Bhooter Bhabishyat

One stark difference between Ray and his two great contemporaries Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak is that Ray's movies, although being of the so-called art film genre, were as acceptable and entertaining to the masses as they appeal to the senses of the intelligentsia. Anik Dutta's directorial debut primarily catches that aspect of film-making where he was able to delve into Bangalis' thoughts and existence through generations across sections of the society via the multicoloured characterisations in this film. It is a wholesome entertainer which drives home pertinent points of modern and erstwhile Bengali society through comic relief to the masses. Read a full-blown article on the front page of a popular Bengali daily (which happened to publish the story the film is based on) and decided to watch this one, and it matched up to its review, a deservedly huge huge hit and a wonderful movie... 7/10

This is very rare to watch satire bengali movies . Showing a good moral message , the movie is really Entertaining , Funny and Suspicious . Undoubtedly best creation of Anik Dutta. Everyone acted well in their roles . A must watch movie for all movie lovers. The songs ( actually the lyrics ) are also funny .

One of the best things to happen to Bengali cinema post Satyajit Ray is this particular movie,which builds up carefully with every attention to the minutest detail and continues that,till its end. The basic storyline is simple and revolves around a known haunted mansion in Kolkata.The choice of characters by the director,and their portrayal by very capable actors along with mind blowing one liners are the very essence of this movie.The music throughout the movie,the cinematography,editing,use of lights in few particular settings,and over all its simplicity in presentation are all its plus points. It is one of the very few current movies in any language whatsoever,that one can see again and again and again,and still find its superb flair and charm as the very first time.

This movie came out as a total surprise to me..Very seldom will you see me give 9 stars to a movie..but this movie deserves it thoroughly. What strikes me most is the plot..and is closely followed by the direction and screenplay. The director has done a fantastic job in trending the story with different angles and does an amazing job in weaving all the characters together. Also the way the story is narrated through the ages flawlessly leaves me amazed. Well Done Anik Dutta...what you have created here, brings Bengali cinema to a different stage! I do hope that in future we continue to see such originality and wonderful direction from Anik Dutta.

The 'chhaya (shadow) chhobi' by Anik Dutta overshadows ghost films of both Tollywood and Bollywood taken together in recent times. The synthetic, eery and blood-curdling horror is not the mainstay here; instead, the ghosts - from several strata and time periods - try means of survival from their live counterparts who are overtaken by an inhuman changeover resulting in unwittingly chasing out ghosts from haunted mansions. How the real ghosts - an endangered species now - will drive away the real-estate sharks is not the attractant of the film. Though the film is not an unplumbed one as regards the delivery of message, yet messages run over almost all the delivered dialogues, mostly laced with puns, and make the piece a unique experience, heretofore unmatched by and large, presenting the changing face of the city of Kolkata gradually being taken over by promoters and reality agents; thus changing Kolkata's heritage into Hertfordshire.

Dutta borrows directly, bathing in the light of his own interpretation, from Ray - his Gupi Bagha trilogy, his style of dialogues, his range of humour and so on - and Dutta does this in a rather grandiloquent and rarefied manner heaping loads of honour and expressing allegiance to Ray along the way unflinchingly.

Story, screenplay, lyrics and direction amalgamate into a homogeneous mixture of great cinema. Aveek Mukhopadhyay's cinematography calls for praise though there are still vestiges of development. Arghyakamal Mitra has, as always, shown his craft here piecing together the various time- frames. Indranil Ghosh's work is flawless like in most other films, too. Kanan Devi's nasal voice from the by-gone era tones up the pathos of one of the messages the film seamlessly delivers - practice of clandestine concubinage by some spoilt upstarts and the well-off of the time. Coming down to the characters, their engaging idiosyncrasies and their pathos to boot make this seriocomedy a psychotherapeutic exercise giving the right directions and at the same time parodying the state of affairs in Kolkata and elsewhere. What we have to remember is that branches of development must not turn deadwood in the end.