Antareen

This Bengali movie is love story about a young writer played by anjan dutt in search of inspiration in an old country mansion in kolkatta, Antareen is a cinematic adoption of Sadat Hassan Manto's story. The young writer strikes up a telephonic relationship with an anonymous female caller played with great sensitivity by dimple.she plays the suffering mistress of rich man. These conversations provide the writer with material for his fiction. In the end, the two protagonists meet each other in a train compartment. Dimple can recognize the author and the knowing look on her face is the thing i remember the most about this movie.

Going with most of the scenes of this film, I too watched it on a sleepless night. The imagery and the soundtrack are all so meticulously placed. I especially loved the usage of the still frames and the rain to convey the different moods. Despite having themes of despondence and forlornness, it has a certain warmth to it. Many of us tend to seek a sense of belonging in strangers and the way this film depicts that is so relatable even though it was released almost 3 decades ago.

I read a critical review by a Westerner of this particular film 'Antareen' by Mrinal Sen. I feel the critic have failed to comprehend the film in its totality, and have likened it to a freshman work – quite a strong criticism I would say. For a 70 minute film, this is an extremely layered work from Mrinal. The dialogues are minimal, and the visuals convey with such power the decadence in all spheres – the ruins of the feudal mansion symbolizing decay in aristocracy, or the loneliness of a married Dimple Kapadia where the husband is not visible even in a single frame, even the writer may be struggling at his craft as the critic had mentioned… As in his 'Akaler Sandhane' (In search of famine, 1980) where Mrinal showed that the situation with regard to famine has hardly changed over decades in India, in 'Antareen' the continuity of female oppression since ancient times into modern India is highlighted, where the woman bears all silently for the sake of the family. This is quite an Indian perspective, which a Westerner may not be able to appreciate. Ritwik Ghatak's 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' brilliantly showed how women are exploited in Indian society. Dimple and Anjan were discussing Tagore's "Hungry Stones" in the film, and their characters somewhat parallels those in the Tagore novel, a doomed romantic tale of a Chieftain and an attractive woman who was bought as a slave for the pleasures of a King, and when the lovers try to elope, they meet a tragic fate.

The open ended ending where the two protagonist meet in the train also shows Sen is non judgmental about the writer Anjan helping the 'confined' Dimple, as like the protagonist of the "Hungry Stones," the attempt to flee from the chains of bondage may prove to be tragic … This is my interpretation.

how many of us will deny the fact that we alwaz wanted to talk to some strangers, and when the stranger is from d opposite sex the excitement and anxiety doubles. 'antareen' meaning confines is a story about the conversation of two lonely figures, one a lonely writer the other a lady suffering from grave circumstances. One night while staying at his friends ancestral home the writer receives a call but nobody speaks. Next night the phone rings again. This time there is a lady and the two start talking. Days pass by and there conversation multiply. The lady a prisoner of circumstances confines in the writer. She gets someone who had the patience to listen to her pain and agony. They make an imaginary world of their own. Then in the middle of a fateful night this world thus built collapses. Both of them carry on with their respective lives but there is a lot of passion and desires in it....

Like always Mrinal Sen excels in showing a complex story in a realistic fashion. The conversations of the two characters sounds very natural. The movie has a mystery at every point and u are always lookin forward for more. Applaudes for certain camera angles. All in all its a fantastic film with some very realistic performances.