Anuranan is one of the rare Bengali films that has become a success, cutting across generations and social barriers. And that is no mean credit for a feature film by a first-timer!
The film, directed by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, is the story of two couples. Each of these couples has to grapple with intimate personal struggles to strike a balance between relationship and individualities.
After having lived in London for a few years, Rahul and Nandita move back to Kolkata and try to come to terms with memories of despair and desolation, ingrained in their past, having started life as a married couple in the city of Kolkata, and those that remained dormant for the period of domesticity in London. Rahul & Nandita become friends with Amit and Preeti, and soon their lives are on a whirlwind ride of resonating romance and longing. The lives of these four individuals create a unique resonance, a chord, that echoes through their present and future. The film stars Rahul Bose, Rituparna Sengupta, Rajat Kapoor and Raima Sen, alongwith Mithu Chakraborty, Haradhan Banerjee, Dolly Basu & Barun Chanda.
One of the best lines in the movie summarises the overtly romantic feel that will surely overwhelm the viewers. Words are transient, silence is eternal! The lines which are not nuanced with an excess of melodrama are the ones that stand out. The unspoken words, the pregnant pauses and the unemphasized humanistic concerns punctuate the script and enrich the content too. The film could easily have meandered into maudlin excesses, however, the director shows great restraint and economises with his cinematic frames. The scenic splendour in the mountains, or even in the London suburbs, is a rare treat for regional cinema.
The climax of the film does shape up a bit abruptly, and there are some uneven attempts to blend in the macro-concerns within the intimate narrative, whereas some brisk editing could have taken care of the unnecessarily laidback pace in the secondary segments. However, apart from these minor flaws, I found the film extremely poignant. I kept thinking about the interplay of emotions among Rahul, Nandita and Preeti for hours, and even had prolonged discussions with my friends who saw the film.