Trishanku

Cast: Papiya Adhikari,Abhiraj,Moubani Sarkar

Strictly avoidable

Rating:**

When should a gifted filmmaker pull out all the stops and call it a day? No one knows because artistic creativity is not marked out by limitations of age,sex,language,culture,experience,training or even past records. Taking all this into consideration and looking at his recent switchover to Bengali films,one thinks perhaps that Basu Chatterjee would choose a different subject or format for his next film unless he decides to stop creating.

Trishanku is adapted from a story by noted Hindi littérateur Mannu Bhandari who is also responsible for Chatterjee’s delightful Rajanigandha (1974). Trishanku,however,is a different cup of tea. Ideally,one should not draw comparisons between the literary source and its celluloid representation. Even so,Trishanku,briefly summed up,is a disaster never mind its literary origins. The story about a seemingly liberated and modern mother who encourages her daughter to mix with a batch of young boys of the same college but backs out when she falls in love with one of them,takes a very long time to come to the point. This makes the conflict fall flat on its face because it does not quite follow the events that have gone before.

What are these ‘events’? It is a simple story of a young girl (Moubani Sircar) who gets angry when she first sees four boys from the neighbouring terrace trying to catch her attention. But her ‘liberated’ mother (Papiya Adhikari) springs a surprise. She invites the boys home to tea so that the daughter can mingle with them freely and openly. But when she realises that the girl has fallen seriously in love with one of the boys (Abhiraj),she calls him and tells him to call it quits. She is the trishanku of the film –– confused about her ideology on man-woman relationships linked to her daughter’s growing up.

The two stars are for Debjit Roy’s music and the natural performance of young actor Abhiraj. The songs are very good but the background score is not upto the mark. Editing is patchy and cinematography is just about average.

Ratings: Two stars for the songs and for Abhiraj

RUSHES:

Plot: Girl-boy story gone awry because of a confused mother

Verdict: Poor

Box-office prospects:None