At a time when literature is chosen almost as a counterpoint to its celluloid interpretation, where one has to look for a powerful microscope to find Sarat Chandra’s Devdas in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s celluloid interpretation, Suman has remained religiously, almost fiercely faithful to Tagore’s original novel. This alone is enough to set at rest any feelings of anger among Tagore scholars who consider Tagore too sacrosanct to be toyed with by young filmmakers.

Sachish, the protagonist, is in constant search for an anchor, missing out the truth for ideas that find no explanation in a world of reason. Sribilash on the other hand, a highly-educated scholar, does not believe in anything beyond the world of reason and tries to act as Sachish’s conscience keeper and sounding board. Jagmohan dies in his belief that he is not really a non-believer, but a believer in that greater God called ‘humanity’ that ensures ‘the greatest good for the greatest number.’ Damini stands out as the only character who is definite about what she does and does not want. She is not afraid to ask disturbing questions even Leela- nanda Swami cannot answer. She questions her dead husband’s right to will away the house, her jewels and even herself to Leelananda Swami’s (Kabir Suman) religious cult, without her permission. She questions Swami’s right to accept her custody without asking whether she agrees to be taken care of. She is not afraid to express her physical desire for Sachish who reciprocates this, but is afraid to either confront or acknowledge it. Each characters is a tragic metaphor of the time they lived in, unwitting and ignorant victims of a social structure they had no role in shaping into what it had become.

Technical Expertise:
Suman has taken some liberties through structural changes for the change in the language/medium from word to picture. He has replaced Sribilash’s omnipresent voiceover keeping the four segments of the novel as they are. He has effectively incorporated significant visual, musical and religious metaphors to invest the form and the narrative with Tagore’s world-view as presented in and through the novel in a more concrete and credible manner. These could be seen in terms of relationships, man’s spiritual beliefs, man’s constant search for an anchor - spiritual, ideological, moral, emotional, the shifting nature of man’s one-to-one communication with God. Besides the conflict between idea and truth, the conflict between physical desire and emotional longing, the blurring of lines between birth and death and last but never the least, society’s moral injustice towards women, cutting across class, religious beliefs, education and awareness.

Chaturanga has a dynamic pace that prevents the narrative from dragging. The narrative flows freely, evolving into a new genre of the road movie that keeps moving physically across geographical space, spiritually from one belief to another, musically from the aristocratic Beethoven to the devotional Baul to erotic Vaishnava songs to a pining Tagore number to Sufi songs fluidly. Music, a beautiful creation of Debajyoti Misra, is both a character and metaphor in the film. Indraneel Mukherjee’s cinematography is expansive and telling, while Arghakamal Mitra’s editing blends the time and place leaps fluidly without starts and jerks. Sumon has handled the dramatic twists and turns through effective flashbacks. Hiron Mitra’s production design captures Jagmohan’s compound as realistically as it does the dilapidated haunted house where the three repair to on the stormy night, the long and unending corridors of Damini’s spacious mansion that is no longer hers, the greeneries of the village setting with the wandering minstrels singing along the way. It is one of the high points of the film.

But the trophy goes to the actors with top honours to Subrat Dutta who reflects every shift in Sachish’s character with a change not only in his physical appearance, but also in vocal inflections, the change in body language and the expressions on his face. Joy Sengupta’s Sribilash offers him just the right complement both as a counterpoint to Sachish’s volatile shift in beliefs and also as friend and conscience keeper. Rituparna is stunning as Damini. After a long time, she has come into her own, strong, threatening and mesmerising in widow’s weeds, cheerful as a married and bejewelled beauty and in full control of the character, creating one of her career-bests in cinema. So what’s wrong? Some repetitions like recaps of television serials could have been clipped to make the film more intense. The Sufi metaphor is visually disturbing but in terms of listening pleasure, it is an enriching learning experience. This critic grants the film one star for the story, one star for direction, one star for music, one star for technical credits and for acting.