There is something to
be said for a filmmaker who has dabbled in design.
Dibakar Banerjee, one
of the most artistically-gifted directors in our current times, had started out
at NID (National Institute Of Design) before dropping out and dabbling in
advertising. So, while his films do carry that incisive, sneaky,
truth-squeezing grittiness of powerful advertisement, they are also exhibits of
unique design in themselves.
So, we saw the color
and frolic of Delhi’s suburbs come alive in little visual nuances in his first
two knockouts- ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ and the particularly-smashing ‘Oye Lucky!
Lucky Oye!’, in which he made the gaudy bars and restaurants as well as the
artistically decorated plush apartments of the city’s urban classes. And we
also saw the brittle, shaky and constantly edgy world of scratchy surveillance cameras
Tom-peeping into the private damaged selves of the characters of ‘Love Sex Aur
Dhokha’, as well as Costa Gavras’ immortal classic ‘Z’ imagined as a modern-day
tale of Indian corruption in a seedy everytown called Bharatnagar in the
gripping ‘Shanghai’.
But when it comes to
period cinema, well, sir, design matters a lot.
And so, when the titles
of the teaser announce ‘1943- Calcutta’, we are instantly hooked, expecting
that something unusual, never-seen-before will unfold in front of our eyes.
The City Of Joy might
have become a new rage among filmmakers but honestly speaking, the city has
been merely captured as a superficial façade- with only one film- that is Sujoy
Ghosh’s ‘Kahaani’- just actually getting into the nooks and crannies, its
overflowing sewers and its languid lethargy. Often, most of us have been merely
contented with lazily wandering trams, yellow cabs and of course, the boats
below Howrah Bridge, bobbing on the waters of Hooghly.
Which is all very fine
and good but trust Banerjee to give it all a superb, stylish twist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sv6Frp8qw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3sv6Frp8qw
The Calcutta of the
film is in the throes of the effects of war- with British troops marching down
its streets- gearing up against the Japs at the Kohima border while somewhere
in the colorful Chinese quarter of the city, a mystery is waiting to be unfolded.
The trailer is snazzy
in cutting and editing- with the mesmeric visual palette reeking of lurid sin,
bright stained reds and yellows, shady
corners and Angle poise lamps and menacing Chinese men wielding daggers and
more while at the edges looms a svelte femme fatale with her shoulder blades
alluringly filling up the frames.
Whoa!
Banerjee has always a
gift for making the mundane look exceptionally striking and impactful but here
the tools at his disposal are already striking to begin with and he caresses
them almost sensually.
So, along with a femme
fatale, we have old, creased maps, corpses, the folds of a dhoti, a sneaky
detective peeking through a carved window and all this comes before your jaw
actually hits the floor.
And to let the audience
guessing, albeit a little fruitlessly- for we all already know it all- Banerjee
refuses to show us his leading man- merely focusing on his dhoti-sheathed legs
on a moving rickshaw through the streets and it is only as we hear his voice as
he watches the skyline of a war-battered city at his disposal that we feel
totally convinced.
It was already a big
event that Aditya Chopra signed up Dibakar Banerjee to helm a film that seems
all set to revamp the image of Yash Raj Films, from a studio happy enough in
releasing rehashed throwbacks to the iconic films of yore into a seriously
reliable churner of intelligent entertainment.
With ace directors like
Shimit Amin and Habib Faisal already on the payroll, they seem to have now
brought in the big fish with Banerjee’s unconventional style a healthy contrast
to the safe play that the studio’s outings have always done.
But now with this
smartly cut, sleek and dazzling teaser out on display, looking more like a
lavish Tintin comic set in an authentically retro-fitted Calcutta, it looks
that we are in for a delicious, luxurious meal of mystery, murder and ‘Macher
Jhol’ served in truly vintage style.
Dig in, people. Hold
your hands for the big release next year. And expect that Dibakar will more
than whet your appetite for something fishy.
