Vorer Alo

The credit of releasing a Bengali commercial film simultaneously in some big centres across the country such as Delhi,Mumbai,Tripura and Assam alongside the home state,West Bengal,goes to Prabhat Roy and Green Movies. Releasing a film on the eve of the assembly elections is another mark of courage. So what is so special about Vorer Alo (The Light Of Dawn) that pushed them to these risks? The name Prabhat Roy is synonymous with wholesome family entertainment with a strong message structured into the script. Earlier films Lathi,Shet Pathorer Thala,etc,were hits at the box-office and have also,in the case of the latter,won the National Award for the Best Regional Film.

The story is narrated in flashback. Arunabha Mitra (Priyangshu Chatterjee),a wealthy businessman,is telling the story to his loving daughter Rinka (Anusmriti Sarkar). He does this to erase her suspicions about his frequent visits to a woman’s home to take her for the weekend to a bungalow he had built for her late mother Srimati (Rituparna Sengupta). The story then gets convoluted and is long winded. What is the message? That too much love and possessiveness even within close members of the same family,such as two sisters,can lead to tragic and criminal consequences.

But like all Prabhat Roy films,Vorer Alo too,has a happy ending minus two characters who are missing from the flashback —one is Shubrangshu (Rohit Roy) and the other is Payel (Anusmriti). Shubrangshu has been deliberately poisoned by Srimati. When Payel realises that her brand new husband had not killed himself but was murdered by her own sister,she poisons herself and leaves her little baby in the care of Srimati and Arunabha.

The film has a beautiful opening set on a misty morning with the melodious title track Vorer Alo composed mellifluously by Jeet Ganguly blending well with the cinematography. The dance jugalbandi between Srimati and Shubhrangshu is choreographed,executed and cinematographed impressively.

Anusmriti is very promising in a double-debut and will do better in single-heroine scripts. Rituparna Sengupta is good but her character is too sweet to be convincing enough when she kills Shubrangshu. The guts she shows in the beginning with her standing up to him when he doctors her coke is not carried forward. There is too much sindoor and bindi in her make-up. The problem with the two male actors is that they have to labour so much over their Bengali enunciation that their acting suffers,although both try to give it their best shot.

So what went wrong? The rambling,dragging script that goes on for so long that it loses sight of very simple logic. For example,the white-washing of Shubhrangshu’s character is so sudden that it fails to convince. Payel leaving her infant in the care of the woman who killed her husband is another terrible anomaly. Last,but not the least,is Rinka opening her arms to welcome her ‘mother’ who was responsible for the death of both her parents.

RATING: ***

The film deserves three stars — one for the production values,one for the acting of Anusmriti and one for the cinematography.