Janala

The other ‘windows’ are bytes of social realities that underscore the decadence in human values and the travesty of faith that is a part of our lives today. Mira is constantly harassed by foreigners who are either trying to make a pass at her over the ’phone or insulting her for being an Indian. An inmate of the old-age home laments that this year too his son will not come to see him from the US. The school board refuses to accept the window built at a cost of Rs.25,000(!) because for the members,it is a gigantic blow to their ego as Bimal has decided to make the gift without having consulted them. The ‘meeting’ reveals the ‘window’ to the ugly politics where money changes hands under the table and party favours take precedence over school ‘welfare.’ In other words,they would have preferred cold cash! No Purulia resident is prepared to accept the window free because,“we hardly have a roof over our heads so where will we place this huge window?” The furniture supplier extorts a massive sum for the window when he senses Bimal’s desperation to get it done and his ignorance about market rates for wood and furniture!

The truck driver (Shankar Chakraborty) Bimal has befriended and who takes him from door to door with the window,advises him to gift the window to the local health centre as its windows are broken.

The boyhood scenes flashing through the grown-up Bimal’s mind are a high-point of the film. The poet in Dasgupta surfaces when an adolescent Bimal,oblivious to the geography lesson in class,looks out of the window and sees the waves of the sea flooding into the classroom. The snatch-and-run thief (Tapas Pal) who steals anything that catches his fancy but gives them away at will or tries to sell them off at the local market,is supposedly one of Dasgupta’s poetic metaphors he loves so much. But despite Pal’s wonderful performance,it fails to blend into the narrative or the message.

Indraneil as Bimal is very convincing and credible in his naiveté,his amorality and his irresponsibility. Swastika gives a powerful performance as Mira. Unlike his usual

oeuvre,Dasgupta has presented scenes of physical intimacy between Bimal and Mira without allowing the camera to titillate like a voyeur. Sunny Joseph’s cinematography caressingly pans across the picturesque expanse of Purulia,though it is dry and not as green as other pockets of the state. Biswadeb Dasgupta’s music blends into the random ambience of Bimal’s haphazard journey into the unknown and the uncertain. Dasgupta handles this very original script with his low-key,feather-light treatment,underplaying the satire and making it more intense but only for those who are able to peep behind the physical window and read into the hidden ones.

VERDICT: ****

The film deserves four stars – for direction,story,acting and cinematography.