Review of Tamasha

Imtiaz Ali is master story teller, he had told us so many twisted love storied dealing with complex human emotions, but with “Tamasha” he has gone one step further as it is not only limited to the love story between two soul mates, rather it tries to tell another view of love that is loving yourself. Unless you love yourself you cannot love others. It tries to convey the message one should hear to his or her inner voice. Don’t just go with the flow rather write your own story doing what you want to do actually.

The story begins with a young kid Ved who hear stories regularly from a story teller and it fascinates him very much also he has one query why all story is same. Whether it is Sita or Juliet or Sohini all are going through the same pain same for the Heroes. From very childhood Dev wants to be a story

teller and want to write his own story which will have something different than the regular stories but time goes on and he has to fit himself as a mediocre Engineer with family pressure. Now grown up Dev (Ranbir Kapoor) goes to Corsica to live his life on his own for someday without any bounding. Here he meets a girl Tara (Deepika Padukone) who has lost his passport and other valuable things on a vacation trip in Corsica. They played a game with each other to have fun in life without disclosing their real identities. They introduce themselves as Don and Mona (Taking names from old Hindi movies).They decide to have fun and to never meet again once the trip is over. As promised they have lots of fun together though without being physical and after one week they parted away. But after coming back from the trip Tara could not forget Don/Dev. After four long

years she realizes it is love. By chance she gets a transfer to Delhi same city where Dev works in a multinational company. As destiny had planned they meet once again, this time with real identity and real love. They have a perfect love life, dinner dates, movie outings, a perfect marriage proposal but Tara realizes it is not the same guy she had met at Corsica. Dev is not the carefree, bindass Don, rather he is an well behaved decent guy who is just living his life to be always perfect. They broke up as Tara wants to get her Don back. From here Dev start his soul searching mission, who he is in real. Whether he was acting as Don or it was the real him and he is acting in the life of  Dev. His self discovery leads him to understand his inner voice.  He understands what brings him real happiness, what he actually wants to be.

Like any other Imtiaz Ali story it is also quite different, but this time the treatment is quite different from regular commercial movies. In some parts it will remind you of another Ranbir Imtiaz collaboration Rockstar”. The screenplay has some interesting moments, the dialogues are real and funny but it has its low moments too in some portions. The prologue part is quite lengthy also the main story has nothing much to do with the fact whether all stories are same or not because at the end the on screen love story has a predictable end. The Corsica portions are visually delightful but do not take the story any further. The second half where Dev discover his inner self is too much philosophical for regular cinegoers.

As a director Imtiaz Ali is always brilliant to portray human emotions as real as possible. But his treatment to the story this time is for a limited section of audiences only.

Ranbir Kapoor is back with a bang after two back to back disasters. Finally he has got a character to showcase his talent. He is just brilliant from start to finish. He is as charming as desired as Don at the

same time he looks so sincere as Dev . He has got the scope to show every possible emotion from comedy to emotion to dance and he shines in each department.

Deepika Padukone has once again proved that she is one the best talents of Bollywood in current generation. She is so expressive with her emotions that you will instantly fall in love with her from her first appearance. She has lesser screen time compared to her hero but she manages to impress everyone whenever she comes to screen.

Together Ranbir and Deepika have a fire crackling chemistry. They bring magic together on screen. They should work together quite often. Watch them in the scene before interval when Tara denies marrying Dev or the scene where Tara apologizes to Dev for her behaviour and both of them broke down in tears. The scenes are quite amazing.

Among the technical team it is cinematographer S. Ravi Barman who has done an excellent job with his lens. Whether it is Corsica or Shimla or Delhi he has created eye soothing frames in every location. The costumes by Aki Narula and Anaita Shroff are quite stylish.The choroegraphy of the "Matargashti" is quite interesting. The editing could have been sharper and the length could have been reduced by some 10-15 minutes.

The music by A.R.Rehman is quite nice and goes well with the story. The songs like “Matargashti”, “Agar Tum Saath Ho”, “Heer To Badi Sad hai” are already popular and works well for the film too. It will grow in you more after watching the songs in the movie, specially the “Agar Tum Saath Ho” song.

Overall it is a different film with a good message, not a regular rom-com. Watch it for powerful performance by the lead. It has its ups and downs but can be a good one time watch.

Review of Bengali Film Rajkahini

Even before its release Rajkahini had made quite a buzz to draw everyone’s attention. There were two reasons for that one is the director Srijit Mukherjee who has made it almost a habit to give one hit followed by other that too choosing unusual subjects and the other one was the huge starcast.  So now the question is whether the film has managed to fulfill the sky high expectations and the answer is yes but partially. It has managed to connect with the audiences with its hard hitting subject and bold treatment to that but when the movie ends you will feel something was missing.

The story starts in the period of 1947 when India got freedom but with the curse of partition.  Whole

nation was burning because of communal riots in such a situation there was a brothel somewhere between India and East-Pakistaan border,which comes in the middle of the Radclife line (the line which is the partition line between India and East Pakistan). So the owner of the brothel Begaum Jaan (Rituparna Sengupta) received a notice from both the country’s representatives Mr. Prafulla Sen (Shashwata Chatterjee) and Mr.Illiyas (Kaushik Sen) to vacate the brothel so that the partition line can be established breaking the old house. But Begum Jaan is not ready to leave the brothel and all her inmates are with her in this battle against Government. Hence they decide to fight their own battle for freedom against the Govt. It is actually the battle of women against the world of Men who have always abused them.  It actually celebrates the woman power and their freedom from a male dominated society.

From the very beginning you can sense that it is bold enough to address all the violence especially against women during the communal riots. There are some moments which can bring tears to your

eyes at the same time there are some scenes which can make you uncomfortable too for its bold representation but we salute the director for not compromising with those scenes.  The story begins with India’s freedom and we are introduced with the violence as a consequence of partition. In such a situation there is Begum Jaan who runs a brothel with girls of different age, caste and religion. All these girls have been victim of abuse of male dominated rules in their past but in this brothel they live their life happily freely under the mentorship of Begum Jaan. No one divide them as per their cast or religion here, all have equal rights. Here the story don’t waste much time to introduce each member of the brothel

individually, later in one song sequence we get a brief introduction of the girls. There is Golap (Parno Mitra) who secretly loves a local school teacher whom they address as Master (Abir Chatterjee), there is Jui (Sudipta Chakraborty) who is a mother of a teenager girl , there is a young widow (Priyanka Sarkar) who is deprived of sexual satisfaction as no one choose her because of her extra weight, there are two girls Duli(Sohini Sarkar) and Koli(Sayani Ghosh) who belongs from very lower cast of society who are untouchable , these two girls have a same sex relationship too between them, then there is Rubina (Jaya Ahsaan) who loves the pimp at the brothel Sujan (Rudraneel Ghosh). So it’s a mix of different type of girls but sadly there is no past story neither a longer screen time has been given to any of the girls. Most of the story focuses on Begum Jaan only.

Apart from these brothel there is a separate track of Mr. Sen and Mr. Illiyas too , the two Govt official working together on their duty who had a warm friendship earlier but now there is a border in between their relationship too as they belongs from different religion. The confrontation scenes between them are wonderful. Every time when both try to analyze the situation and their relation with their own point of view which totally opposite from each other.

The climax of the movie tries to draw a parallel line between the battle of Rani Padmini and the battle of Begum Jaan which may not go well with everyone. It could have been ended on a different point.

As a director Srijit Mujherjee is too good. He knows his job very well. There are some faults in research work for 1947 partition but we can overlook those. At least we can give credit to Srijit for choosing an unconventional subject once again and presenting the truth in a bold form without compromising for the sake of censor board.

Among the cast member it is obviously Rituprna Sengupta who is the main highlight of the film. Begum Jaan is one her best characters of her lifetime. She has managed to portray a brave, strict, rough woman with a soft heart, very well. Only the experiment with her voice does not suit well. Her real voice could have been a better choice. None of the rest of the girls has been given ample chance, still Parno mitra impresses as Golaap. Jaya Ahsaan is good and will surely draw attention for her intimate yet emotionally charged scene with Rudraneel. Ridhima impresses in her first scene as a rape victim. Sudipta Chakraborty and Sohini Sarkar have been wasted in a thankless role. They are capable of much more than this. Sayani Ghosh is okay with her local Bengali dialect. The rest of teh girls have actually nothing to do apart from standing in background as mute audience.

Among the male cast both Shaswata Chatterjee and Kaushik Sen are brilliant. Rudraneel Ghosh is

okay. Kanchan Mallick has tried something different from his comic image and succeeds to some extent. Abir Chatterjee has been offered a different role than his image but he looks a misfit in that character. The true show stealer is Jishu Sengupta in his first negative character. Not only his physical transformation but his mannerism, his expression everything is just awesome. He has just three scenes but he will left impression with his cunning smile. He looks dangerous as Kabir. Srijit Mukherjee has presented Jishu in a really new avatar and his experiment has been successful.

The technical team is always is in good form in Srijit Mukherjee’s film. He knows to appoint perfect technicians in his team. Avik Mukhopadhyay’s cinematography is outstanding; every single frame speaks on its own. Make-up, costumes, production design is very authentic to recreate the period. The visual effects could have been better if the budget would not have been so tight.

Music by Indradip Dasgupta has been used very well mostly in background. The “janaGanaMana” song in the climax blends perfectly with the storyline.

Overall it is a well made film which brings the pain of partition, the pain of every single woman in this male dominated society. It will surely connect with the audience. There are some flaws in research work, it has longer runtime, too many characters but all these can be overlooked for the true efforts from a dedicated cast and crew.

A quick update of Bengali movies in the Third quarter of 2015

For Bengali movies the third quarter of 2015 was average , it has very few successful films in comparison to the large number of flops. 

Lets have a month-wise recap of the second quarter.

July

The only big release of this month was Venkatesh film's Eid release "Besh Korechhi Prem

Korechhi", featuring Jeet and Koyel. It was a romantic comedy directed by Raja Chanda.
After a long time a fully commercial Bengali film did well at the box office. Once again it proved that Jeet still has the stardom to pull a commercial film on his shoulders. 
People loved the chemistry between the leading pair Jeet and Koyel. The popular songs composed by always dependable Jeet Ganguly were add on for the success of this movie.

There were no other big release in this month, but there was a Bengali short film on youtube which created lots of buzz. It was Sujay Ghosh directed short film "Ahalya", a gripping suspense thriller featuring Soumitra Chatterjee, Tota Roychoudhury and Radhika Apte. This movie got really good response from the viewers.

August

The month of August started with two movies "Shesher Kobita" and "Anubrato Bhalo Achho?". Both the movies were well appreciated at different festivals and had limited scope at box office.

"Shesher Kobita", directed by Suman Mukhopadhyay , was based on the novel written by

Rabindra Nath Tagore with the same name. It was a story of platonic love between two different individuals Amit Ray and Labonya played by Rahul Bose and Konkona Sensharma.
The director has done a good job to transform the story on big screen with authentic periodic set up. Apart from that the performance of two leading ladies Konkona Sensharma and Swastika Mukherjee were highly commendable.The film which was released after a long delay got a decent opening and continued to do good business for first few weeks which made it an average earner at the box office.

"Anubrato Bhalo Achho" , directed by Partha Sen was a story of two strangers who met by

chance and comes close to each other coming out of their marital commitment to fulfill the void in their life. Before its theatrical release this movie had traveled to many national and International film festivals and was well received everywhere. Unfortunately at cinemas people did not respond that well to this movie mostly because it has very less commercial value due to its uni-dimensional story-line an slow pace. But the performance by Ritwick Chakraborty in the leading role was extra ordinary. He once again proved his caliber playing much older character than his real age with almost perfectly. Among the other cast members Swastika Mujherjee and Debolina Dutta were good too.

During the holiday of Independence day another two big releases came together "Ek Nodir Galpo" and "Nirbaasito".

"Ek Nodir Galpo" was yet another long delayed film which have to wait for so many years to

get released, in this long wait even the director Samir Chanda passed away. It was a story of a father daughter and their bonding, based on a short story by Sunil Gangopadhyay . The father daughter duo has been played by Mithun Chakraborty and Sweta Prasad. The film got good response at box office and continued to run at theaters for more than one month. Mithun Chakraborty was brilliant in the leading role of a father who is very much affectionate about his daughter.

"Nirbashito" was the directorial debut of talented actress Churni Ganguly. This movie was loosely based on the life of the controversial

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin. Although it was  not a typical biopic rather it had focused on the loneliness and pain of the author once she was banished from her own country, own people and own literature. The movie was very well made and Churni ganguly has done a wonderful job as a director as well as a leading actress too. The film was highly appreciated at film festivals but the commercial fate of this movie was not so good.

Apart from these movies there was another release "Nataker Mato" featuring Paoli Dam in the lead role. this movie got a mixed response at ticket windows.

September

The month of September was not so happening. 

This month one of the most successful commercial film director Raj Chakraborty came with

a new comers love story "Parbo Na Ami Chharte Toke". It was a complete masala entertainer featuring Bonny Sengupta and Koushani. The film did fare enough business considering the new leading cast. The music by Indradip Dasgupta was also a big hit which worked in favor of this movie.

Another important release of this month was director Bauddhayan Mukherjee's debut movie "Teenkahon". It was yet another festival
favourite with a limited box office appeal, but whoever had seen the movie have liked. It was a combination of three short stories which had covered 100 years of journey of Bengali culture, language and socio-economic condition of Bengali's. This movie had some brilliant performances by Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Joy Sengupta, Ashish Vidyarthi and new comers Barshan Shil and Ananya Sen.

Best Films of Q3 2015

• Shesher Kabita
• Anubrato Bhalo Achho?
• Nirbashito
• TeenKahon

Best Directors of Q3 2015

• Partha Sen - Anubrato Bhalo Achho
• Suman Mukhopadhyay - Shesher Kabita
• Churni Ganguly - Nirbashito
• Bauddhayan Mukherjee - TeenKahon

Top Performers of Q3 2015:

Actors:

• Ritwick Chakraborty -Asha Jaoar Majhe
• Ritwick Chakraborty - Anubrato Bhalo Achho?
• Mithun Chakraborty - Ek Nadir Galpo
• Shaswata Chatterjee - Nirbashito
• Sabysachi Chakraborty - TeenKahon
• Joy Sengupta - TeenKahon
• Barshan Shil - TeenKahon

Actresses:

• Konkona Sensharma - Shesher Kabita
• Swastika Mukherjee - Anubrato Bhalo Achho? / Shesher Kabita
• Churni Ganguly - Nirbashito
• Deboleena Dutta - Anubrato Bhalo Achho?
• Ananya Sen - TeenKahon

A Quick update of Bollywood in the 3rd Quarter of 2015

The third quarter of 2015 was much better in terms of box office business. There was the first 300cr film of this year in this quarter. Few other movies too did a good business in the 70-80 cr range.

Lets have a quick month wise recap of the Hindi movies in third quarter of 2015.

July

This month was the best of this quarter with the only 300 cr+ film of the year so far which was "Bajrangi Bhaijaan".

The first big hit of this month was south Indian blockbuster "Bahubali". This S.Rajamouli

directed film created history. It became the first Hindi dubbed south Indian language movie to cross 100 cr mark. It was released in too many languages as a dubbed film , all over India and abroad and in every language version it got fantastic response. The visual effects were the best of any Indian movie so far. Overall it collects 500 cr + worldwide.
The next big release of this month was Salman Khan starer Eid release "Bajrangi Bhaijaan". As expected it got a tremendous opening and enters in 100 cr club in the first weekend. It continues its extra ordinary business because of the heart touching story and also for the fantastic performance by Salman Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and the little wonder Harshali Malhotra. On the final run it became the biggest hit of this year so far and the second biggest hit of all time with the collection of 320 cr.

The last release of this month was Ajay devgan and Tabu starer "Drishyam". This film was a South Indian remake but not a regular commercial remake rather it had a gripping story and some wonderful acting by the leading cast. This thriller was highly appreciated by the audiences and as a result it became a hit with around 76 cr collection. The fans of Ajay Devgan were very much delighted to see Ajay Devgan in a meaningful role after a long time.

August

The box office response in the month of August was quite low compared to July. The only

big hit of this month was Karan Johar's production "Brothers". It earned around 82 cr at the box office.It was a story of two separated brothers in the background of MMA(mixed martial arts). The film got good response and both Akhshay Kumar and Siddharth Malhotra's performances were highly appreciated. The action sequences featuring Martial Atrs were designed extremely well.
Apart from that there were no big commercial success. Though Nawazuddin Siddiqui starer "Manjhi - The Mountain Man" was appreciated by some section of audiences mostly because of the extra ordinary performance by the leading man Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Apart from that Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif starer "Phantom" also got an average response at the box office but considering the high budget of this film, based on global terrorism, we can not say it was a box office gainer.

September

The month of September got a really wonderful opening with "Welcome back" , which was a

sequel to the 2007 hit comedy "Welcome", though some of people thought it was actually a remake of the original in the name of a sequel. Once again the brother duo Uday bhai and Majnu Bhai played by Nana Patekar and Anil kapoor win the heart of the audiences with their superb comic timing. This film took a wonderful start and earn 50 cr in its first weekend. Though its collection dropped later but finally it managed to register 95 cr at the box office.
It followed by some flops which include two back to back flops in two consecutive weeks

"Hero" and "Katti Batti" , both directed by Nikhil Advani. Also Madhur Bhandarkar failed to impress masses as well as critics with his latest "Calendar Girls".
Finally the funny man of Television Kapil Sharma brings back the smile on cinema owner's faces with his Bollywood debut "Kis Kis Ko Pyaar Karoon". It was directed by director duo Abbas-Mastaan who are mostly famous for their thrillers. So lots of people were doubtful about the film but when it released it witnessed a really unexpected good response from the audiences. It earned around 28 cr in its opening weekend which is pretty good for a new comer Hero's movie. Hopefully it will cross 50 crore mark easily in its lifetime business, considering the response of the audience we can hope for even more.

On a whole the third quarter have provided some good movies and good amount of money at the box office. We are hopeful about the next quarter which have some big releases lined up to release specially in Diwali and Christmas which includes Salman Khan's "Prem Ratan Dhan Payo" and Shahrukh Khan's "Dilwale".

Best Films of Q2 2015

• Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Drishyam

Top Performers of Q2 2015:

Actors:

• Salman Khan - Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Ajay Devgan - Drishyam
• Nawazuddin Siddiqui - Manjhi - The Mountain Man/ Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Sanjay Mishra - Masaan
• Jacky Shroff - Brothers
• Anil Kapoor - Welcome back
• Nana Patekar - Welcome Back
• Kapil Sharma - Kis Kis Ko Pyaar Karoon

Actresses:

• Harshali Malhotra - Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Richa Chaddha - Masaan
• Tabu - Drishyam

Top Songs of Q2 2015:

• Selfie Le Le Re, Tu Chahiye, Bhar De Jholi - Bajrangi Bhaijaan
• Sapna Jahan - Brothers
• Hafte Me Chaar Shanivaar, Baton Ko Teri - All Is Well
• Afgaan Jalebi - Phantom
• Main Hu Hero Tera - Hero

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.

Review of Bengali movie "Nirbashito"

We all know Churni Ganguly as a very talented actress but when she chose to wear director's hat for the first time she shows that she equally talented in direction too. She has chosen a truly different subject about the controversial author Taslima Nasrin's banishment for her controversial writing. This movie has already bagged National award even before its theatrical release. This film never mentioned the name of the author but you can make it from the references, that from whose life it has been inspired.

This film is not a conventional biopic about the author, it never focus on her journey from a

poor girl from Bangladesh to an world famous author.Rather it tries to trace her pain her loneliness once she got banished from her own motherland, from her own people, from her own language, from her creative world of writing. The movie starts with the riots in Kolkata by some fundamentalist parties against the controversial author(Churni Ganguly). To make the situation under control Govt has to shift her to Sweden. But she has to left her pet cat Baghini, whom she use to treat like her daughter, with one of her friend Pritam(Saswata Chatterjee). From here starts two different tracks, the author's struggle to cope up with her loneliness at Sweden, her longing for coming back to her own people to her motherland; another track revolves around Pritam's struggle to send the cat Baghini to her mother at Sweden taking approval from local police to state Govt to Sweden Embassy.

The screenplay has been written very well which creates some moments that will live with you even after the movie ends. While it is about the pain of the banished author, it has some funny moments too using some satire on Govt official revolving around the process to send Baghini to abroad. This film never tries to justify what is right or wrong but it protest against ban on anyone's freedom which is one's birth right. It talks about women liberalization , it talks about ones right of freedom of speech and no one have the right to ban that.

As a director Churni ganguly is excellent in her debut film. She has chosen a truly different subject and has handled it quite well giving it a realistic touch. From choosing locations to

choosing actors from different parts of the world everything looks authentic. She knows how to connect with the audiences while telling the story.

Not only as director, Churny Ganguly is in terrific form as the leading actress too. She has portrayed the emotional journey of Taslima Nasrin superbly. The pain, the anger, the frustration , the loneliness looks real on her face. She is an actress who can convey her emotions even without saying a single line. 

Among the others Saswata Chatterjee is very impressive to provide a comic relief. He has played the author's friend Pritam who is struggling to balance his life between his friend and wife. His acting is very natural as usual. Raima Sen has her moments in her short appearance.

The rest of the cast from Tollywood and Sweden, everyone has done a good job. The casting has been done very wisely.

Special mention should be given for Soni , the cat who has played the character of Baghini. Her expressions are really priceless. No wonder you will feel attached with the cat.

The cinematography by Shirsha Ray is wonderful, the locations of Sweden has been captured really well. The editing done by Bodhadity Banerjee is sharp , the story never looks stretched. The background score is very effective. 

Overall it is a film about the pain of an author who has been banished not only from her motherland rather she has been banished from her birth right to express her own feelings. It is about her suffering , her undying hope of returning home one day, which will touch your heart. Watch it for the wonderful effort by the extremely talented lady Churni Ganguly, both as director and as an actor.

Review of Brothers

“Brothers”, the official remake of Hollywood movie “Warrior” has been promoted as a high voltage action oriented film based on Mixed martial arts and it is true to some extent. But it is not only an action entertainer rather it is an emotional drama too about the conflicts between the members of a family, between a father and his two sons, between two brothers separated following a tragic incident in their family.

It is a story about two brothers David (Akshay Kumar) and Monty (Siddhatharth Malhotra)

both were separated in their younger age when a tragic incident had happened in their family which had lead their father Garry (Jacky Shroff) to imprisonment. By the time Garry comes out of Jail things have changed a lot. David has cut off all his relationship with Garry and Monty and has chosen to be a Physics teacher and a dedicated family man with a loving wife Jenny (Jacquline Fernandes) and a daughter. On the other hand Monty is an unsuccessful, alcoholic street fighter. Both Monty and David have chosen different lives but there is one common thing in between them, they both hate each other. Another common thing between these two brothers is that they both love street fighting , as their father Garry was a famous fighter at his young age, although after becoming a teacher David has chosen to refrain him from street fighting.

In such a situation world famous controversial game show R2F (Right To Fight) is introduced in India which is a knock out fight series based on MMA between heavy weight world famous fighters with Indian fighters. Both David and Monty take part in this competition for different reasons. David needs the prize money for his daughter’s treatment where Monty wants to prove to his father that he is a better fighter than David. As expected these two brothers face off each other in the finals. Who wins and who loses that you have to see in the theaters but their brotherhood wins. Love wins over hate, forgiveness wins over revenge.

The screenplay has been adapted quite well from the original adding some Bollywood masala, like a bit too much melodrama, a forcefully placed item song. Although the first half

is too lengthy, unnecessary time has been spend on showing the flashback of David and Jenny’s love story which is not required at all. Rather more time could have been spend on showing the bonding of the two brothers in their childhood which could have given more emotional high to the climax. The item song featuring Kareena Kapoor Khan is also not required; it just adds more running time to the first half. In the second half the story revolves more around the MMA fights, but the scenes showing the emotional dilemma of the family members in between the fight sequences helps to break the monotony of the fight sequences and it also gives more strength to the emotional climax.

After making his directorial debut with “Agneepath” few years back, Karan malhotra has made it clear once again that he can blend emotion and action quite well. His direction is good. Only he could have work on to shorten the length of the film by some 10 minutes.

Akshay Kumar has played his character wonderfully. When it comes to martial arts there is no one better than him in his league of actors. It is always a delight to see Akshay Kumar performing those martial arts but here he has shined not only in fight sequences rather he is brilliant in emotional moments too. He is very impressive as the David suffering from a dilemma whether to forgive his family or not for his loss.

Siddharth malhotra is an young actor who is continuously improving himself with every

film. It is really tough to fight opposite Akshay Kumar that too in Martial arts form but Siddharth has managed it quite well. He has played his character extremely well. The anger and aggression in his expression looks convincing as per his on screen character. Even in his fight sequences he is impressive. His effort for building a perfect body is also appreciable. Only he needs to improve in the emotional scenes. 

We have seen Jacky Shroff various type of supporting roles in recent past but the character he has played in this movie is probably one the best among them. Here he has got a chance to play a significant character with enough scope to show his talent and he has utilized this opportunity quite well. He is good as the old father who is trying hard to bring back his broken family together. Only he is not that effective in the sequences where he plays the younger version of his character as an alcoholic and abusive husband.

Jacquline Fernandes has got a different kind of character to play as an wife and a mother but unfortunately she has nothing much to do specially in the second half. Shefali Shah is wonderful in a cameo as Monty and David’s mother. Watch out her in the scene where she first time meets Monty.It is nice to see Ashutosh Rana on screen after a long time. He has managed to impress even in his lesser screen time.

Among the technical team the first credit should be given to the action directors Justin Yu and Eric Brown. They have set a really high standard for the action sequences in Hindi cinema. Hemant Chaturvedi’s camerawork is remarkable. The background music by Ajay-Atul suits with the drama going on screen. Their background score is very much effective during the fight sequences which gives it a thrilling feel. The music is not the strongest point of the film because there is not enough scope for songs , whatever song is there are only works as a speed breaker. Even the item song featuring Kareena does not work as it has been forcefully placed in the story.

Overall it is an enjoyable film which has its own loop holes but after coming out of theater it will give you satisfied feeling. Watch it for the wonderful acting by the brothers duo and also for the superbly choreographed fight sequences.