Anuranan: the coming together of harmonies!
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Sarika Joshi
(Indianapolis, Indiana, USA)
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WITHHELD
Resonance; to resonate; to strike a chord; the coming together of harmonies
I watched this Bengali movie recently by debutant director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury.
It did not matter that I did not understand Bengali. The body language of the actors alone could have carried the movie. Yet, the words made it fly. I found resonance in this movie, in its simplistic way of accepting relationships, of allowing it to be left undefined. It left so much to interpretation and individual perception with an honesty that’s missing in the black and white portrayal of characters in mainstream cinema.
I found the relationship between Rahul and Preeti that of enablement. Rahul unintentionally enabling Preeti to fly further than the prisoned life her mind has had her leading. I say unintentionally as Rahul never set out to save Preeti, he was the way he was due to Nandita. I honestly think it was Nandita who was saving Preeti. She knew, she simply knew there was a gap. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Nandita questions Preeti on her relationship with her husband Amit, translated in English it goes, ‘Where is the gap? The body, the soul or the caress.’
I did not know why Rituparna Sengupta was so highly regarded in Bengali cinema, I had watched ‘Mein Meri Patni aur Woh‘ and found her pretty good, but definitely not exceptional. This movie gave me the reasons for her popularity. She was vulnerable, playful, coquettish, wounded and insightful, a myriad of emotions smoothly flowing on celluloid. Rahul Bose was once again, simply adorable. My observations of him are entirely useless as they are heavily biased. The surprise package of the movie was Raima Sen, one could feel the emptiness in her life. Her eyes spoke volumes and her body language was subtle yet powerful.
There were some parts of the movie which seemed like it didn’t need to happen to carry the movie forward, it was undertaken to make the story simpler for the director to end the movie. It seemed like a hesitance to explore the undefined world further. I don’t criticize that as I can understand the complexity it could lead to, although I would be intrigued. The movie did conform to ending a bond which had no meaning, no name defined by society, possibly as it is quite the reality as everything does start flowing into black and white. However, I do applaud the unconventional resonance shown between the two women at the end of the movie. That was groundbreaking. It was a firm step.
See this movie, it won’t matter that you don’t understand the language. Its beauty is in its rawness, I am sure you will resonate with it.
Tags: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Mein Meri Patni aur Woh, Rahul Bose, Raima Sen, Rituparna Sengupta
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
This was by far the worst movie I have seen this year regardless of whether you can understand the language or not.
ditto DPac…most unimaginative and full of cliche…man you need nerves to sit through this…”bostapocha” is the only word to mildly describe this s**t, if ur a bong u know what i mean…
@rudro,
i was literally begging my friends to stop the movie. 15 mintues of this crapfest was all i could take.
Saw the Hindi dubbed version of the movie … did not like it as i felt the translations were not upto the mark … the hindi dialogues were pretty inane
Same as DPac and Rudro….one of the worst in recent times….Who the hell in this world talk like the characters did in the film????????????? Also, the end defies all logic…why the f**k Raima should book room in Rahul’s name? It is his husbands construction site!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway, it is a BAD film…no 2 way about that
Wow, its interesting to know that people did not like this movie at all. It was definitely illogical at many places, but I did enjoy the exploration of a relationship which did not have a name. I particularly hated that Rahul Bose’s character was killed off, seemed like the easy way out. Hmm, would love to know if anyone saw what I did in this movie…
Highly overrated. I felt it was very inconsistent, trying to move from an accessible film with some ‘gyaan’. Sick of watching stereotyped portrayals. Rituparna does nothing but smiles silly and gapes wide, when she is not busy pouting. What is Rajat Kapoor doing here, absolutely wasted. And what a lame twist and climax. Rahul Bose hams through and through. Only Raima was a little watchable.
I had actually asked a friend to get me the DVD of this one and Bong Connection from Cal. I wanted to see this film to see what is working in the commercial bong cinema. couldn’t think of one reason why anyone would like it. it neither entertained nor grilled me. all it made me do was reach for the forward button.
@sarika,
i wish there was a ‘relationship’ first of all..
i wish nobody ever ‘explored’ it like this :-)
all the good intentions and profundities in the script makes for nothing if the translation is soo shoddy.
you had something to do with this movie??? in what way?
@Dpac,
No, I did not have anything to do with the movie, I just meant, I was looking to see if anyone saw what I did in the movie. Looks like not
)
Contrived, verbose & pseudo-intellectual – everything this film shouldnt have been. It had the potential for some nice moments, but unfortunately they got lost somewhere in a film that was trying too hard to be what it wasn’t. And perhaps, Rahul Bose shouldn’t speak in Bengali!
It was such a boring movie… And Rituparno irritated me like anything… She was over the top with her melodramatic acting.
Just finished watching the movie about 15 minutes ago and am completely awe-struck. Am somehow reminded of Kieslowski’s Camera-buff though there is a very little commanility between the two subjects. In there one of the most defining moments is when the protagonist talks about something beyond tranquility which here is anuranan (resonance). Despite the slackness in screenplay here and there, it works greatly in breaking new ground in the terrain of relationships. Fabulous, am gonna a get some great sleep!
Well I thought it was a decent attempt by a debutant.The climax atleast kind of saved the movie.I felt the movie wasnt heading anywhere for a long time.All in all- unrealistic in places, but still decent.