Shabdo

A master piece in Bengali cinema. Yet another innovative storyline by director Kaushik Ganguly, that has never been thought before. The story depicts the life of a foley artist, who gets lost up in the world of virtual sounds, and suffers loss of senses about the real world. Unique concept accompanied by brilliant acting by Ritwick Chakraborty, makes the movie a must watch as well as a complete package. Raima Sen, as the loving and caring wife, who wishes to bring her husband back in to normal, is also profound. This movie is spite of absence of stars, is a must watch. Go watch it, if you haven't still now. It's your loss or gain, which you will have to decide.

This is an extraordinary film, and that would be saying less. It is about the life of a foley artist Tarak (Ritwick Chakraborty), who is so absorbed in his work, that all the sounds that he hears are ambient, background sounds, and misses out on a lot of what people talk. This leads to a case of what people understand as a severe case of inattention and loss of contact with the "real" world. And by the mundane societal normative standards he is a "patient" who needs to be treated to get back to "normal".

This is where you start feeling extremely angry with society and feel one with Tarak when he smashes a studio mike in anger. Yes, like Tarak, I wanted to scream, that he is absolutely fine. There is nothing wrong with him. Just because he is more attuned to sounds that others who spend their lives listening to the rabble of unmeaning conversations cannot hear, you cannot brand him as abnormal or ill. Ritwick Chakraborty makes Tarak come alive. He keeps you riveted and draws you in enough to actually care for this unheard of artist. In his ordinariness of everyday life and his genius of perceiving the tiniest of sounds, including the sound of light, he is more than words could describe. He becomes the reason why you watch the film.

As for the direction-it is good, very good. The cinematography is apt.There is a dream sequence on the beach which deserves special mention.

The supporting cast including Srijit, Raima, Churni and Victor are good-but just that. Placed in comparison to Ritwick, their inability to rise from adequate actors to awesome ones stand out glaringly. Raima is just a wife, but, unlike Tarak who totally internalizes the walk, look, talk of an otherwise very middle class, suburban man, she fails to become the very ordinary wife. Her urbanness stands out too much. Churni and Victor fail to make their conversation scenes from falling into a sense of monotony. You start wishing that their scene will get over soon. The last scene is one of the memorable scenes that you will take back with you. It'll be there, haunting you. And it'll probably come back to you when you want to brand someone who doesn't conform to the societal standards of normalcy, ill. That is how everyday all the potentiality that could lead to enhanced sensitivity is killed by the insensitive bland commonplace society.

Movie subject is good. It's a good sign for Bengali cinema. But somehow I feel their are something missing and more could be done. Movie has given more importance on Tarak and how the relationship surrounding is affected. I expected the movie to be little intense and more informative. The whole movie has shown Tarak's problem and nothing has shown on his rehab. I was expecting to show rehab more in details. It could be more informative and intense in that way. When Swati got the idea to solve Tarak's problem. She could explain it more technically as a doctor. But everything ended so simply and Swati became more emotional on Tarak. Some of the facts which remained unclear that how Dr. Sen treated Tarak, how it was different than Swati's treatment or why Tarak suddenly took the pills? At the end I would say thinking and subject chosen is very different and good sign for Bengali cinema perspective. Also thanks to Director for not adding any unnecessary Rabindra Sangeet in the movie. Please keep doing this kind of movie and I am sure the movie will do good commercially as well.

This movie revealed a lesser discussed part of movie industry. And a unique issue a person may face while working in such work situation. I had no idea where or how the movie would progress but the interestness of the topic kept me watching it. And I like how it finished.

Love the way they've edited it. But I felt the base character is lost on the way. I'd have liked it more if the central character was described more.

A good watch anyway. Great work by actors.

First thanks to director for relieving us of mindless dancing-singing that typical South-Asian movies just can't get rid of. The film was good. Specially the lead actor Tarek Datta(Ritwick Chakraborty) was too good. I am not a big fan of Raima Sen, but she was good too. But Srijit Mukherjee and Victor Banerjee was so so. None of them were good enough. Churni Gangulee, on the other hand was quite good. The film started well. But the finishing was not in the line of rest of the movie. That's the reason I rated the movie 8, otherwise it had 9 written all over it. In the end the movie was lot more than just having a story and executing it. It was about paying tribute to unsung heroes of movies, and it did so in an amazing manner.