Madly Bangalee is not quite the feel-good film one expects from a story that has Rock and youngsters forming the main theme. The families of every member are truncated, unhappy families steeped deeply in no-exit situations. This includes San, the scion of an affluent family who owns an ancestral house in the northern parts of Kolkata now taken care of by his single aunt. But he has little love left for a family where his mother ran away with a French filmmaker and his father committed suicide. Pablo’s forever squabbling parents part when his mother walks away with her lover only to come back and claim the house his father bought and throw them out. Neon lives with an alcoholic father who was thrown out of his government job after being caught red-handed while accepting a bribe. His mother, with never-ending dreams of entering films through group theatre, is forced to work as a telephone operator. Tania’s parents are troubled by her affair with Pablo because they fear it may take her away from her academic dreams. Benji’s girlfriend Joy, not yet 18, jumps into bed or locks herself in her mother’s flat’s bathroom to have a quick one while her exasperated mother, who teaches at the University, keeps screaming at her. She challenges her mother’s right to question her morals. “How can she beat me up when she lives with another man herself outside marriage?” she asks, and promptly announces that she is pregnant. The group along with Bobby, help her to abort the baby and all’s well with the world. Baaji’s brother Sultan turns out to be a terrorist and lands in jail. His boss makes no attempt to bail him out and tries to rope Baaji in but Baburam puts a spoke into his ugly plans. Benji is the only one who has an affectionate aunt who willingly takes Joy into her fold.

So, this gives out the message that most youngsters who form music bands come from broken families. Or, is this a generalization of the Bangalee family in contemporary Kolkata where family values have gone for a toss? But then, why do San and Bobby, who belong to a different generation, also have very sad stories they would love to forget but cannot? Could it be that people who are confused about a focus in life get into group behaviour guised as friendship? These are some questions that Madly Bangalee raises between the lines of the main story segmented to explore the personal backgrounds of the group’s individual members.

In relation to their commitment to the cause, the four boys do not seem to be quite sure about what they are actually at. But that is the beauty of youth and Anjan Dutt brings this across brilliantly helped by his enthusiastic team of young performers. San’s long lecture to Baaji on the difference between dharma and politics is at cross purposes because San is not able to substantiate his claim to this understanding through his own life and lifestyle spent mostly in borrowing other people’s cell phones to call up his aunt as his own ‘American SIM card’ does not work in India, or, drinking away to his heart’s content with Bobby. His desperate call to Pablo to come back for the final show reduces to melodrama the minute he says he has a son somewhere who should be of Pablo’s age by now! Et tu Anjan? Dutt intercuts the narrative with too many issues such as – rigged rock competitions, Muslims homogenized as terrorists across the board, the Anglo Indian identity that still hides under pretensions of having descended from British aristocracy, unwed pregnancies of adolescent youngsters taking the short-cut through abortions, all of which are well knit into the narrative but do not really jell with this unusual film.

Then there are real-life comments on drug addiction for music makers from stalwarts like percussionist-music director Bickram Ghosh, Siddhartha Chatterjee (of Cactus) and music director Debjyoti Misra. Their comments stand out like sore thumbs considering that this is a feature film and not a documentary. More unethical is Ghosh writing a detailed, back-patting review of the same film for a national daily in English!

Siddhartha Chatterjee as Pablo’s father made his debut as a teenager in Satyajit Ray’s Feluda series as Feluda’s nephew-fan-assistant Topshe. His performance, layered with varied shades, is excellent. The four boys and two girls are good. The two girls, Tania and Joy, are more aggressive, assertive, questioning and sure of themselves than the four boys put together. Aparajita Auddy goes a bit over the board and is too well-dressed and made-up to be the mother of a girl who, she thinks, is in deep trouble. The amount of jewellery she possesses makes one wonder how she managed it all as single parent on a professor’s salary. Saswata Chatterjee is brilliant as Neon’s alcoholic father, matched scene for scene by Sudipa Basu as his wife. Lew Hilt, a master bassist and pianist in real life, does wonderfully as Bobby in what one guesses, is his debut performance. Anjan Dutt does very well as San but his real-life mannerisms spill over into his performance, thus leaving a dent in role-playing. It is the real life Anjan Dutt one encounters right through. Supriya Choudhury as San’s aunt turns in a natural performance but her insistence on wearing a wig makes her a very incredible aunt to the middle-aged San.

But it is Chandan Sen with his ready wit, instant repartee and wonderful spontaneity who steals the show as Baburam. He is simply brilliant in a totally negative role underwritten with positive shades of friendship and solidarity and loyalty. He adds the right dose and quality of humour to an otherwise serious film. Once, he takes a look at San and commenting on his gentlemanly looks, plucks the pair of glasses off his nose. Another time, San, scared of having his glasses plucked yet again, takes them off himself and puts them in his pocket. The third time, Baburam hands him his glasses to ‘read better with’ even when he is already wearing a pair!

Neel Dutt’s music and Anjan’s lyrics are soft, mellow and flow through the film like a river, sometimes beating with rhythm, sometimes, fluid with romance and melody, and all the time, forming a solid undercurrent to evolve into the pulse of the film. Indrajit Mukherjee’s cinematography beautifully captures the misty mornings of Kolkata as the sun is rising, the sailing boats on the river, the alleys and blind lanes, Bobby’s Garage, the works.

Madly Bangalee is Anjan Dutt’s ode to Bangla rock and his introduction to the Bangla Band that has turned into an international rage over the past decade. It is the first ever full-length feature film on Bangla Rock which is a veritable movement in innovative music in West Bengal in general and Kolkata in particular. The film is a collage of varied emotions, situations and perspectives of today’s Y generation and the generations gone before, the interfaces and interactions between and among people of these two generations in relation to the careers of the young group vis-à-vis the dreams their families have about their careers. Music, Dosti, Madness is the bottom line that graces the posters of the film. But like it or not, Madly Bangalee plays to the gallery right through though it pretends not to. It is a refreshing change from the oeuvre that is belted out in the name of Bangla cinema today.