When I watched Buddhadeb's Uttara, I was very impressed. Almost eight years later I saw 'Kaalpurush' and I felt sad about him.
Yes, Buddhadeb Dashgupta is apparently one of the best directors from Bengal in recent times who makes 'art films'. Unfortunately, just like 'oscar-baiters' from Hollywood, if one sees enough, these 'art-film'-s also fall in one formula or another. They have repetitive 'abstract' stuff (is that called symbolism or something?) that somehow appeal to the 'intellectuals' ('in' pronounced as in French). I first tasted this in the 'procession of dwarfs' in Uttara. At least they had some cool dialogues in that movie. But a procession of 'Jatra' actors - where everybody is acting there part even when going from one place to another. The Hanuman standing on a bullock-cart and waving his 'gadaa' was the most ridiculous thing I could expect from such a celebrated director.
The actors did a good job, but the lack of funds and the director being highly abstracted away from reality was obvious throughout the movie. The story is not bad (though somewhat cliché if you have some idea of intellectual novels in Bengali - while these stories of complicated relationships may seem impressive to an outsider, the plots are always like this: a relationship that did not result in marriage, the man and the woman meet many years later, at least one of them married; then there is some misunderstanding between the married couple - you may involve the kid for more complications; there may be additional extra-marital affairs and everybody is kind of unhappy and depressed - yet going on with their daily life and fake relationships). A cliché story can be made into a good movie, but this one failed to do that miserably. It turns out to be like 'cottage industry and handicraft' these days - badly done, too many rough edges but passes just for being non-commercial and highly rated by the elite.
If only Buddhadeb had ventured to escape himself while making the movie and had paid some attention to details and polishing, it could have been a good movie! So 6 out of 10 - penalty for high profile garbage!!
Yes, Buddhadeb Dashgupta is apparently one of the best directors from Bengal in recent times who makes 'art films'. Unfortunately, just like 'oscar-baiters' from Hollywood, if one sees enough, these 'art-film'-s also fall in one formula or another. They have repetitive 'abstract' stuff (is that called symbolism or something?) that somehow appeal to the 'intellectuals' ('in' pronounced as in French). I first tasted this in the 'procession of dwarfs' in Uttara. At least they had some cool dialogues in that movie. But a procession of 'Jatra' actors - where everybody is acting there part even when going from one place to another. The Hanuman standing on a bullock-cart and waving his 'gadaa' was the most ridiculous thing I could expect from such a celebrated director.
The actors did a good job, but the lack of funds and the director being highly abstracted away from reality was obvious throughout the movie. The story is not bad (though somewhat cliché if you have some idea of intellectual novels in Bengali - while these stories of complicated relationships may seem impressive to an outsider, the plots are always like this: a relationship that did not result in marriage, the man and the woman meet many years later, at least one of them married; then there is some misunderstanding between the married couple - you may involve the kid for more complications; there may be additional extra-marital affairs and everybody is kind of unhappy and depressed - yet going on with their daily life and fake relationships). A cliché story can be made into a good movie, but this one failed to do that miserably. It turns out to be like 'cottage industry and handicraft' these days - badly done, too many rough edges but passes just for being non-commercial and highly rated by the elite.
If only Buddhadeb had ventured to escape himself while making the movie and had paid some attention to details and polishing, it could have been a good movie! So 6 out of 10 - penalty for high profile garbage!!