Kahaani 2 is thrilling – Yes but…

I knew I had to watch this one! Because it’s part of the Kahaani franchise and mysteries and thrillers tickles my brain very easily.

What the film is about?

The second version of Kahaani is a thriller involving a single-mother and her crippled daughter. They stay in a small apartment in Chandan Nagar, West Bengal and are waiting to move to New York for the younger one’s treatment. On one of their usual weekday mornings, Vidya Sinha (the mother) wakes up late and has to rush to office in Kolkata. She has to leave Mini (the daughter) alone for some time till the nurse arrives (she’s supposed to be at their home by 6 am). The day passes with Vidya coming home to find Mini kidnapped and a phone call asking her to come at a certain place to rescue her daughter. Vidya runs to save Mini only to be hit by a speeding kaali-peeli and landing up on an ICU bed and stay in coma for a few days.

Enter Inderjit Singh. The policeman who’s been eyeing a promotion and a job in Lalbazar, Kolkata and who works on what his gut-feeling says. Assigned with this case of road accident, he visits the hospital and the patient. The patient, he realizes, is Durga. Durga Rani Singh! From here on, unfolds the case of dual identity, a not-so-good past (child abuse) and the case of saving Mini.

What is film is not about?

Kahaani 2 lets you uncover the mystery with the story. Hence, you start predicting the plots and the end. It is definitely not about the policeman and the leading lady. They have their own shares of romances knitted within the story.

While the story has its twists and turns, it is not about the missing husband whom we all were searching throughout the first version.

Kahaani 1 and 2 have these in common:

•          The leading lady is searching (the missing husband and now, her daughter)
•           Supported by a police inspector (Satyaki and Inder)
•           A hired assassin (but not so scary as Bob Biswas in the 2^nd story)
•           Kolkata and Bengal as the story set up
•           Bosses of the inspectors who create and give tension

Why would I watch it again?

One, for the stellar performances of the actors. You know a character when you see the actor getting in its skin with perfection. In this case, Vidya Balan can only continue to be Vidya in all its installments. It will be difficult to imagine someone else playing Vidya, if not her. Arjun Rampal is the good looking eye candy inspector in the movie.

Two, for adding its name to the list of thrillers that Bollywood rarely produces.

This movie does give goose-bumps but occasionally. This is a good story but you will need to watch it after long intervals. 

When Shankar walked to the Chander Pahar!

Ask anybody around you, what does he/she would like to do given a vacation or has a break, one of the inevitable answers would be traveling other than sleeping. To see places, visit them after you have read so much about them and witnessing a dream come true, it is always special. And to watch your favourite hero doing a film which is so similar to the above mentioned lines, I definitely felt he lived a part of my dream.

Chander Pahar or Mountain of the Moon, a Bengali movie produced by Shree Venkatesh Films and directed by Kamaleshwar Mukherjee had Dev in the leading role as Shankar Roy Chowdhury. Based on the novel penned by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay in 1937. The novel chronicles the adventures of Shankar in the forests of Aftrica along with his Portugese partner, Diego Alvarez. 

Photo credit: Wikipedia.org

Yearning for adventure in life and liking for animals, Shankar wished to follow the footsteps of explorers like Marco Polo or Mungo Park. And as luck would have had it, Shankar lands himself a job as a clerk in Uganda Railway through references and let’s himself land in Africa without thinking too much. Africa or his employer did not give me too much official work to do except for wave the flag to let the train pass. But what it offered was more than what he would have expected or dreamt of. Fighting the lion after a fellow colleague gets brutally killed, deciding to explore Africa and especially, Mountain of the Moon along with Diego Alvarez, a middle-aged Portugese traveller and a diamond or gold prospector, every other adventure throughout his journey was a complete visual treat. 

Although I am not much of animal lover, watching the African jungle, its elements and the ultimate mythical monster, the Bunyip blew me off. Shankar's road trip with Alvarez to explore and locate Richtersveldt where Chander Pahar is, also was beautifully captured.

Regarding the casting of Dev as Shankar, I was personally excited. One, because, I liked Dev's earlier commercial flicks like Paglu series and the many others, and two, he looked apt for the role with the kind of physique that he has. Quoting his own lines, Dev said "Chander Pahar is going to be the biggest challenge in my life and I'm not afraid. Being afraid will mean no shooting for the project". It was certainly one of his most ambitious projects and also for Tollywood for it has taken the standard of Bengali films to a height that is at par with other film industries across the globe and this is a sincere and honest confession.

Chander Pahar is like Life of Pi. You need to watch on the big screen to enjoy it completely and I watched it at a theatre in Bangalore amidst a huge Bong crowd. It was a fun experience that was almost like watching the movie in Kolkata itself. Expecting more of such movies to hit the screens in this years and many more years to come. 

Reborn to live the past!

 An awesome year for Bengali movie industry and for movie buffs like me, 2013 witnessed some of the best works.  Following its predecessor’s footsteps, 2014 began with the blockbuster nationwide release of Jaatishwar. This was a movie I watched with my mother after a long time in a theatre in Kolkata. Although both of us keep watching movies now and then and discuss them over, it was after quite some time that we were each other’s movie partners.

Starring Prasenjit Chatterjee as Kushal Hajra, an associate librarian at Central Library in Chandannagore, Jisshu Sengupta as Rohit, pursuing colonial history studies in Portugal and chooses to a Portugese Indian poet as his dissertation subject, Swastika Mukherjee as Mahamaya, a RJ at Radio Mirchi who proudly voices her love for the language and need to reach out to people through songs that are long lost in people’s memories, Jaatishwar was quite an interesting watch for me.

Srijit Mukherjee’s fifth offering after blockbusters like Autograph and Mishar Rahashya, expectations were sky-high from the time the movie was announced. Curiosity peaked when the trailer got released and Kushal Hajra announced, “Ami Anthony Firingi” (I am Anthony Firingi). Now that we knew it is going to be a re-incarnation of Heynsman Anthony or Anthony Firingi in this life, it got added to the list of “have to watch” movies.

Photo credit: Twitter.com

A character lesser known, Anthony in 19th century Bengal had impressed people with his musical talent in Bengali as he learnt the language by reading Hindu scriptures and by understanding the meanings of folk music and lyrical compositions. He participated and won many of Kavigaan concerts. But what made him reborn as Kushal in this era was the question that tickled the mind throughout the movie and the director made a commendable job by revealing the answer right in the end. An interesting method of making your audience stay glued to the scene and not concentrate anywhere else, the idea worked brilliantly.

The next high point was its music composed by Kabir Suman. Some master compositions by the musical genius after a long time, the music got equally lauded alongside the brilliant acting from the actors.

The transition in Prasenjit Chatterjee’s characters of both Anthony and Kushal was unique. To get away from the trauma of living a past life and losing balance in his present life, Kushal narrates Anthony’s life in sequences. 

With movies like these, I do not think there could be any other way of entertaining myself most of the time. A treat for eyes, mind and ears, Jaatishwar gave a good and entertaining start to the year. 

This is the Baap of all Kahaanis

This was a movie that I had planned to watch for few obvious reasons. One, because of the city—Kolkata, second, because of the story and suspense created by the movie promos (I had even asked my bollywood reporter friend about the climax before it was even released but thankfully, she declined to comment) and third, actors (Vidya Balan and the host of the accomplished Bengali TV and cinema actors). And one more, because this would be movie where I know the local language spoken and the songs in the movie and gives me the opportunity to explain to others what they said.

Kahaani: The Movie

Kahaani, as they titled it, is a suspense thriller where a heavily-pregnant Vidya Bagchi lands up in Kolkata from London. Her first conversation was with a taxi driver who shares his astonishment when he's asked to take her to the police station. Her first stop in the city: the Kalighat Police Station. And her story starts here. Inspector Chatterjee and sub-Inspector Satyuki (Rana) Sinha are introduced to her thrilling story of her missing husband. Arnab Bagchi was in Kolkata on a project while working with the National Data Centre (NDC). His interactions with Vidya were regular for the first two weeks until he vanished from the scene all of a sudden without any prior intimation. Her husband’s details are recorded in the good old book (and not the computer that has been recently loaded with the applications and software required) and is taken to the same guest house where Arnab was put up. She is quick to divulge minor details like the presence of a golden peacock near the elevator or the same room where her husband was staying. Thus begins her thrilling encounter with the city. With time and Rana by her side, Vidya manages to churn out least known details involving the planning and the scam behind the Kolkata Metro Gas Leak incident that led to death of hundreds of daily commuters in the city's most preferred transportation mode. Names such as Milan Damji cropped up to indicate that Arnab must be danger given his face is identical to that of the terrorist. Tracking down Milan meant revealing many of the underlying mysteries of NDC and murders of people who would have shared vital information. Vidya's journey that started with the onset of the Durga Puja when the city gets dressed up to welcome Ma Durga ended on Bijaya Dashami by tracking down the suspect in question and fleeing away tactfully amongst the hundreds of red and white saree clad women with sindoor on their foreheads and faces.

You've got watch the movie to know what happens to her husband, if you haven’t watched it till now and unravel the suspense slowly as you watch it.

Why it drew my attention?

During the promotions, Vidya Balan carried her pregnant belly to give every onlooker a real feel of the movie and that she needs track the existence of her husband in Kolkata. The city has, for once, been well-captured in the camera lenses simply the way it is. The old buildings of North Calcutta, the by-lanes of the city having the usual garbage on the road as it is always found and the commonly known places like Camac Street and Park Street or SSKM Hospital at Harish Mukherjee Road. The movie beautifully captures these places the exact way they are and shows nothing fancy about the city by staying true to the need of the movie plot.

Before Kahaani, nobody would have ever thought of creating a crime and suspense thriller without any kind of "dhishum dhishum" and with a woman being the hero. Kolkata has always been perceived as the city of mishti, mouth-watering street food and politics. Well, here is a movie that brings the real essence of the city live on screen.

Bengali actors—both cinema and TV—have marked their presence on screen with every bit of their acting and roles, even if for few seconds. These are actors whom I have seen growing up and playing unforgettable characters in some of the mega serials of Bengali television. It is definitely a treat to watch these people on the 70 mm screen in a city like Bangalore or Mumbai. You do feel proud when people praise these actors. Incredible thinking by the director that he chose this bunch of actors and made them speak "bengali-hindi" and  make their characters real but not fancy.

Of course, the new "hero" lady takes all the praise for her incredible acting but loud applauds to the supporting cast from Bangla film industry as well.

This one movie is surely going to stay as one of the best suspense thrillers that the Indian Film Industry has produced for years to come. And I am sure that I am going to watch a few times more (a little later) when I, along with Vidya Bagchi, will be unfolding the mystery again.

Image courtesy: bwreviews.com