Utsab

The best of Ghosh, ya.. No doubt. The best full length bengali film of 90's - period. This is a family mirroring the concept of goddess Durga's family and the modern day's concerns and dilemmas of a semi-joint matriarchal family. In this movie, the dialogues were so tight that even silence was replaced by dialogue itself and cine goers used to joke about this film being a telefilm, rather than a full length feature. And the script and dialogue were the hero in this film, nonetheless having powerful arthouse actors in it.

The story revolves around a family get-togather, the family matriarch has called her four adult daughters , and their families to her estate . All of them are inching towards middle-age.

None of the sisters are looking forward to the family reunion as they all are more concerned about their own problems .Furthermore like any large family , every member of the family has his own personal past ,skeletons and demons to confront .The house is teeming with three generations of siblings , and the atmosphere is electric .

the movie does a great job of portraying the human relationships , with each of the characters developed with a lot of care .

A must watch .

Shot in Bengali with English subtitles, the subtitles are many times hard to read (white on white).

The first act is hard to follow because you flip back and forth between too many characters. With so many characters it is hard to care about them all. I was overwhelmed with characters. I noticed that several audience members walked out at this time. I think it would have helped establish the characters if the video shot during the first act (by one of the characters in the movie) would have been shown in the first act instead of at the end of the story. Then the audience could have come up to speed on who the characters are.

Overall the story and the acting are more on par with an American soap opera.

The film did, however, provide cultural insights: we see servants always working in the background in what appears to be an upper middle class home, the telephone service is not working for the holidays so communication is put on hold, the word "puja" I later learned means worship, "Brother's Day" is held in appreciation of your sibling, you touch another person's feet and then move your hand to your head and downwards like a slinky to bathe in their goodness (good karma), a vermilion powder is used to create the eye for the soul although in the movie a plastic one is applied in the morning by one of the characters, writing 'Durga' 73 times is part of the religious festival featured in the movie.

The music is sparse except at plot points that convey sadness.

There is a sprinkling of, but not enough, humor.

The plot follows the "all's well that ends well" ending so loose ends are very neatly tied up--ahh, how convenient!

I was told that the movie was shot in 15 days, which may explain many things.

It just a story of well crafted bengali bonidi family. The qesessential drama of a joint bengali family well excuted

Simple plot with complex emotions that was conveyed in a perfect manner by Rituparno Ghosh. Came to watch it after watching Raincoat (which is another masterpiece by Ghosh). Mamata Shankar was a treat to watch in the movie.

The very start of the movie will take you to the nostalgia of Durga Puja. You will start to feel the vibe if you are familiar with village durga puja. Everyone in the family has came to village for the holidays. But their personal problems has accompanied them. The problems deepens when Shishir, one of their cousin has proposed to buy their house. All the family members need to solve some of the problems in a subtle way to reach to conclusion to decide whether they should sell the house or not.