Synopsis
Rangeen Prithibi, a popular Bengali novel, forms the basis for Tollylights. The film journeys through the struggles of Abhimanyu (Arjun Chakraborty) to establish himself as an independent director in Tollygunge in Kolkata, the film capital of West Bengal. The journey gets unwittingly interwoven into the life, love and struggles of Krishnakali (Sreelekha Mitra), a pretty young woman, married to a close friend of Abhimanyu (Arindam Seal). Krishnakali is virtually pushed into doing a parallel role in a Bengali film, thanks to her rather conventional husband’s surprisingly unconventional enthusiasm. That one sudden chance changes her life. As she ascends the ladder of professional success, her personal world comes crashing down. Her husband throws her out of the ancestral house, her parents cut off with her and she loses custody of her son after the divorce. She gets into a live-in relationship with a much older, two-timing, married man who now acts in jatra plays. In short, Krishnakali, despite her fame and success, is an unhappy young woman. Meanwhile, Abhimanyu knocks doors to get his script picked up by some producer, in vain. Between these two stories, that begin together, then go their separate ways and meet from time to time, the film traverses the nooks and corners of the fragile lives of people who live within the artificial world of film-making.
As the screen comes alive, in a strikingly beautiful montage of archival shots, first in Black and White and then in colour, the viewer is preview to a brief history of Bengali cinema. The camera then cuts and zeroes in on Mithun Chakraborty, a top star, giving a shot for some film. The narrative, of Tollylights, with the Bengal film Industry as a backdrop, is structured and designed completely through jump-cuts, either moving from the present to the past and back, or vacillating between slices of real life situations in Krishnakali’s experience and unreal scenes when Krishnakali is facing the camera, especially in the first half. Though this may cause some confusion in the beginning, one warms up to it slowly and in fact, one would say this sort of cinematic design suits the content of the film, giving it a fresh and different perspective. One shot for instance, shows how Krishnakali finds it impossible to get out of her persistent sobbing because it has taken her back to a slice of her past life. This is quickly followed by a failed suicide attempt. When her husband refuses to respond, she slips into a relationship with the senior actor.
 For once, one gets to see a truly platonic relationship between a man and a woman sans sexual innuendo of any kind on the Bengali screen. But Tollylights is not just about Abhimanyu and Krishnakali. They are two important ‘pegs’ the director uses to hang other fragile facts about filmdom on. Such as, stars pouring away their money at the races, famous stars of yesteryear living in abject poverty, alone and forgotten; television serial agents stalking the studio corridors, to snatch dates from stars who also act in serials; an example of a self-appointed, supposed philanthropist pretending to turn producer if the top actress agrees to come to his country house to ‘discuss the script’, and so on. The craziness of fans, the tragedy of junior artistes, spot boys and other ignored paraphernalia of filmdom have not been touched Missing are the mandatory satellites – secretaries, PROs and cutlery. Also, the intrigue created by the armed security person who arrives to take Abhimanyu away from his pad like a policeman would capture a mafia member sends out a wrong message on Bollywood and its stars.
Post-interval, Tollylights tends to drag. At times, one has this uneasy feeling that the director is losing his grip over the script if not on his characters. Abhimanyu’s trip back to his small-town home in the hills does not add to the film in any way. Nor does that scene where he visits an elderly gentleman (Supriyo Tagore) who encourages him to go on. Why did he have to show Krishnakali in her bubble bath with a drink on its edge? Though the scene when Debjit (Abhishek) and a friend (Amitabh Bhattacharya) come in for a nightcap at Abhimanyu’s pad is a brilliant point of relief in this otherwise rather serious film. Amitabh proves what an excellent actor he is in just that one brief cameo. “I’ll throw you in the gutter,” reprimands an angry Debjit. “I am already in the gutter my friend,” says a completely sozzled Amitabh as the lift goes down, summarizing the film industry in one pithy line, albeit under the influence.
Sreelekha is a revelation on the big screen,
putting in those finer nuances of loneliness,
betrayal, anxiety and despair juxtaposed against
the bright lights of the studio sets. Arjun is
the protagonist, an observer, a sort of narrator
without a voice, a conscience keeper and a metaphor
for hundreds of would-be and has-been filmmakers
who dot the world of cinema but are sucked into
the vortex and cannot go back to their old lives
even when they fail to make it. The persisting
presence of Tarkovsky’s portrait on his
wall is a comment on his cherished dreams and
his frustrations. He does a very good job with
a low-key performance. One wishes though he had
not whitewashed the character of Abhimanyu so
much, just as he has tried to justify all the
‘wrong’ steps Krishnakali takes towards
doom. Arindam and Abhishek are their natural selves
while Barun Chanda’s acting is marred by
his strongly Anglicized accent though this is
cleverly worked in to the film and explained by
a line of dialogue from Krishnakali.
Soumik Haldar’s cinematography is moving and evocative. The shots of the ancestral home of Krishnakali and her husband and Krishnakali’s parents’ flat offer slices of reality, bringing out the sharp contrast between the real world and the reel world of films. Tejendra Narayan’s versatile music is excellent in the ‘period’ songs but falls flat for the item numbers. And the choreography, orchestration, costumes and picturization of the two dance numbers are plain horrendous. If these are intended to factualize contemporary Bengali cinema’s cheap and crude imitation of Bollywood films, the message is lost. Juxtaposed against this, are the brilliantly choreographed shots of Krishnakali posing for an advertisement for some pep pill that puts the final nail on the coffin of her dying marriage. Shot without dialogue, it is a quick montage of sizzling pictures of a bareback Krishnakali with a male model that underscores the fringe merits and drawbacks of stardom.
Minor warts notwithstanding, Tollylights is well worth watching. Around fifteen minutes to the interval, there is a poignant segment with veteran actress Geeta De doing a take-off on the tragic reality of a once-famous singing star eking out a miserable existence, thrown out of her own house by her son. A memorable moment is the flashback of a hilarious song sequence shot in Black-and-White featuring the old actress as a young heroine when playback had not been invented and the musicians moved along with the leading lady as she sang to her wooden-faced, stiff-like-a-rod hero. Geeta De deserves an award for that brief scene alone.
See our preview of the film.
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.
|
