FILM REVIEWS

VICTORIA  &  ABDUL   -- a film review Based on Shrabani Basu’s book with the same title ‘Victoria & Abdul’, the movie directed by Stephen Frears deals with the delicate friendship between the Empress of India and a common manservant from Agra. In connection with BBC Films, Director Stephen Frears -- who has given us movies like The Grifters, Philomena, My Beautiful Laundrette and others -- deals here with the complexities of an undesirable alliance (from the British Raj point of view) between Queen Victoria (Judy Dench) who, by her own admission, is a cantankerous, fat, lame and ‘an impotent old woman’, and Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) from India who is transported to the Buckingham Palace to present the commemorative gold coin ‘Mohur’ celebrating the Golden Jubilee of HRH. Victoria is lonely and under the hawk-eyes of her royal doctor, Dr. Reed, and Sir Henry Ponsonby (the late Tim Pigott- Smith) who hover around her at all times with some other ladies in...

SIMRAN    --  a review Here is a movie that began with a bang and ended leaving us with a sour taste in our mouth. I love Kangana Ranaut. Her “Queen” was adorable. “Tannu weds Mannu” left us asking for more. But “Simran” was a letdown. A bubble that stretched as far as the sky and exploded into acid rain. Something went wrong somewhere. And what was that? That is the question. Modeled on innumerable American stories of desperate and decadent teens messing up their lives, Simran was more an irritant than a balm to the eyes. I left the theatre wondering did I or did I not enjoy the film! Briefly, Simran is the story of a young working-woman, a thirty-year old, divorced  'Gujju-ben' with flawed English, born to a small business family in Atlanta, U.S.A. She is in the house-keeping department in a hotel but indulges and excels in weaving big dreams for herself. Since dreams are often intangible fantasies that come with an expiry date, she is caught ...

https://doladuttaroy.blogspot.in/ SHOB BHOOTUREY   -- a review Shree Venkatesh Films (SVF) has more or less been successful in their endeavours to either thrill or chill you.‘ Shob Bhootorey ’ hangs somewhere between the genres of a horror and a spooky movie. Certainly inspired by the secret element of M. Night Shayamlan’s tremendously successful movie “The Sixth Sense” in 1999, Director Birsha Das Gupta -- along with producers Srikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni -- makes this supernatural thriller to hold your attention with creepy music and hair-raising suspense. Aniket (Abir Chatterjee) desperately wants to get rid of his dilapidated, eerie ancestral home in North Calcutta but the editor of his father’s spooky magazine SHOB BHOOTUREY that told chilling supernatural tales, is quite unwilling to sell the mansion which was also the office of the old man now dead. To make matters worse, a sinister looking young woman, Nondini (Sohini Sarkar), enters the scene to t...

CHAYA-O- CHOBI – A REVIEW The man who gave us movies like Apur Panchali, Cinemawala, Shobdo, Chotoder Chobi, Bishorjon and a kaleidoscope of movies all along, has added something new on the platter this time that tastes rather bitter-sweet. Kaushik Ganguly’s preoccupation with human relationships and social anomalies is common knowledge. Some like his treatment and, then again, some don’t. An original thinker, dwelling on new concepts incessantly, writing his own script and directing his own movies, Kaushik Ganguly’s Chaya-O-Chobi , (read ’Shadow and the Picture’) is, I think, inspired by Francois Truffaut’s film " Day for Night"   where an entire film crew come to shoot at a location far from home. What unfolds is the mingling of reel and real life in the lives of some that is both painful and enlightening. The movie begins with the dedication and enthusiasm in Maya (Churni Ganguly) to make a Bengali film funded by her own grandmother. She has come all the...

MACHER JHOL – a review If the name “MACHER JHOL’’ or ‘fish curry’ turns you off or if you think that this is going to be another silly Bengali comedy, then you will be in for a surprise. I was. The story is about a successful Bengali master chef, Devdutta Sen (Ritwick Chakraborty), better known as Dev D in Paris who has severed all ties with his home town, Kolkata, enjoying what he does best, cooking and running his own French restaurant. But a call from home about his mother ’s ill health takes him back to his roots, leaving his live-in French girl-friend behind. Coming back to his ancestral home after years, he faces his tyrant of a father who does not welcome him. However, he is in a quandary when his mother in the nursing home wishes to have ‘Macher Jhol’ -- once made by him when he was a boy and didn’t really follow any recipe. With all his newly acquired mastery of the French cuisine he cannot recall how to repeat the same feat of making simple, homemade, Bengali Mache...

THE VICEROY'S HOUSE -- a review A “Bend it” film, Gurinder Chadha’s new epic film "The Viceroy’s House" is another much told tale of the Partition of India -- assembling vintage footage of the communal riots and then recreating the handing over of the country to its countrymen as a benevolent act by the British. The 340-room Viceroy’s House with its impressive architecture is the place where the tragedy of the bloody, massacred nation’s fate is decided and executed, leaving m illions of people traumatized and scarred for life. As the partition takes shape the contents of the Viceroy’s House get divided for the two carved out nations including the kitchenware and library books. But then again this is where the endless streams of refugees find shelter after the blood bath under Lady Edwina Mountbatten's care. The movie generally moves around the theme of the British leaving the country and giving the gift of ‘freedom’ to Indians. However, there is a sub...

MEGHNAD BODH ROHOSHY -- a review Anik Dutta has always surprised us with his penchant for extraordinary themes bordering on fantasy. ‘Meghnad Bodh Rohoshyo’ is certainly a departure from all that fanciful imagination. The story is about the sudden disappearance of a renowned writer, Professor Ashimabho Roy (Sabyaschi Chakraborty) who has made quite a ripple in the literary circle with his science fiction. His second, but very young wife Indrani (Gargee Roy Chowdhury), a famous actress, is suitably alarmed and engages in finding out the truth behind his disappearance with her director friend, Kunal Sen ( Abir Chatterjee). Earlier we were introduced to a team of the couple’s associates at the writer’s book launch and also at his birthday party. Evidently, they all have secret lives that the couple is blissfully unaware of and all seem to be somewhat connected to Ashimabho’s activities as a youth during India’s struggle for independence. During the first half of the movie ...