A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

THE TREASURE TROVE OF BENGALI CINEMA

Learning is a curve, a constant wave buoyed by the willingness to embrace reality and its appropriate approximates in other forms, far removed from our usual human dilly dallying of ideas in general day to day dealings with the world .

In the years that this writer transitioned towards a scholarly realm of literature and the cinema emerging from that pool's vast treasure trove, cinematic masterpieces from the culturally mighty state of Bengal, always recognised as socially conscious, no nonsense and narratively excellent, came to define his sensibilities , abetted tremendously by the fact that he is well versed in the spoken language owing to a preponderance of its value both from his maternal and paternal sides. You see, Bengali is a state of mind too where the emphasis is always on simplicity of living, thus finding elegance in the real joys of existence, and a flowering of the intellect. There will be no fair artistic oeuvre without the sea of literature and cinema from the Eastern state amalgamating to form a cohesive body of Indian works. Or in the annals of publishing and editorial duties. The Bengali mind is a thing of beauty.

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So in the articles I will write about new wave Indian cinema, the contributions of the Bengali industry will hold fort, earning its commitment and being celebrated for its imagery above all things. A few of the films will be discussed here regarding that moot point of images as forms of conveyance and in the usual style of this omnibus , there is emphasis on realism and none of the cookie cutter ostentations or larger than life impulses. These are humane tales culled from the craft of observing daily lives caught in the grind of survival. All of the acclaimed films discussed hence must be unearthed by willing cinephiles who haven't seen them and rediscovered by others for further clarity and newer perspectives.

These are instances of upholding our utmost truths and lend themselves perfectly to the looking glass quality of filmmaking as a medium. Here is the treasure trove of Bengali cinema, in an initial part, as other exemplary cinematic milestones of a pan Indian and global sensibility will find their way here too, on this blog.

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ASHA JAOAR MAJHE (2014)

Watching this film is as if somebody left a camera in the home of a young couple; that's the conceit of this fly on the wall feat that lives up to its English language title as it is very much a 'labour of love' for discerning audiences.

ASHA JAOAR MAJHE( in between arrivals and departures) , a film with no dialogues at all, except the distant buzz of some speech heard in the background, is the tale of modern Kolkata, in the micro world of the two protagonists whose only option is the langour of waiting for a fleeting intersection of their time zones. We register the poignancy of this unintentional separation even though they return to the same roof. The wife(Basabdatta Chatterjee) leaves for work in the morning and by the time she returns in the evening hours, the husband(Ritwick Chakraborty) who works a night shift at a printing factory, has already been through the motions and left for his nocturnal duty. This is the engrossing, minutely engrossing tale of every bustling metropolis where the real capital is human effort and it is often emotionally crippling. To this writer, it implies a search for a centre to those who clearly don't get their dues. The screenplay recognises that dilemma.