calcutta news (malayalam) – a re-review

Blessy's Calcutta News is about the tragic and traumatic story of an innocent girl who is lured by promises of love and gets trapped by the diabolic sex trade network in a metropolitan city like Calcutta. The hero is a crusader journalist (played by Dilip) who saves her from its clutches. And despite all the travails, she remains a virgin to marry him at the end.

Like in all such films, the issue of flesh/sex trade is posed in a situation where the innocence of a rural belle is placed against the all-powerful men who play with her life. Here is an innocent Krishnapriya (played by Meera Jasmine) who can get entranced by a Yesudas song even after a few day's of hunger, after being beaten by her 'husband' and locked up in a lodge! On the other side are two of her Krishnas - the villainous lover who would go any length to pursue his goals, and the heroic journalist who is ready to sacrifice his life for her. The former wants her body alone while the latter is enchanted by her image. First he captures her accidentally on his camera during the occasion of Kali puja and then pursues her image on his mobile. His witchcraft is one that ultimately wakes up the state itself to the reality of sex trade and also, earns him the laurels at the end.

Different kinds of black magic are at work in the film. One is the black magic of the 'traditional' oracle who lives nextdoor to the crusader, and makes a living exorcising devils and witches, and facilitates his customers one-to-one communication with the departed souls. The other magic is the one practiced by the young television journalist with his mobile and other cameras, recording things and capturing life situations. He, in turn, is exorcising the evils of contemporary society by smuggling it out into the open. While the former brings the image of the departed into the glass globe in front of him, for the latter, it is the camera lens that does the magic of exorcising images into being. While one excavates the mind and life to drive away evil spirits and converse with the dead, the other excavates the social body to dissect and enter into its secrets. It is the latter's daredevilry that brings into the open the dark innards of male lust, the dungeons within the metro where women are stocked and traded. Along with these, is the black magic of the pop-psychologist who unravels the mystery behind the murder of the heroine's lover by 'opening up' her unconscious. It was this lover who through the black magic of his love lured her to the other black magics of urban life and marital bliss. The treacherous lover is after her body, while the journalist-lover is obsessed with her image, and the psychologist sees through her mind.

Like in all other Blessy films, life and society that looks normal at the outset, gradually turns bleak and surreal... And inevitably, in the centre of all this turbulence is a family, desperately trying to hold itself together. It is a social unit devoil of anything social, for it has recourse only to its sole resource – sentiments. Never do personal tragedies in Blessy films connect with anything outside, social, and external, or, in other words, anything political. It is a world populated solely by guileless victims and daring crusaders; it is a world that has no place for greys, and for the conflicts and pains of human love and struggle, that are not mere condescending pity or self-glorifying crusade. Exactly why such mastery over craft and technique eludes our mind, and such happy endings depress us.

Dr C S Venkiteswaran, is a Kerala based film critic who has won state and national awards for film criticism. He is now Director, School of Media Studies, Kochi, Kerala. He writes regularly about film in various national and international journals.