Third Person Singular Number

I've always felt apathetic whenever it comes to Bangladeshi cinema except Tareque Masud's The Clay Bird (Cannes 2002, FIPRESCI winner for script). After a long wait,I've got something to cheer about. That's Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's Third Person Singular Number. The first thing that I like about this film is the multidimensional approach perfectly applied by the director in creating sequences and building characters. All the character seemed so fresh, alive, and multi-dimensional. There was no black and white. The story has a number of layers. From one angle, the film looks 'okay that's what you wanted to say'. From another angle, it's just completely different. It handled a kind of feminist issue! That's why I was always scared if the film gets to stereotypical. But the director truthfully avoided the trap of being stereotypically feminist. In typical feminist works in Bangladesh, you rarely get to see any woman to be bad or wrong. Women are always right! Men are always wrong! But in this film, no one is bad or good forever. Everyone is a human with good and bad intentions. Sometimes Ruba is the victim. Sometimes she victimizes the others. Sometimes she is victimized by men, sometimes by women. I want to give a special thank to the director for creating such a wonderful character called Ruba. It reminded me of one of our old friend. Ruba resembles her so much! Like Ruba, she was wilful and emotionally fragile at the same time. Like Ruba, she had a wings to fly but a middle-class backbone didn't allow her to fly. Ruba perfectly portrays the contradictions and energy of a typical middle-class girl from a broken family.

Now let me talk about acting. It was just so natural as if I was watching something through a door-hole! Tisha, Mosharof Karim, and Topu played their characters so truthfully that it was hard to single out who did the best!

At the end, I want to talk about the ending. The whole film was done in such a fresh style that I was wondering where the director would end the film. In most of the Bangladeshi movies, no matter mainstream or art-house one, directors end a film with a conclusion. The audience leave the auditorium with an answer. But here Farooki leaves the audience without giving any conclusion. Instead of coming out of theaters with an answer, they come out with a question! Cheers!

Movie got released in 2009 and i watched this movie at 2024,clearly my opinion would much differ obviously from the other reviews here. But hear me out, i thoroughly enjoyed watching this film. Songs from this film are a banger still now and their placements were good. The characters had good sense of humour and i got my comedic relief from that which made the film interesting and not boring to watch at times. I gotta say one thing though,i was surprised to see topu act! Other than that casting and acting by the actors were great.

This film tells the story about a girl named ruba who faces enormous tough challenges after her live-in boyfriend gets arrested for crime. Also how long distance relationships always has a problem and consequences that needs to addressed later.

Highly recommend watching this amazing art of film by mostafa sarwar farooqi and for sure i can say that you won't be disappointed!

What a movie Man! Just amazing.. Great job. Background music and Tisha ❤.

Bangla Movie'r Joy houk..

In my opinion, I really do not get the so "HI-FI" thing about this movie? People are calling it so "JOSH" and "Heavy Hoise" etc. But really is it really that good? When you have nothing to eat, if you were given a bread, you would say "Thank You". But when you are already eating bread, you would be looking for some Jam and Jelly with it. The movie is not that bad, but the thing is that it is better than the running Bangladeshi Movies. I really like the multiple personalities of RUBA and there were some scenes which made me belief that Faruki can do better. But again, it seems he is looking for only mass-media attraction.

wake up!

Lot of hype was there! Big festivals like Pusan, MEIFF (Abu Dhabi), Rotterdam was there! A kind of patting review from Variety was there! At the same time, some strong criticism from Islamic and moral vanguards were there as well! So I entered the theater with a kind of mixed state of mind - kind of suspicion ! But to be very honest I was taken straight into the story- to be precise, I was taken into the psychological tempest of the protagonist Ruba! With a girl roaming on a lonely street and with the camera doing an unnerving hand-held, I was smelling a different kind of cinematic journey! The journey was sometimes poetic, sometimes humorous, sometimes emotional, and sometimes disturbing! At the end I must admit one thing - this film kept playing in my mind for many hours even after i got out of theater. I should admit something more - I've never been a fan of Farooki! But after this film, I've changed my mind. He did an excellent job here in narrating the story in one of the most freshest of ways! The cinematic expression was mind blowing! So was camera ! Acting was absolutely natural ! Mosharof, Topu, Hayat - all of them did splendid. But Tisha's acting in Ruba's role was a class act! I wish them all! One thing I didn't like - the length! I thought it could easily be a 100 minute film!