Forest Land
is how one would roughly translate the title of
Bonobhoomi, based on a novel of the same
name by Bimal Kar. It is the story of ordinary
people living in and around the junction station
of Kantadih in Purulia district. Each person goes
through his/her own struggles and dilemmas in
life and love. Some find their own solutions while
others are forced to accept the solutions that
life offers them. The narrative is built up of
several sub-plots that are often complete unto
themselves while sometimes, overlap other stories
and characters, and remain incomplete and unexplained.
But then logic has never been a strong point either
in literature on in real life. Bonobhoomi
underscores this in its own language of cinema,
sometimes effectively and sometimes, leaving holes
in the middle, leaving the audience to draw its
own conclusions or find its own answers.
The railway station of Kantadih in Purulia on
the borders of Jharkhand and West Bengal is the
epicenter of all incidents, stories and characters
who flow in and out of this station or simply
live on it. Take for instance Hirabai who runs
the only tea stall and lives in a shanty with
her kid sister Lachmi. She is fiercely protective
of her honour and her kid sister who dreams of
fresher pastures in love and life. Memories of
the tragic death of her older sister Motibai,
a courtesan in Benares, keep haunting her. She
falls in love but is left to cope with her loneliness
in the end.
Station master Hemantababu's marriage to the
very young Padma is a failure because he is impotent
and the marriage is barren. Surjoshankar, manager
of the local colliery who lives alone with a loyal
servant, rebuffs his separated wife Bonolata's
attempts to mend fences. An adoptive 'brother'
Amar, a freelance photographer who falls for Padma,
escorts her. Kusum refuses to consummate her marriage
to Sudhakar because she is convinced that her
life is dedicated to Lord Krishna. Saathiyan is
expecting Rambharat's baby but loses her mind
when her husband suddenly dies in the colliery
in an accident. Surjoshankar leaves Kantadih,
Hirabai is left alone, Hemantababuu and Padma
learn to bury their differences and Amar is shocked
when Padma tells him she has changed her mind
about eloping with him for a better life.
Beneath the seemingly placid surface of a small-town
railway station, the film explores different shades
of fluidity in man-woman relationships specially
focussed on sex. Ghoshal reveals a sense of control
in dealing with the sensual part of these relationships.
The message that comes across loud and clear however,
is the essential loneliness of the individual
even within the social ambience he functions in.
It journeys through the sometimes enforced alienation
of men and women, such as Sudhakar who comes back
to his repentant wife juxtaposed against Surjoshankar
who chooses to go away.
It needs the brilliance of a director like Ray
or Ghatak
to transform or interpret a complex literary piece
on celluloid. However, in Bonobhoomi,
director Swapan Ghoshal has perhaps been too ambitious
in his second film. The film's far too many sub-plots
do offer narrative interest but they also tend
to lead to a lot of confusion. Also, at times
the railway station metaphor is a bit too obvious
and repeititive. But Ghoshal's actors do him proud
with their wonderful, low key and controlled performances.
Indrani Haldar as Hirabai and Ashish Vidyarthy
as Surjoshankar equally share the cream on top
of the cake. Vidyarthy strips himself of the loud
mannerisms he has acquired as a villain in Hindi
mainstream films. But he desperately needs to
polish his Bengali diction.
Ghoshal has chosen to shoot the film in actual
locations in Purulia, Jharkhand, Asansol and Kolkata
where the literary source is mainly centred. Cinematographer
Rana Dasgupta captures the picturesque and sometimes
arid landscape with his low-key cinematography
beautifully. This defines a subtle statement on
how the natural ambience of any given place influences
not only the lives of the people who live in this
wilderness but also the fluidity of the relationships
they move in and out of. Gautam Bose's production
design and Debojit's music match the mood and
the ambience of the small town environment. Arghya
Kamal Mitra's editing could have been more stringent
because some clipping of the footage was called
for.
A ll said and done however, Ghoshal has bettered
himself with his second directorial feature and
much better than the trash he delivers in the
name of television serials.
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