Why did the Brake Fail…
I am going a bit regional here… I think this post will only interest people who have interest in Bengali cinema. And since not much of Tollywood is represented in PFC anyway, this may not be that bad an idea…
This is mainly about this guy called Kaushik Ganguly whose fourth film Brake Fail released today in Bengal. The film premiered last night at a city multiplex and even though I wasn’t terribly excited about going for it, I ended up at the screening 10 minutes into the movie.
Now a quick flashback. When I was in school, the inter-school play competition organised by British Council was a huge thing. Not only for the students involved as actors but also for the rest who would take time out that particular week to visit the theatres. I never auditioned for my school’s play team (even though I did do group theatre!) but I used to go and check out all the plays.
And I remember this particular play put up by St Xavier’s School. It was unlike anything I had seen before and unlike anything the other schools were dishing out. It was beautifully choreographed, refreshing and a treat to watch. Later in the prize distribution, it wasn’t much of a contest as Xavier’s picked up the winners’ trophy. The best director’s name was announced – Kaushik Ganguly… a strapping young man came all the way from behind the auditorium to pick up his prize.
This must be 14-15 years back and I never forgot this man or that play. Then when Zee TV first came in Bangla, four or five years later, there was this incredibly funny serial called De-Ray starring the legend Rabi Ghosh and Tapas Paul as an uncle-nephew team. It was genuinely rib-tickling, the humour of the stature of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron – raw yet refined. Yes, Kaushik was the director.
Then after another four or five years, when the ETV Bangla telefilm every Sunday was a must-watch, Kaushik Ganguly came up with some of the best made-for-television films around. Two in particular were arresting watches. One was Ushno Tar Jonno explored the same-sex relationship with the life of theatre exponent Chapal Bhaduri, who plays both man and woman on stage, as the backdrop. The other was Collage, which was obviously a take-off on Memento but with Nandita Das playing the protagonist who can’t remember who raped her.
Parallelly Kaushik would appear as an actor in other telefilms and he was really good in this capacity as well! Mainly working in tandem with director Anjan Dutt, Kaushik would play these talkative character roles, which would be the piece de resistance of the telefilms.
Then another couple of years later, Kaushik’s first feature film Warish arrived at theatres. It was promoted as a post-marital love triangle and I was really keen to watch it. But before I could do so, the reviews poured in and they were so bad, I dared not walk into the theatre and crush my impression about this man. Everyone called it commercial trash. I imagined that the producer’s pressure must have got to him. I chose to wait.
Everyone knew about his next release. It was promoted right through the city with posters that asked: “Bhora book na book-bhora bhalobasha?” which would translate to “Big breasts or big heart?”. It seemed Kaushik was back at what he wanted to do. The film released and again before I could catch it, everyone trashed the hell out of the movie. You can argue that I should have checked the film out myself but sometimes you like the work of someone so much, you don’t want to see him fail. Like I am not sure I want to watch Inglourious Basterds after its Cannes drubbing. Anyway, I didn’t watch Shunyo E Bukey. I chose to wait.
Kaushik’s third film came out a few months back. It was called Jackpot, a road movie about two couples. The promos on television made it clear that it was again an out-and-out commercial film and Kaushik was going all out to reach out to the mainstream audience. The reviews were better but the film flopped… it didn’t do well in the city and it didn’t get the audiences in the villages. I chose to wait.
In the meantime there was a development. Kaushik had roped in Rituparno Ghosh to play the lead in his next film Chhaya Chhobi, a big screen version of his telefilm Ushno Tar Jonno. It was a great piece of news. I had loved Ushno Tar Jonno and with Rituparno playing the protagonist, I knew Kaushik would be back into action, his style.
And perhaps that was the primary reason I decided to check out Brake Fail last night. I knew it was another attempt at commerical cinema by Kaushik Ganguly. But I thought let’s not wait for the reviews this time and just find out how good he is in this medium. I thought even if the pitch is massy, it would surely have Kaushik’s sensibilities in there somewhere. I chose to go.
I came back a devastated man.
I don’t know what happened to this man. I don’t know what he has gone through in the last few years. But what I saw shocked me. The script, which Kaushik is known for, was all over the place. It was confused. It didn’t know who it should entertain. It had lines that would make you cringe. It had plot points that everyone thought had vanished with B. Subhash.
The images were in soft focus. The camera didn’t know what it had to capture. The close-ups were scary. The song sequences with those rapid zoom ins and zoom outs were from another planet. The performances were from bad to worse.
I ask why? I hardly knew Kaushik. And I still don’t, even though I did meet him at a friend’s house a few weeks back. But what’s wrong, I ask? You can be desperate for success and write a trashy script but why would you forget how to make a movie, man? You were so, so good!
I really hope you get back to basics and just execute your script well for Chhaya Chhobi. This time it’s not only your reputation at stake but also that of Ritu-da the actor. Just give it everything you have. You have it in you. Don’t throw it away to reach out to an audience whom you don’t understand. Be what you are.
I am waiting.
A moment from Brake Fail
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
Chhaya Chhobi, seems to be a really good prospect!!
had no idea that it was being directed by the person who made Jackpot, i’ll admit that does sort of diminish my spirit but still it has Rituparno’s acting debut and i cant help but look forward to it
Sometimes I wonder – what is easy to make?
An intelligent art house film or an acceptable commercial masala flick? I feel it should be the second one. This story confirms my opinion.
I haven’t seen any of his movies.But heard that Kaushik intended to make this as a tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee.But going by the post it looks like Hrishida wouldnt be too impressed.
Pratim- apart from Chhaya Chhobi wasnt he also supposed to make a movie called Sir with Prosenjeet where Prosenjeet plays a blind school teacher?
And btw hows Annu Kapoor in Brake Fail- I guess that must be the only positive about the movie?
Yes Sethumadhavan, he was supposed to make Sir with Bumba-da somewhere in the hills but that project never took off… Annu Kapoor is as good as he can be in a film like this…
This story is somewhat though not very similar to the story of Kedar Shinde. Like Kaushik Ganguly he too came in the limelight with the superhit marathi play Sahi Re Sahi.it wasn’t gr8 but good slapstick comedy unlike the slapstick stuff of most of d marathi movies. Again like Kaushik Ganguly he directed a beautiful teleserial called ’shriyut gangadhar tipre’. It was not at all slapstick. It is by far the best marathi serial i have ever seen. It was a story of a typical middle class mumbai marathi family. Dare i say a little Hrishikesh Mukherjee types. Then he made a movie called “agabai arechya”. which was reviewed here http://passionforcinema.com/aga-bai-arechya-2004/
a remake of “what women want”. It was a nice adaptation with nice music. Then he came up with Jatra which was disappointing. He regained some ground with ‘Yanda Kartavya Aahe’. But lost everything in ‘Mazha Navra Tujhi Bayko’. In between he made a fine play called ‘locha zaala re’a bit inspired from Jumanji it was again like “sahi re sahi”. But his plays after LZR were bad. Hopefully he returns with a nice movie in the current coming of age of marathi cinema.
Hey Pratim thats a nice post. I have been waiting to hear about the bengali film scene. This post just came at the right time.
pratim…
you have a point here ..dude… will try to catch up with you soon….
Never heard of this guy, but reading your post i guess it will be a long time i read his name.
@Rasik,
Kedar is awaiting release of his first Hindi Movie Toh Baat Paki Starring Tabu.
I have seen Shunyo-e-book-e (or whatever) and it is quite disastrous (in my opinion)…however, some of his telefilms are/were good
…i do remember snippets of ushnotar jonno as well…warish was ok but that plot point is such a cliche in Bengali literature/cinema that I didn’t enjoy it much…for some people it becomes really difficult to make the transition from the stage or the small screen to the big screen…another case in point is goutam haldar…he is hailed as an actor on the stage but whenever i have seen him in films (mainly on the ETV Bangla telefilm series) I found him to be “theatrical” to say the least…
Hey Pratim,
Good to see you someone writing on Bengali films on PFC. I wrote on Phatik Chand and did not find many commenters.
I was a big follower of De-Ray but never knew it was by Kuashik Ganguly. It used to be a real good entertainment for the entire family, something like Yeh Jo hai Zindegi.
Now that you have mentioned his works I remember seeing this DVD called ‘Ek Mutho Chhobi’ [ A Fistful of films- compilation of 6 short films by contemporary directors] where the 6th Story, progress report is directed by Kaushik Ganguly and IMO, it was the worst of the lot, closely winnin over Anjun Dutt’s Tarpor Bhalobasa.
Btw, ever wonder why bengali authors and filmmakers are obsessed with pre, post and extra marital affairs over ages? The experiments never seam to cease starting from Devdas, Ghare Baire, Charulata to Dosor, Bibar and so on…..
Why this bong obsession of infidelity ? Probably needs a separate post & discussion
Cheers!
Do you guys refer to Rituparno Ghosh? He’s such a big poser!