Lovesongs
-Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is one more
English language film that adds to the new roster
of Bengali cinema using English as the lingua
franca. Based on a story by the director himself,
it marks the return of journalist-poet-author
Jayabrato Chatterjee to filmmaking after 22 long
years. He stepped into direction in 1985 with
Kehkashaan starring Victor Banerjee,
Mallika Sarabhai and Girish Karnad. In between
this film and Lovesongs, Jayabrato has
made not less than 50 documentary and training
films, short features and telefilms for NGOs in
India and Bangladesh in the areas of disability,
women's empowerment and education for slum children.
These films have been critically acclaimed at
foreign film festivals and seminars in Cairo,
London, Toronto, Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore,
Dhaka, Stockholm and Zurich.
 “You
cannot really call it an English film per se because
it has two traditional ghazals penned
by Mir Taqi Mir besides Tagore’s famous
Ekla Chalo Re which I have translated
myself. The film has seven beautiful songs, two
in Hindustani, one a Bengali lullaby and the rest
in English. I asked Usha Uthup to write the musical
score and this will mark her debut as an independent
music director. The film reflects the melting
pot of languages that Indian society is accepting.
Also, it is a language that can claim a much wider
audience in India and abroad,” says Jayabrato.
He is the second Indian writer after Dom Moraes
to have won the Hawthornden Award in Scotland
for his first novel Last Train to Innocence
in 1995. So it is understandable that he
would choose to base his film on his own story.
“An international audience reach is of course
another viable reason for making the film in English.
I want to break the idea that English is the undisputed
property of the British people. One has to accept
that in Indian metros, though we all have our
mother tongues, we continue to pepper our talk
with a lot of English,” Jayabrato elaborates.
Love Songs, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
centers on 64-year-old Mridula Chatterjee (Jaya
Bachchan) She is an independent, cheerful, fun-loving
widow who runs an NGO for disabled people in Kolkata.
The film opens with Mridula preparing for the
visit of her grandson Rohan (Prithviraj Choudhury)
from Bangalore where he studies law. He lands
with girlfriend Tara (Doel Basu) in tow. But that
is no surprise because Mridula already knows Tara
as the daughter of Ketaki (June Malliah), her
favourite student. Intrigued by his grandmother’s
past, Rohan eggs her on to dig into memories she
had not cared to bring out. Her memories flash
back into the late sixties, when she was in college
and the ambience was a blend of the beginnings
of the Naxalite movement, poetry and idealism.
She was in love with Aftaab Jaffrey (Om Puri)
who she could not marry because of the difference
in their communal identities. Her parents hurriedly
arranged her marriage with Shomdeb Sen (Rajit
Kapoor), a corporate man. But the man died soon
after leaving her to bring up their only daughter
Palaash (Shahana Chatterjee) single-handedly.
Her relationship with Palaash, a crooner in a
band that performs in Park Street, marks a disturbed
layer in her life. Palaash is forever insecure
about her wayward drummer husband Dev (Neil Bhoopalam)
and this is a point of emotional stress for Mridula
and Palaash and their interrelationship.
The film is woven through Mridula’s unspooling
her past to Rohan and Tara which turns into a
process of deep introspection and self-discovery,
helping her to understand the choices she had
to make for Rohan and for herself. She tells them
how she happened to encounter Aftab Jaffrey when
many years later, she was researching the lives
of the Santhals. She discovered that his wife
Rabia had become an alcoholic, causing their marriage
to become very unhappy. The twist in the tale
comes towards the end of this narration, as the
film moves back and forth from the present to
the past and back to the present. Can she perhaps
begin life afresh with Aftab? Can she survive
the tragedy life suddenly confronts her with?
 When
asked to relate his experience as a filmmaker,
Jayabrato says, “Filmmaking is a very expensive
effort. I, as the leader of the creative team,
give it direction. I like to sit with my actors
and explain each and every nuance of the character
they are playing. Then I leave it to them to interpret
it. With newcomers, I often act the sequence out
so that it becomes easier for them to understand
the scene. I love dialogue improvisations. And
Jaya-di is a past master at making any written
dialogue come alive with spoken nuances and silences
pregnant with meaning. It was an honour working
with her, Om Puri and Mallika. As actors of the
highest caliber, they gave their best. And as
sensitive, compassionate human beings, they left
their indelible impression on my film, which I
will always cherish.”
“In brief, it is a story about how ordinary
lives suddenly change due to extraordinary circumstances
and how, the fragrance of love is so deep and
so all-pervasive, that it continues to light that
single candle of hope in the darkness of even
the greatest tragedy,” Jayabrato sums up.
Jayabrato’s company Inner Eye Communications
Pvt. Ltd. is jointly producing Lovesongs
and Sunil Doshi’s Handmade Films while Adlabs
are financing the film. Soumik Halder, a FTII
graduate, is director of photography, Partha Burman
is sound designer and Sujay Dutta is editing the
film. Sayan Mitra has designed the costumes while
the production design has been handled by Jayabrato
himself and his wife Shubhra.
Jayabrato’s daughter Shahana, who has a
Masters from the University of East Anglia in
Theater and Development, is making her debut in
her father’s film. The father is agog with
excitement when it comes to talking about the
talented daughter. He says that she has done a
great job, especially in the scenes with Jaya
Bachchan who plays her mother in the film. Jayabrato
says that he expects to get 50 prints doing the
rounds in India. The film is targeted for the
multiplex market, as it will appeal only to a
niche, urban audience. Lovesongs, Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow is expected to get a nation-wide
release in December-January.
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.
|
