Saibal Mitra, who
has honed his skills in the world of telefilms
and documentaries, just released his first feature
film Songshoy. Based on a story by noted
writer Narendranath Mitra, Songshoy addresses
the dilemma young widows, especially those with
little children, have to encounter when they consider
opening a fresh page in the book of life. She
is forced to make value judgements on her own
‘goodness’ or ‘badness’
as a mother, something no woman should be forced
to do. This, in essence, is the central idea of
the film.
Songshoy weaves the tragic tale of a
beautiful young widow Anita (Rituparna Sengupta)
and her son Bubai (Jiyan Mitra.) Troubled with
a severe funds crunch after husband Aranya’s
untimely death and son Bubai’s severe illness,
Anita decides to go on holiday with Bubai’s
doctor Shyamal (Kunal Mitra), who, it appears,
wishes to marry her, much against the wishes of
her disapproving mother-in-law. Though Anita reveals
courage to go ahead with the doctor, her courage
is later neatly undercut when she tries to appease
a disturbed Bubai by telling him, “We
need lots of money to bring you up Shona, lots
and lots of money,” suggesting that
Shyamal will be the source, providing the needful.
 The
sudden transition from the narrow bylanes of Kolkata
to the vast mountainscape and forest greenery
of the hills brings about mutations in the interactions
between and among Anita, Shyamal and Bubai. Bubai,
a quiet little boy, expresses his displeasure
at his mother’s growing closeness with Shyamal.
But he is overjoyed when he suddenly meets Moitreyee
(Sudipta Chakravorty), a great fan of his dead
father’s Leftist poetry, and gets back into
his naïve innocence again. What happens then?
On a night of thunder and rain, Bubai wakes up
from his sleep to find that his mother is not
beside him. He steps out of the cottage looking
out for her, gets lost in the hills, till Moitreyee,
who is now an active member of the local underground
extremist group, rescues him and hands him over
to the anxious Anita.
Bubai. falls seriously ill. Shyamal, an internationally
renowned doctor, insists not only on treating
him to recovery, but also sidelining the need
to get his blood test done or to seek a second
opinion. He treats Bubai for pneumonia while the
boy is actually afflicted with a rare and near-fatal
local disease specific to the geographical environs
of the hills. Bubai dies, leaving Anita to answer
his innocent query, “are you a good
mother, or are you a bad one?” “I
don’t know,” she says to the
skies, the hills and the forests because Bubai
is no more around to hear her. Anita now faces
another dilemma. She is not sure of whether Shyamal’s
carelessness about Bubai’s sickness is deliberate
as it will put him out of the way in his marriage
to Anita (who insists that Bubai will live with
them), or whether it is due to his supreme arrogance
about his medical expertise. Does Shyamal question
himself too? What happens to their relationship
after Bubai’s death? These are critical
questions left hanging in the air by the director,
leaving them open for his audience to ponder on.
The acting is wonderful, with little Jiyan Mitra
as Bubai easily outshining the rest, followed
closely by Debesh Roychoudhury in his brief cameo
as the local doctor who runs the only pharmacy
in the area and also dispenses free medicines
to the local people. Rituparna performs credibly
though burdened with a character who sheds buckets
and buckets of tears almost without a break, except
for the little interpolations of singing and some
dancing. Kunal Mitra as Shyamal invests the character
with the right dose of arrogance, pride, rudeness,
selfishness and a patronizing nature. A point
here though. Couldn’t Mitra have shown him
in a slightly softer light?
The technical aspects of the film – cinematography
(Asoke Dasgupta), background score (Tejendra Narayan
Majumdar), and sound design (Pankaj Seal) are
brilliant, fitting nicely into the narrative content
as well as heightening the film’s aesthetic
appeal. Yet, the film finally fails to make an
impression for three major reasons. The first
- its inordinate length running to screening time
of 136 minutes of screening time. The film could
well do with some trimming. The second is the
tear-jerking mood that virtually soaks the film
sans relief. The third and final reason is the
lack of logical cohesion in the narrative at certain
points, which, however, may also be taken to be
a reflection of lack of logic in real life as
well.
Overall though well done Saibal, and one wishes
you keep it up but minus the tears, please!
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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