Before I begin with my opinion on this latest offering from Aniruddha Roychowdhury, let me share a long-ish story with you.
Did I tell you that I originally belong to Kolkata, the City of Joy? I left Kolkata in Feb 2007 to move to Pune for work-sake. Life in Pune has been pretty nice and satisfying until I began missing the old world charms of my native city. Well you might want to know about them? The lovely short (though widely called feature-films, such films are of short duration, hence the term short films) Bengali films directed by Aparna Sen, Rituparno Ghosh and a bevy of new directors, trying their best to make meaningful films, safely categorised as parallel cinema. The reason I miss them: Bengali films are released in Bengal only. So I tried to look for a work-around. After all meaningful films are like a daliy dose of life-saving drugs for me!! I wondered, in this age of the internet, where scores of films are watched online, how can I be left out without my dose. To my delight, I found a solution. A quick search on Wikipedia and a crisp chat with my Journalist friends provided me the list of recent must-watch Bengali films. Armed with this list, I set forth looking for them on God's best blessing ( Google of course!!) and Google's great brainchild, You Tube!
Well I must say I began looking for them at an auspicious muhurt and I thank God that the Rahu Kaal was over by then... as I did find what I was looking for. Like a baby leaping with joy on finding a new toy, I forwarded all the You Tube links of these films to Aniket, my dear friend, who by now had achieved superb expertise in downloading plenty of films from You Tube. Here ends the long-ish story as promised and the review of the film begins. [By the way thanks for your patience!! :) ]
Direction and Written by: Aniruddha Roychowdhury
Cast: Rahul Bose, Radhika Apte, Mita Vashishth, Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen, Kalyan Ray, Saswati Guhathakurata
Music: Shantanu Moitra
Antaheen meaning endless is a Bengali film of 2 hours duration. It released in 2009 and was directed by Aniruddha Roychowdhury of Anuranan fame.
Rahul Bose (Abhik) is an honest Police Officer who seeks solace in a virtual relationship with a lady whom he chats with every night without knowing her actual identity. He seems to have lost faith in meaningful real relationships after witnessing his unmarried aunt played by Sharmila. His elder cousin brother played by Kalyan Ray (Aparna Sen's real-life ex- writer husband) still writhes under the pain of endless void ensuing from a broken marriage with Aparna. They respect each other, need and care for each other as mates too, but still cannot co-exist together in the bliss of matrimony. They are always in a denial mode.
Abhik and Brinda, the lady whom Abhik chats with every night, find intense pleasure and warmth in the surreal relationship they share in the virtual world. Strangely, when they cross paths as a fiery journalist trying to secure exclusive bytes and interviews with the police officer, they clash. In their very first meeting, they argue and exchange bitter words. Their tussle becomes a little a smoother when Ranjan, Abhik's elder cousin and Paromita (played by Aparna) enter their lives and become a bridge between them. Paromita is Brinda's colleague and Abhik's cousin sister-in-law.
Aniruddha showcases another broken relationship through the Mehra couple, who are reeling under the impact of the untimely death of their 11year old daughter. Mrs Mehra, played by Mita Vashisht accuses Mr V K Mehra of this disaster.
After a couple of meetings, Brinda begins to find some striking similarities between Abhik and her chat friend 'boy-in-the-box'. She is slowly convinced that Abhik and her chat friend are one and the same person. They plan to meet which never happens. While driving to work for a night shift, Brinda dies of a massive car accident. When Abhik visits her home to inspect, he is convinced that Brinda is the 'raat-jaga-tara' (Brinda's chat id) whom he had fallen in love with.
The film is a good study of the fragile relationships and it covers broken relationships of almost types - a divorce, the pain of an unmarried lady, a mother's turmoil who has lost her child. The virtual relationship is maturely handled and explored. You begin to question the validity of a real relationship that seems soo fragile. Antaheen is interlaced with very beautiful and lilting songs sung by the melodious Shreya Ghosal. The lyrics and music of these 2 songs strike you at once. Debutante Radhika Apte does justice to her role of the fiery Journalist, though the roles of the trio of Sharmila, Aparna and Mita seem minuscule. However these actresses do essay their roles brilliantly though.Rahul Bose stands out as usual.
The short love- episode of Sharmila followed by the Ferari Mon song is quite remarkable.
Antaheen also strikes you with it's peppy dialogues. I will list few of them for you, of course in English:
- 'Solutide is attained through years of meditation. It's hard to achieve. Most people are wimps. They dont have the talent for it.'
- There are no ideal relationships in this world.
PS: I liked the film sooo much that I have saved it in my lappy, to watch it at the click of a mouse.
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