Synopsis
Malati, an attractive young girl, comes back to her village to live with her older brother’s family after her husband’s untimely death in an accident. She lives in the hope of beginning a new life with Ranjit, a young patriot she was once in love with. She had to marry another man because Ranjit was in prison then. Her dreams are shattered when Jabbar and Amiyo, two youths of the village, kidnap her for the lecherous landlord Karim Sheikh, who lives in a distant village. They leave her in the fields of a neighbouring village, thinking she is dead, after Sheikh repeatedly rapes her in his boat as it sails across the river. Joton Bibi, an elderly woman, and her husband Fakir Saab rescue her and take her home. They discover that she is pregnant as a result of the rape. In course of time, Malati delivers a son, who grows up with other village children. When he learns that Malati is alive and that she has a son borne by him, Polu, Sheikh orders his goons to finish her off. Despite Joton Bibi’s fiercely protective ways, Malati is killed. Karim then sets his men to target Malati’s little son. But the motherly Joton Bibi is always there on guard, shielding him from every attack. But when Sheikh’s men kill Polu too, there is a violent uprising in the village and in the stampede when people are running helter-skelter to escape, Joton Bibi dies. The compounded tragedy of the three deaths of Malati, Polu and Joton Bibi sparks off the beginnings of communal strife in the village, setting one community off against the other. effectively destroying the ambience of harmony within which the people of the two communities lived. A repentant Amiyo kills Sheikh as the schism gains momentum.
Jishnudeep Burman, a noted film critic who edits the cinema page of a popular Bengali daily, has produced and directed Dahankaal (The Burning Days), his first film. The making of the film has been a saga by itself. He began shooting more than ten years ago, took seven years to complete the shooting and then had to wait for funds for post-production. This too, got over in bits and starts in 2005. The censor certificate was granted in December 2006 and he still had a wait of more than a year to see his film finally released at Nandan recently in 2008!
The story of the film is taken from a single
segment, Malatir Upakhyan, from Atin
Bandopadhyay’s epic novel, Neelkantho
Pakhir Khonje (In Search of the Blue
Bird). The storyline is timeless, and yet
jaded. A rural widow being kidnapped and gang-raped
and left to die has been repeated so many times
in so many ways that it fails to either impress
or convince. Further, the time lag between conception
and release has affected the topicality of the
story, which Burman has set it in contemporary
West Bengal. There is a subtle play of bonding
between the elderly Joton Bibi, a Muslim and the
very young Malati, a Hindu widow. Fakir Saab’s
paternal empathy for Malati is also pointed out.
Hate is a stronger and more destructive emotion
than love, is the message of the film. There are
other areas the film touches upon, such as members
of a minority community suddenly being replaced
in factories and farms owned and run by members
of the majority. But the handling and editing
of these incidents, though well-meaning, lack
lucidity and are presented rather vaguely. Shot
totally on location in Plassey, Bongaon, Saktigarh,
Jauglia, Bisharpara and Madhyamgram, Dahankaal
offers realistic visuals of a rural Bengal that
is beautiful but rightly avoids the gloss and
the glamour of a touristic picture postcard. Unfamiliar
faces of actors drawn from Bengali theatre add
to the natural look. The villages with their fields,
their huts and the sparse interiors of the homes,
juxtaposed against the beautiful-but-slowly-decaying
mansion of Sheikh offers a slice of India’s
rural reality.
The ten-year wait has severely affected the quality of the film. Its outdated look and obvious continuity lapses have told on the final product, with Parthapratim Choudhury’s cinematography looking quite inconsistent. The long shelf life has spoiled the consistency and quality of the colour processing. Unexplained breaks in the editing are another drawback. Acute funding problems blocked the director’s choice of an acting cast with some box office value, which would have gone a long way towards better distribution and exhibition. Since the entire acting cast is drawn exclusively from the Bengali stage, the throw of dialogue tends to be loud and melodramatic. Yet, Bina Mukherjee as Joton Bibi is very good and so is Neelkantho Sengupta as Fakir Saab and Parthopratim Chakrabarty as Polu. The rest are amateurish and theatrical but not camera-conscious. The ‘Bangal’ diction of some actors leaves room for improvement.
But the film does have its merits. The music and the songs of the film are its strongest points. Five beautiful folk songs, one of them authored by the famous Lalon Fakir (Bangladesh) used on the soundtrack, along with an effective background score. However, Partho Ghosh’s theatrical voice-over jars.
Dahankaal does highlight the futility
of one human being killing another for no reason
at all. But then, isn’t every killing an
inhuman act? Talking of killing, sadly, Dahankaal
has been virtually ‘killed’ by
the long, long wait towards release during which,
the little boy who portrayed Polu has grown into
a strapping young teenager.
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.
|
