If you look at this movie critically, you can find too many loop-holes. There is basically no story and whatever it has, is very much predictable and not exactly very practical. But if you can overlook these problems, and just try to enjoy it, you can actually. It is at least not one of those movies, that tired to be serious but failed miserably - it did not try to be one. There are some lighthearted humorous dialogs and the story never tried to be complicated. Its a typical escapist type romantic comedy. The chemistry between Uttam Kumar and Anjana Bhowmik worked well and side characters - Pahari Sanyal, Anuva Gupta and Jahar played their part adequately. Have some fun while watching and then forget may be.
4 Reviews
A decent feel good rom-com ...
chhabida10 April 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Considering the depths into which mainstream Bengali movie making has fallen into post the mid-1980s, this movie deserves to get at least a 6/10. There is no high-falutin' story line, no critical histrionics, nevertheless a very enjoyable story. True, it panders to the middle class 60s Bengali psyche, by featuring an idealist middle class man (lead actor Uttam Kumar) who gives up a prosperous big city business after disagreeing with his more money minded brothers for a low paying rail-station master's job in the boondocks, and an essentially middle class young woman (lead actress Anjana Bhoumik) who has made it big in "Hindi" movies more through a pretty face than basic acting ability (which was actually pretty common in the 1960s Bombay film industry) and yearns to be loved and be a home-body.
While I will agree that from a critical cinematic viewpoint this movie is a non-entity but then we must remember that the basic premise of movie making apart from its commercial aspect and success is appealing to the masses. On this the movie was fairly successful then and still loved by those who know of those times even in today's more urbanized and globalized 21st century Bengal. The characters depicted were fairly spot on for those times and it must be appreciated.
This movie doesn't aim to be a classic or a seminal genre-maker, just a fairly run of the mill and thoroughly enjoyable movie. As someone above gave this a 1/10, I will say to that person, you seem to have neither the understanding of all the aspects of making or an understanding of the time and locale of the movie, and actually your review is misleading and should be deleted because it doesn't add to anything.
While I will agree that from a critical cinematic viewpoint this movie is a non-entity but then we must remember that the basic premise of movie making apart from its commercial aspect and success is appealing to the masses. On this the movie was fairly successful then and still loved by those who know of those times even in today's more urbanized and globalized 21st century Bengal. The characters depicted were fairly spot on for those times and it must be appreciated.
This movie doesn't aim to be a classic or a seminal genre-maker, just a fairly run of the mill and thoroughly enjoyable movie. As someone above gave this a 1/10, I will say to that person, you seem to have neither the understanding of all the aspects of making or an understanding of the time and locale of the movie, and actually your review is misleading and should be deleted because it doesn't add to anything.
Nice Uttam, documentary bonus
VirginiaK_NYC4 July 2012
This is the kind of very slight story, held together by little but a theme of inconsequential seeming-naughtiness, that was carried off much better by somebody like Hrishikesh Mukherjee in, say, Chupke Chupke - the necessary sparkly script mostly isn't there. But I found it watchable-to-enjoyable nonetheless, mostly owing to Uttam Kumar's charisma and the overall gentleness of the story-telling.
Anjana Bhowmick is Urmita, a young Hindi film actress who doesn't seem very enthusiastic even though she's apparently just become a star. When she accidentally is stranded in a remote Bengali town -- curiosity has impelled her to get off a train she is riding, and it leaves without her -- Uttam Kumar, the bachelor stationmaster, accommodates her in his quarters. A servant assumes she is his wife and spreads this news to the genteel neighbors.
That's about it. We find out a bit more about the characters. A positive here is -- no hysteria at all, and a bonus is a trip that the couple makes to a local fair, which looks to me as if its filming made documentary use of an actual local fair somewhere in Bengal in the middle 60s. The crowds of people and animals and odd attractions, like an aged man who uses a pet pigeon to tell the customer's fortune, or some traditional folk-singers of a kind I haven't run into in movies, make it more than worth a watch, as does the irrepressible beautiful smile of Uttam Kumar.
Anjana Bhowmick is Urmita, a young Hindi film actress who doesn't seem very enthusiastic even though she's apparently just become a star. When she accidentally is stranded in a remote Bengali town -- curiosity has impelled her to get off a train she is riding, and it leaves without her -- Uttam Kumar, the bachelor stationmaster, accommodates her in his quarters. A servant assumes she is his wife and spreads this news to the genteel neighbors.
That's about it. We find out a bit more about the characters. A positive here is -- no hysteria at all, and a bonus is a trip that the couple makes to a local fair, which looks to me as if its filming made documentary use of an actual local fair somewhere in Bengal in the middle 60s. The crowds of people and animals and odd attractions, like an aged man who uses a pet pigeon to tell the customer's fortune, or some traditional folk-singers of a kind I haven't run into in movies, make it more than worth a watch, as does the irrepressible beautiful smile of Uttam Kumar.
Awful Movie
rajdeep-mondal7 June 2005
Warning: Spoilers
I am a fan of Uttam Kumar like all other fellow Bengalis. But I am sorry to say that this is one of the most awful movies I have seen in my entire life. It doesn't have a storyline. Uttam Kumar is a happy-go-lucky man who chooses to be a station master in spite of having an established business. This fact has no bearing to the storyline of the movie apart from that it adds a feel good factor to the love story that the heroine is fallen in the hands of an able man. A friend of Uttam Kumar suddenly emerges out of nowhere to tell everyone, including the heroine about Uttam Kumar's background. I felt it was a pathetic move on part of the director to appease the mediocre audience(bheto Bangali).
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