ananyoslg Reviews

Chaalchitra Ekhon (2024)

This is Good Cinema, indeed. Must watch.

[9/10 · 10 May 2024]

The movie is like a sweater, beautifully crafted by a grandmother for her newly born grandchild, knit with utmost thoughtfulness and care to pass on her love and warmth to the little one. It's a tale of friendship between two individuals of different generations, united thorough similar perspective to celebrate life that is a chaos and struggle, depicted through the city of Kolkata which is present in every aspect of the movie as the most powerful supporting cast.

It is not verbose and on the contrary so subtle and simplistic that the viewer wouldn't realize when he has set on an internally emotional journey of human transformation that would leave few teardrops clinging onto the corner of the eyes or when there would be a lingering smile on his face. The movie starts like a Dutt signature film that one expects it to follow the Madly Bangalee pattern but then it does breakthrough and transcends to something else altogether. It gets woven through so many magical scenes that one would be tempted to describe some of those but words won't be doing justice (its so tempting but don't want to give any spoilers. Still one should lookout for the scene where Ranjan sits together to have lunch with fellow actors and also the last scene). The moral dilemma and conflict of the urban, of a modern citizen has been so well captured but with a refreshing humor and backed by brilliant editing, cinematography, and timely musical scores. This is one hell of a tribute to Mrinal Sen as the man's worldview has been presented through the relationship of Mrinal and Anjan brilliantly depicted by organic and spontaneous acting by Dutt himself and Sawon Chakraborty. I was ready to give the movie a 10/10 if the Kolkata panorama locations were more varied.

Watching a film like Chaalchitra Ekhon, in OTT platform makes one realise how we as viewers have failed good cinema. The impact of the movie has made me buy a HDMI cable to screen it on TV for my parents and especially to my father who is a massive fan of Mrinal Sen as a director and Anjan Dutt as an actor. This should have been screened at every hall throughout the Bengal, to be viewed by the maximum audience to watch what indie Bengalee cinema can be, to experience how a director outdoes himself to create his magnum opus till date.

Animal (I) (2023)

Not a movie, a shouting competition

[3/10 · 2 December 2023]

As a fan of gore and dark noir went with loads of expectations- first half was off to a near flawless flight but then the tailspin which began post-interval took down the whole movie.

Excellent BGM, magnificient cinematography and out of the world acting by Ranbir (what a brilliant actor he is!) fell short to save the movie ridden with lack of depth and emotion in the storyline. The loosely written plotlines and characters severely dilapitated Ranbir's character as well because the other characters were so underdeveloped. Lack of motive in even the central character resulted in a lack of conviction in the whole story to such a level that after taking in so much of grandly choreographed violence, one is left scratching head wondering everything happened for what exactly! Emotion got translated i nto only one sided shouting and the viewer is left alone to experience an exhausting and frantic TV debate show where only the TV anchor gets to shout.

Severe formula plotpoints and scenes , some of which are inspired from Godfather,OldBoy(2003), The man from Nowhere (2010) Rajneeti and even Kabir Singh were put together in such a way that one is left doubting whether the director wanted to copy from his own previous success just because it worked earlier. But it didn't result in anything like Kabir Singh because everything was so incoherent. The brilliant opening of the movie, by the director's own obcession of using pointless violence (or might be a desperate attempt to cover up the flaws in storyline) got reduced into one and only point- who can shout the loudest! Or thats what a predatory animal is supposed to do- a non-human who shouldn't be part of humane society but gets occassionally breaded by our society. It emanates an excruciatingly agonizing world around it; unable to love, empathize, dialogue & sense of integrity but is just filled with suffocating anger & treachery.

Chhotolok (2023– )

Gem of a webseries, if not the best in Indian Bengali

[9/10 · 10 November 2023]

Human emotions dont resonate with anything more than melancholy because deep down we all live in grey. Chhotolok has everything of making a brilliant thriller; slowburning sustained suspense, tightly knit screenplay, no short cut to climax and resolution. But above all, the melancholy it emanates, of our fractured realities, our own selves and hypocrisies, leaves us with a pensive contemplation. The director, Indranil Roychowdhury is known for his minimalist style and brilliant capability of storytelling, has created a masterpiece here.

The plotline with its twist and turns first becomes a successful thriller but then transcends into a social critique. It captures the class ridden society, its hierarchies, conflicts and pragmatism of the 'powerless' which is often imcomprehensible in today's 'society of control'. The director and writers didn't fall into the usual OTT trope using unncessary violence to make it gore which often looks imposed and superficial, indeed they were able to reflect the deeply entrenched structural violence using the firey acting by Daminee Basu and Priyanka Sarkar alongwith the amazing cast.

This is indeed a gem and hopefully we will be seeing more of it in coming years.

Indubala Bhaater Hotel (2023– )

Just a gem, period!

[10/10 · 1 May 2023]

Melancholy which makes one's throat choke and ache with silently accumulating tears, comes with a pensive slowly trickling happiness. After a long time of mediocre shallow rootless series both in television and OTT, Indubala takes us to our root- of a forgotten often avoided history. And that connects. Like it should have. Must watch.

Very well made, slowly built with parallel storylines converging in framing a comprehensive tale of different times and people. Brilliant acting and editing. What stands out is the background score and use of songs which intensifies all of the expressions which not only the director and author wanted to portray but rather create a symphony with the viewers. It will be a classic.