Review of Bengali film "Teenkahon"

"Teenkahon" as the tagline suggest "Three obsession , Three acts, 100 Years", is a combination of three short stories with basic theme of love in different time and cultures. Combining short stories in a single film is not a new concept but here its different as there are only three stories so each story has been given ample time to be developed like a full fledged story which gives you a feeling of watching three different films and every film has its own good qualities which makes an impression on their own.

The first one is named as "Parichay(Boy meets Girl)" is based on the short story "Nabalak"

by Bibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyaya. It is a story about the first love of a eight year old kid Shailo (Barshan Shil). How he develop feelings for a newly wed woman Nayantara(Ananya Sen) in his village and what he does in his immaturity to get his love follows the story. This story has been set in pre-independent India rural surroundings.The well researched rural set up of a village and the black and white picturisation will surely make you nostalgic about old Bengali classics including Ray's "Pather Panchali". The narrative style of this story is also very good where a grown up Shailen (Suman Mukhopadhyaya) is narrating the story of his first love from his childhood to his friends which breaks the monotony of the story. The screenplay has been written very well where it has emotion as well as some comic moments too revolving around the childish efforts by young Shailo to take revenge against Nayantara's husband Akshay (Biswanath Basu). It is definitely the best story of the all three.

The second story is named as "Biraho(Boy looses Girl)" is based on a a short story by Sayed Mustafa Siraaj "Postmortem". It is a story where a girl named Mohua had committed suicide and his husband Gyanesh Mitra (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) comes to his dead wife's lover

Sukomol Basu Roy (Joy Sengupta) to find out the reason of his wife's suicide, to find out who is responsible for the woman's death, her husband or her lover. In the beginning Sukomol feels quite awkward to talk with the man with whose wife he had an extra marital affair, but as the story progress they discover each other more and they also discover their own share of responsibility for the girl's death. This story is a bit monotonous because of only two main characters and the same set of a close room where the whole story has been picturised but still it holds your attention because of the wonderful performance from both the leads.

The third story is set in contemporary Kolkata of 2013 , it has been named as "Punarmilan (Boy gets back girl)", this is based on the short story "Telephone" written by the director

himself. It is about an urban married couple Joydeb (Ashish Vidyarthi) and Anamika (Rituparna Sengupta) who are not so happy with their married life as they are struggling to have a kid with some medical help. In such a situation Joydeb who is a senior officer at Kolkata Police dept. gets involved in an extra marital relationship with a woman during an investigation. In the meantime his wife gets pregnant and delivers a boy. Now Joydeb is in a dilemma to choose any one between his wife and son or his girl friend. Finally he takes a tough decision which ends with a really shocking twist. The screenplay is not that gripping throughout but the twist at the end is really amazing. 

As a director full credit should be given to the debutante director Bauddhayan Mukherjee. He has efficiently directed not only one rather three different movies that too in totally different time frame which is really commendable. His perfection for detailing for every story is extra ordinary. We are definitely looking forward to see more and more master pieces from this talented director in future.

Among the actors all of them are good but special credit should be given to Sabyasachi Chakraborty , Joy Sengupta, Ashish Vidyarthi, Ananya Sen and child actor Barshan Shil.

The technical team has also done a fabulous job to work on three different stories, the way each time frame has been depicted , it shows the effort put in for the research  work.   Cinematographer Avik Mukhopadhyay has captured three stories in totally different flavor specially the first one which has been shot in black and white is wonderful. Sound design by Biswadeep Chatterjee is too good to sound real. The costume , production design are very much true to the time period for each story. Special mention should be given for the dialogues which shows the change in Bengali language throughout the time range of 100 years.

Overall it is an wonderful experience to watch three different films together which not only tells three stories, rather takes us to the journey of changing face of Bengali culture and language through 100 years. If you like non-commercial Bengali films where the content is the main attraction not the stars then don't miss it.