Contemporary
Bengali cinema in the mainstream has precious
little to offer to its audience. Placed next to
the Hindi mainstream, Bengali cinema seems to
be losing out constantly not because of the difference
in lavish budgets or excellent production values,
but because of a losing its grip over what made
it tick in the Uttam
Kumar-Soumitra
Chatterjee era – strong storyline, well-knit
script, powerful histrionics and beautiful music.
In its desperate attempt to keep head above water,
Bengali cinema has tried to churn out cheap Xerox
copies of Hindi box office hits, often picking
some flop actors of Bollywood to give added market
value to the final product – all in vain.
"If I can watch Akshay Kumar gyrate on
screen, why should I watch a Bengali actor who
cannot dance to save his life, at the same cost?!"
is the trademark answer one gets when one
asks why a lay Bengali man chooses to watch Namaste
London instead of Maayer Shapath.
But there is an exception. It comes in the name
and style of Mithun Chakraborty, pushing sixty,
and giving the two top stars in the industry,
namely Prasenjeet and Jeet, a run for their money.
This man, who writes a regular Q & A column
in a noted Bengali daily, calls himself 'a revolutionary
at heart', proving himself again and again by
turning out portrayals in films as different as
MLA Phatakeshto and Kaal Purush.
Every commercial film he acts in is a box office
grosser while his off-mainstream performances
underscore his fluidity as an actor par excellence.
His latest film, Tulkalam,
directed by no other than Haranath Chakraborty
who churns out a hit with every single film, has
house full signs at all the 47 theatres it is
being screened at.
 MLA
Phatakeshto, released last year and directed
by Swapan Saha, is said to have made a neat jackpot
of Rs.4 crore – a kind of repeated record
of another film, Coolie, starring Mithun
in 2004. The same goes another 2007 release, Abhimanyu.
The dialogues of the hero of MLA Phatakeshto
film have become part of the local lingo. Phrases
like "I don't read the news, I make news",
have come to stay. MLA Phatakeshto made
it to the national news channels for its unique
release strategy just before the state elections
that worked miracles both for the film as well
as for its hero. The film takes off from the Anil
Kapoor starrer Nayak. Mithun takes over
the reins of the state leadership for seven days,
each day ear-marked for exposing corruption and
rescuing the collapse in different sectors of
public service, one day for the medical services,
one day for the legal machinery and so on. The
other line in the film, " Maarbo Ekhaane,
Lash Podbey Shashaane" (I'll bash
you here and the body will fall in the crematorium)
has become part of Bengali slang in the state
of West Bengal.
Earlier this year, Hungama, an undiluted
comedy, brought back the money invested within
the first four weeks of its release – unprecedented
in the history of Bengali mainstream cinema. The
film proved Mithun's ability to pull the crowds.
The film marks a hat trick of box office hits
delivered by the Mithun Chakraborty-Swapan Saha
duo. SK Salil, who wrote the screenplay and the
dialogue for the film, has brought in all kinds
of nonsense including giving the hero a persona
no one had ever seen him with before. With the
aim of avenging the wrong done to his fiancée
(Rituparna Sengupta) by her stepmother (Laboni
Sarkar), Ajay (Mithun), takes on the hilarious
get-up of Hanuman Prasad Bandwalla and sends his
audience into splits of laughter. The packed theatre
resounds every other minute with cat-calls and
claps and loud cheers chanting " Dada
Jug Jug Jeeyo" establishing once again,
that right now, there is no beating Mithun to
the numero uno rank.
In Tulkalam, released in April this
year to coincide with the Bengali New Year has
ushered in another Mithunism – "Public-er
Maar, Keoratala Paar" meaning, "Once
the public begins to beat you up, you will land
right across Keoratala." For the uninitiated,
Keoratala is the famous burning ghat in the southern
part of Kolkata. Tulkalam is running
to full houses in all the three theatres in Calcutta
for all the three shows. At a time when land acquisition
issues are fresh in people's minds, Tulkalam
focusses on forcible acquisition of land
and a slum for industrialization. Mithun plays
Toofan, who crosses swords with a legislator as
the latter leaves no stone unturned to acquire
land for industrialization. Toofan supports industrialization
but does not support the acquisition of farmlands
for the purpose. It is a film that reflects, for
purely commercial purposes, the peasant uprising
against the industrialization programme in Singur
and Nandigram though these names are not articulated
in the film. But the uprising here is done by
just a single man – Toofan, or Mithun Chakraborty.
His forthcoming releases – Rene D'Souza's
Rangamatee and Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Kaal
Purush, will throw up more faces of this
versatile actor who came into the industry sans
the minimum eligibility needed to qualify as a
marquee star - voice, class, film background,
looks and screen presence. He has just finished
shooting for art director Samir Chanda's Bengali
directorial debut Ekti Nodir Galpo adapted
from a Sunil Gangopadhyay novel Ekti Nodir
Naam. It is a father-daughter story with
Mithun playing the father and Shweta Prasad playing
his daughter. All three – Chanda, Mithun
and Shweta have bagged National Awards and this
defines a kind of USP for the film.
Mithun has gifted Bengali cinema a genre that
not one of his predecessors could – the
genre of the action film and the credo of the
crusader hero. Uttam Kumar has a screen image
soaked in romance. Soumitra Chatterjee, strictly
a director's actor, brought heroes from Bengali
literature to life on celluloid. Biswajeet during
his brief span, made a strong impression with
his dashing good looks and just-above performance
in some big hits like Maya Mriga. But
audience taste seems to have gone for a toss.
Love has flown out and action has come in. The
heroine is reduced to a wallflower and an also-ran
while the hero is ready to jump off the nearest
cliff – not to get his lady love mind you,
- but to right a wrong. Both Prasenjeet, who has
been numero uno for two decades, and Jeet, who
has been around for a little more than five years,
are doing action films as well. But so far as
action goes, Mithun beats them hollow and we mean
it!
He is the only star-actor in Bengali cinema who
triumphantly walks the tightrope between mainstream
and off-mainstream cinema with three national
awards in his portfolio. This is commendable because
in his heyday, Mithun was never a Bong cinema
person. He condescended to take on a few roles
here and there if he saw they would add to the
archival value of his acting portfolio. But look
where this took him. So if you think Manik Dasgupta
in Guru marks Mithun's
return to mainstream cinema, think again.
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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