Tasher Desh

It took me a week and a half to recover from the experience of watching Tasher Desh, a futuristic adaptation of a classic play by Bengali poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore. To say it's a well-known story is an understatement; pretty much every Bengali knows of it; but I'm guessing no one has the kind of imagination that could possibly have interpreted it in the way that Q has.

The entire film is a visual feast for all your senses; most of which are not pleasurable. Unexpected, unsettling and disturbing; the vivid imagery, bold graphics and loud dialogue made me squirm in my seat.

The story flits between three worlds and narratives, the urban metropolis of Calcutta, a derelict and deserted castle inhabited by a young prince bored of living a secluded and sheltered life and Tasher Desh itself, The Land of Cards ruled by a hostile military regime.

As their worlds collide, the viewer is taken on a journey that at times feels like a nightmare and at others looks like heaven. Secluded beaches juxtaposed against the harshness of city living with runaway toy train sets and ancient tribal warriors; the imagery feeds your imagination and curiosity until it can no longer consume any more.

There are infinite ways to interpret Q's Tasher Desh; there is an underlying political voice making it the perfect film to be analysed for an academic dissertation but if you detach yourself from intellectual thought and allow yourself to be drawn into Q's sinister and eccentric vision, you'll be rewarded with the prize of witnessing a film that's fresh and fantastical and guaranteed to influence your dreams for at least the night that you view it…or if you're like me, for a lot longer.

Visually stunning, making use of all phographic techniques, psychedelic, disjointed, lost in its exuberance of colour composition and collage, the film loses it's centre and slips into a numbing fantasy.

What is this movie this means nothing I like dog star man and crazy moves like this but really this is not a good movie is not logic in being crazy and because of this nothing about movies interesting I would rather spend a few months reading the original form then to read and match this crazy nonsense again.

Tasher Desh is a psychotomimetic vision of Qaushiq Mukherjee's unapologetic experiment that goes beyond the professed acid trip. A madcap versifier, with almost fanatical obsession for the outré, becomes a master conjurer conjuring up compelling and bizarre images in a non-linear, dual narrative that slowly seduces the audience into a hypnotic psychedelic ride. The inertia of the chimeric first half explodes into a volatile kinetic force as we are introduced to the restless motley of Card soldiers in the fascist dystopo-neverland. The very Q-esque split-screen shots, hyperstylised edginess of hand-held camera movements trigger the hallucinatory surreal eeriness of a grungy meta-reality. But everything goes downhill from then on. Mr. Infant Terrible suddenly turns into a glorified music video director haplessly resorting to deliberate abstractness as an escape route for his fizzling out self-indulgences. The sensory and visual striptease becomes clumsier in the amorous exchanges which reduces the prophesied sexual liberation into a libidinous exercise with an unsuspecting abrupt climax. Zany, techno-funk pagan Rabindrasangeet and Manu Dacosse's flamboyantly sumptuous cinematography are the two biggest gains from this discordant and floundering amorphous fantasy drama. And, a special mention for the subtitling which is impeccably apt and incredibly germane.

I had the luck to see this film a few years ago with my partner, and then later we both couldn't remember what it was called. Fortunately a friend reminded me, and I'm so pleased. This has become a new favorite. An exciting storyline full of symbolism (both meaningful and for the sake of unique imagery), a dreamlike atmosphere, excellent cinematography and makeup reminiscent of German expressionism. It's dizzyingly psychedelic, and at times confusing, but not disorganized or pointlessly random. There's a lot of little threads to follow, but all the noticeable themes leave plenty of room for your own perspective. It's not your typical movie by a long shot, and if you're not into surrealism, the joy I felt for this film might be lost on you. In any case, we've got creative storytelling combined with fine acting and beautifully strange imagery. If you're in the mood for something decidedly different, but you've already watched Twin Peaks again and crave something "refreshingly trippy"--- definitely take a stroll into The Land of Cards.