KALER RAKHAL(THE UNDERSTUDY)
Director: Sekhar Das
Cast: Roopa Ganguly, Soumitra Chaterjee, Nandana Sen, Supriyo Banerjee, Chandreyee Ghosh
Synopsis: This film was displayed in International Film Festival Ahmedabad.
Aparna( Nandana Sen), she is a representative of German based television company. She is shooting on various aspects of folk especially Bengal. So for this she chooses a village. “Sukandia”. This village happens to be Krishna’s uncle who has witnessed the curse of the development which is slowly driving away the purity of the land extermination to the real nexus of dirty power politics.
This surprises Aparna, who is more attracted to the simple lifestyle and the simple soul of the villagers and tried to explore deep into their lifestyle. In the process, she becomes friendly to two very talented locals, (Subal And Taher(Rudraneel)are very talented characters). Subal is a native and talented showman and a very good singer and flute player, while his innocence was exploited by the local political party Dadas. Taher is very close friend of Subal, he is seemed to experience from hesitation due to the threat of a rising of an emerging lady star that the manager of the drama company aimed to employ.
Aparna gradually blends the culture and tradition of the countryside and enjoying the stay immensely.But the trouble starts when there is tragic turn of events of brutal molestations by the local goons and for this Subal is forced to take responsibility of this criminal act by the party leaders. As, Subal is unable to prove his innocence he tries to avoid the party’s anger. So he escapes and hides at his aunt’s place far-off village. There he meets his cousin a widower Sumi. Soon they fall in love .And so it was not long before their intimate relation though morally incorrect but only natural given the circumstances that they were in. But sooner Subal was traced out from his hide out and was again forced to accept the charges with the threat to get killed if disobeyed. Subal realizes the power of the party leaders, he is unable to bear the charges that he was put through. Subal finds no way other than committing suicide and thus ending the matter.
Here the story ends. Subal is replaced by his younger brother while the life goes on in the village with same exploitations and corruption under the excuse of progress. In this movie, the director has tried to highlight that in the lowest level of the country’s socio-economic structure, religious tension is completely absent and has also tried to highlight the rural people poverty state that is exploited again and again exclusively in the interests of the party heads.
The characters that have been woven round it have truly brought the harsh truth of the rural lifestyle which the rest of the country is quite unaware of.
The movie story is based on Nilanjan Chattopadyay’s short story, “Du-Number Ashmaami”
My only grievance is Rupa ganguli’s graceful acting that is the whole story and could well have done away with, otherwise it’s amazing movie.