reworking of a Satyajit Ray thriller while loudly proclaiming that the cinema had moved on since the passing of the legends. If the cinema has indeed moved on, Dutt himself may have been trapped in a world that he claims to be his own — a musical consciousness that provides lyrical reflections of life steeped in mundane urban experiences that he believes could be a panacea for emotional stress.

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This would also appear to be the hope that drives Aami Ashbo Phirey where the simplicity of the basic idea wrapped in conveniently contrived situations is in striking contrast to the challenging metaphors in films like Hemanta.

The simplicity would also appear to provide a refreshing change from the predictable treatment of Byomkesh where the director had limited space for creative adjustments.

The serialised thrills had captured the imagination for quite some time till the detective began to suffer from overexposure and couldn’t possibly be drawn into the musical experience that the director is more comfortable with.

That could be one reason why the new film looks like a welcome return to roots. It is steeped in the language that has distinguished the director as an effective voice of urban youth and in the social environment that he can easily relate to.

So far so good! The problem arises with the instruments that are used to express the urban tragedy from which there seems to be no escape. The director keeps harping on a specific part of the urban distress that he can fit into his artistic concerns.

Like in many of his earlier films, it consists of disjointed lives that have been traumatised in varying degrees, by the world around them and, to some extent, by personal tragedies made worse by a distorted sense of individual freedom. If the generation that the director is seriously concerned about is hopelessly disgruntled, it also looks horribly confused.

If the idea is to cope with that overwhelming sense of confusion with the healing touch of music, it can well be part of the indulgence that few others would probably be inclined to prescribe.

Over the years, Dutt has created tunes that are exciting enough to provide an escape from reality. But the larger question of whether it can provide more lasting solutions has never been answered. The attempt in this work lapses into a contrived chain of events and relationships that make the director a musical dreamer more than a social explorer.

The film consists of a four-way traffic in urban distress that arises from a ghastly assault on a young woman who is, for most of the running time, numbed into a virtual state of alienation and contempt for the remedies that are being sought by elders.

It extends to the relationship with a member of the band that is caught in the struggle to keep itself alive. The escape route is the landlord who is a musician in search of an identity while the crime opens a window to more lives coping with moral issues.

The writer-director has carefully put all the pieces in place in the hope that they will all add up to a social statement. What will probably happen is that the parts will strike the right notes but when they are made to intermingle with a feel-good comment on the power of music, it would be perilously close to the harmless fables that have been glorified in the past.

This is not to say that Dutt’s direction has lost the edge that has fetched him a sizable number of admirers. The acting sustains a reasonable degree of competence.

The problem is that the idea of Aami Ashbo Phirey being different in tone and texture from the excess of urban films that have hit Bengal has been eroded to a large extent by the familiarity with dropouts, rebels and the director’s hand that forces its way into gestures and reactions.

There are very few occasions when the film is driven by the force of its own logic and could also be the reason why none of the characters becomes complete in itself. Dutt himself is a good actor and he is also fascinated by the vignettes of life in the city that has groomed his artistic consciousness.

But there is little to make the film as a whole anything more than a self-assuring return to the best years of the director’s musical career. The music is perhaps destined to keep the creative instincts alive. The cinematic experience is another matter.

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