Zee 24 Ghanta 14 February 2025
A crime drama with science fiction at its heart, and possibly the first independent Bengali film with VFX this sophisticated.
Read the story
The story
One man, four lives
Dhrubo is a young painter from a middle-class Kolkata home. Rimi's family is in trouble, only money can fix it, and the quickest money is on the wrong side of the law. From that one moment, the film follows four different ways his life could go. Each chapter is built around one painter of Bengal: Jamini Roy, Gaganendranath Tagore, Bikash Bhattacharya and Benode Behari Mukherjee.
Middle-class life sits between the powerful and the powerless. Again and again it asks the same question: do you hold on to your ideals, or do whatever it takes to survive?
Chapter 1: Ami Jamini (আমি যামিনী)
Inspired by Jamini Roy
Jamini Roy trained in European art, then turned to Bengal's folk pat painting and priced his work so ordinary people could own it. Here his art is part of the plot: everything turns on a lost painting from his Ramayana series. The chapter opens with an orphan child's journey in his bright folk colours. Then Rimi's father falls into debt, Dhrubo wants to help, and Rimi begs him not to break the law.
Chapter 2: Pratima Bisorjon (প্রতিমা বিসর্জন)
Inspired by Gaganendranath Tagore
Gaganendranath Tagore drew cartoons that laughed at the hypocrisy of our own society, and painted a Durga immersion, Bishorjon, through his cubist eye. Here his painting melts into the film. Dhrubo and Nandi copy famous paintings for a living until Firoza, a curator, walks in and party politics closes in. We shot the immersion near Sealdah, where masks float in the water behind the idol: the two faces of the society we live in.
Chapter 3: Putul Khela (পুতুলখেলা)
Inspired by Bikash Bhattacharya
Bikash Bhattacharya was my favourite painter as a child. His Doll series showed the side of society nobody wants to look at, and in this chapter the doll keeps coming back. Dhrubo is now a police officer. A case takes him inside an orphanage and a child-trafficking racket, and into a story of love and betrayal. In the end, we are all puppets in someone's hands.
Chapter 4: The Inner Eye
Inspired by Benode Behari Mukherjee
Benode Behari Mukherjee lost his sight and still kept making art. His student Satyajit Ray made a documentary on him called The Inner Eye. In this chapter that inner vision belongs to Rimi. She is blind, yet she sees Dhrubo more clearly than anyone, and she sees more than just the present. For me, this is the chapter about finding freedom from within.
Are these four worlds running side by side? Is one of them the real Dhrubo? I would rather you watch and decide for yourself.
Nilarun Basu, Fourth Floor Entertainment
Kalyan Sundar Gayen, Concept Cube
