VIA DARJEELING
Interesting experiment with excellent performances.
by Vishal Verma
Banner: Moxie Entertainments P Ltd
Genre: psycho – thriller.
Target audience: festival goers and students of cinema
Producer: Joy Ganguly
Director: Arindam Nandy (debut)
Star Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Parvin Dabbas, Prashant Narayanan, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh, Sandhya Mridul, Sonali Kulkarni & Vinay Pathak
Singers: Sunidhi Chauhan
Music Director: Prabuddha Banerjee
Background Music: Prabuddha Banerjee
Cinematography: Abhik Mukherjee
Art: Indranil Ghosh
Editor: Arghyakamal Mitra
Screenplay: Arindam Nandy
Sound: Bishwadeep Chatterjee
Dialogue: Atul Sabharwal
Costume: Agnimitra Paul
PR: Percept Profile & Rahi Communication.
Technical Analysis
Art house walas, festival organizers pls call Moxie entertainments if they are running short of any flick to run their festivals.
NFDC’s return after 4 years after Anand in Telugu (2004) can be called as a low key tribute to the landmark milestone of Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Roshomon’ which brought Asian Cinema into the limelight. If Joy Ganguly’s previous, ‘The Bong Connection’ was inspired from Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece ‘Apur Sansar’ then this one crosses boundaries and gets inspired from the legendary Akira Kurosawa’s first milestone ‘Roshomon’.
The Bong Connection got some festival recognition and did fair business in Kolkata but was a dud elsewhere.
The same will be the case for this one also but with a difference, ‘The Bong Connection’ was in English & Bengali while this one is in Hindi, so chances in the Bengali heartland is also doubtful. With the backing of NFDC, it may make rounds at some festivals and bask in the glory of the experiment which didn,t create any magic at the box office.
The reason is simple – Roshomon is hailed for its philosophical and psychological overtones. Which creates a marvelous impact on the viewers of any genre. But this loose inspiration scores only at the psychological level, the philosophy and other human layers in the story is missing.
And also the movie appears like a thriller on a TV screen and lacks big screen sensuality and feel.
So, even though all the excellent performance from the entire cast, good music by Prabuddha Banerjee, fine background score by Prabuddha Banerjee, crisp editing by Arghyakamal Mitra fail to create the overall impact for those who had watched ‘Roshomon’.
It may appeal to a fresher though.
The story revolves around Ankur (Kay Kay Menon) & Rimli (Sonali Kulkarni), a recently married couple on their honeymoon in Darjeeling. But on the eve of their return to Calcutta, Ankur disappears. The Inspector in charge, Robin Bose, searches high & low, but Ankur is no where to be found. When he questions Rimli, the only clues she is able to give him, are of a taxi driver Ankur had fought with & a mysterious looking man whom she thought was following her throughout their trip in Darjeeling.
Two years later, Inspector Bose relates this story to a few friends; they are intrigued by this story, & question him about the outcome. But he has no answers. The friends start gossiping on a rainy night, bantering & discussing the mystery of the missing husband amongst them. Intrigued by this story, they start a tale about the possible outcome and all take part to give their own versions where personalities, motif and professions change.
Promotion
On TV the promotion is somewhat okay. But the outdoor publicity has been poor. The proper way for such kind of flick is to get any festival recognition if possible and then go for theatrical release. That can be helpful to create the buzz.
Media awareness by Percept Profile (NFDC) & Rahi Communication (Moxie Entertainments P Ltd) is below par considering that the two could have teamed up and created a buzz.
Business analysis
Poor promotion, lack of awareness, no festival recognition, & tough competition from Yash Raj will keep the audience away from the theatres. Even tough the flick has an interesting experiment at display.