It is
rare to discover Indian films tackling platonic
relationships between men and women. Bas Ek
Pal tried it but with disastrous results.
Thus, Anuranan comes like a whiff of
fresh air within the relationship genre of films.
Nandita (Rituparna Sengupta) and Rahul (Rahul
Bose) meet Amit (Rajat Kapoor) in London and the
friendship travels to Kolkata when Rahul is transferred
to the city. Amit's wife Preeti (Raima Sen) strikes
a bond with Nandita. But she also finds common
interests with Rahul and they become friends without
transcending the borders of physicality. The question
is – are the two couples happy? Is happiness
a surface quality? While Nandita suffers from
bouts of depression for her failure to bear a
child, Preeti is a victim of an emotionally abusive
and sexless marriage to a man whose world revolves
around the rise and fall of the Sensex. Rahul
and Amit, in their separate ways, get involved
in building a holiday resort in Sikkim, overlooking
the Kanchenjungha. What happens then makes for
the riveting climax of the film.
 Aniruddha
Roy Choudhury, who honed his cinematic skills
with advertising films, steps into feature films
with Anuranan, based on his story and script.
What constitutes a man-woman relationship beyond
the regimentation that marriage entails, or beyond
blood ties? Must it always be tinged with repressed
or expressed sex? The argument placed by the narrative
suggests a platonic friendship between Preeti
and Rahul as they both love books and hate dancing
and partying. The insightful Nandita discovers
that Preeti's married life is tinged with sadness
but does not probe into it. Then, one fine day,
when Rahul has to go to Sikkim when Amit flies
to London, Preeti impulsively lands up in Sikkim
sharing with him in silent symphony, the beauty
of the Kanchenjungha against the backdrop of the
full moon.
The film moves at a languid, slow and steady
pace, fluidly changing tracks from London to Kolkata
to Sikkim and back. There is no hurry to reach
anywhere, yet it does not drift to boredom. It
is as much a character-centric film as it is a
location-centric one. It partially captures the
spirit of homesick Indians in London and the spiritual
beauty of Sikkim but fails to touch the spirit
and the essence of Kolkata with its mush and dust
and dirty smells and barking dogs, things that
made NRI Rahul nostalgic about the city he knows
little about.
What really holds the film together are the subtle
nuances of facial expression and body language
of the four main actors who add flesh and blood
to an otherwise sketchy script – few characters,
nothing much happening by way of action, somewhat
philosophical and way-out monologues by Rahul
into his dictaphone, dotted with glimpses into
Nandita's flashbacks both happy and sad. The tiny
clips of Nandita's nightmares stand out for the
cinematography and the brisk editing. Rahul Bose
shines as the NRI with a penchant for speaking
out his thoughts into a dictaphone instead of
writing them in a diary. Rajat Kapoor as the billionaire
investor is elegance personified while Rituparna
shows once again that she can do justice to a
role that is challenging. But the cake goes to
Raima Sen who as Preeti, is an epitome of control,
subtlety and grace, handling every situation,
including her husband's lack of interest in her,
with restraint. The brief cameos – Mithu
Chakrabarty as Nandita's elder sister, Haradhan
Banerjee as her father, complement the acting.
The characters of Victoria and Preeti's unfeeling
up market mother (Dolly Basu) stand out like ugly
moles on a lovely face. It is not that their acting
is flawed. The characters just do not belong and
look like impositions the film could have well
done without.
The other pillar of support is Sunil Patel's
brilliant cinematography that captures the lush
greenery of the English countryside and the dark
lanes of London as fluidly as it does the mountainscape
of Sikkim, turning them into distinct characters
with roles to play within the script. The sound
design and music are detailed, with Nandita breaking
into a song amidst the greenery of England, or
the sounds of ajaan from a nearby mosque filtering
into Rahul and Nandita's spacious apartment in
a posh neighbourhood of Kolkata, to the precise
use of the single Tagore song in the background,
investing depth into a film which could have collapsed
with the slightest slip into melodrama or exaggeration.
There is this scene where Nandita smells Rahul's
sweater when Victoria brings his suitcase home
that you carry with you outside the theatre.
The main drawback lies in Rahul's uneven characterization
within the script that is flawed mainly because
it lacks consistency. He is born, bred and educated
in England and his encounter with Kolkata has
not been much. How then does he feel so nostalgic
about the city and recall places that should have
been distanced from his elite experience? How
does he recite such beautiful Bengali poetry so
fluently and so often? In Sikkim, his Hindi is
fluent too. Yet, one gets to like him for all
that he is, thanks to a wonderful interpretation
by Rahul Bose who could perhaps work harder on
his Bengali diction.
These little flaws notwithstanding, Anuranan,
which means resonance, lives up to its name.
Shoma A Chatterji is a freelance journalist
who specialises in cinema and gender. She has
won the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema
twice.
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