Chittagong

Chittagong is disappointing. It's an honest film but fails to transcend into a good film. The biggest disadvantage that plagues a period film based on real events is the predictability of the plot. So, to make the film more engaging, the director needs to indulge in a sort of retelling of history inculcating a healthy dosage of drama into it. This is precisely where Bedabrata Pain falls short. There's no building up of drama. Watching the film is like glancing through the pages of a history book. The narrative of the film is so simple that it is reduced to a textbook of chronological historical events. Hence, although it adheres to factual fidelity, it doesn't deliver what is expected from a celluloid drama. It will be cruel to say that the film is uninspiring because it does have a lot of heart and characters do evoke a genuine sense of empathy. It's more like a ticking bomb that doesn't explode. I'm not talking about the typical Bollywood exaggerated sentimentality, but Pain's maiden effort doesn't have that soul-stirring zing in it, it's not intense or emotionally compelling enough. I love simplistic minimalism and restrained performances, but the characters somehow are nipped in the bud and deliberately not allowed to grow and evolve, especially when the director had the luxury of a casting coup comprising the likes of Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Jaideep Ahlawat and Dibyendu Bhattacharya. He fails to exploit the brilliance of such wonderful actors at his disposal. Even the background score is so disappointing and underwhelming, completely incompatible with the elegiac undertone of the film. The editing has rough edges with loose disconnected parts. The only rewarding aspect of the film is Eric Zimmerman's breathtaking cinematography.

The movie narrates true events. It deals with the armed revolt in the 1930s, against the British rulers in Chittagong, executed by a master with the participation of school boys. Subsequently, there was also a peasant uprising in the same town, led by one of the school boys, against these British rulers.

The movie is not jerky, awkward, hurried or too slow.

However, it has taken up disproportionately more time in narrating the armed revolt and its aftermath; less time has been given to the later peasant uprising which happened in order to regain the food-grains forcibly commandeered by the Britishers.

This 'peaceful' peasant uprising was equally interesting and should have been detailed better. There are no scenes of how much has been commandeered by the British, what was the layout map of their location vis-a-vis the food-grains godown, how they planned the tunnel routes, how they planned the digging teams, how the teams actually dug the tunnels, the travails of digging the tunnels secretly, time frames involved, the general heroism of it all. The narrative was cursory here.

There was an immediate reason for the peasants to rise against the Britishers as their lands, crops and food-grains had been forcibly commandeered by them. However, it is not clear what particular events triggered the master in Chittagong to plan a revolt. The movie could have shed some light on that. If there were no particular events which triggered, then the movie could have explored how a widespread wave of resistance to the Britishers was building up in the entire country, and how the Chittagong folks were not unaffected.

Delzad Hiwale (as the young Jhunku) has acted very well. Nawazuddin Siddique, Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao are well known actors and did well in this movie. However, a common observation for all these four actors (and particularly Manoj Bajpayee) is that their facial expressions were not so nuanced.

Vega Tamotia (as Pritilata Waddedar) acted well and also used facial expressions more.

All the actors in the movie have acted well. There was no amateurishness anywhere.

The good costumes did a lot in creating the period story effect in the movie. Apparently, a lot of care has been taken here. This whole thing was quite pleasing. Kudos to the Costume Designer Nilanjana Ghose.

The film location was apt, with the villages, the rural folk, the thick jungle, the rocky terrain, the single railway line and the deserted road lined with thick foliage.

This is a film production of high calibre, with good homework all around. The movie has mostly Indian actors and Indians in key non-acting roles. Only the Cinematographer and the Editor appear to be non-Indians.

It was a bit incredulous to see two bicycling policemen approaching the secret training ground inside the forest, where training to fire a rifle was being given to the school boys, and not hear the noise of the firing.

The music (songs) composing team of Shankar-Ehsan-Loy is quite popular in Bollywood. But, their extensive crooning in the background was inconsequential and jarring. This was a put-down and gave a Bollywood-like effect to an otherwise well crafted movie.

Going through the pages of history I used to think that India is filled with rich historical events and characters yet we hardly see them being made into compelling cinema. While foreign countries have churned great cinema out of their history, India has taken the back-seat. Somehow the interesting historical events are never turned into engaging films barring few. With growing empathy towards our own history the film-makers are showing no interest as market value seems to be turkey. Yet there are people like Bedabrata Pain, a genius Nasa scientist who dared to follow his passion making a great film of courageous men who symbolizes triumph of human spirit.Earlier a film made on similar events by Gowariker(Khelien Hum Jee Jan Se) was naive and childish attempt.

Chittagong uprising is an important incident in Indian freedom struggle led by a school master Surjo Sen. The uprising was of more significance as his army mainly consisted of teenage school students thus making more impact in creating a national uproar. But the film doesn't pivot on Masterda neither it's a homage in memorial of all the martyrs involved in it. Instead it focuses on Jhunku who is narrating his experience of the Chittagong revolution and after getting released from Kalapani how he created a movement involving peasants. The film ends with the footage of real Jhunku (in his early 80s) showing the passion and research work done behind making of the film.Recently no other historical film comes close to Chittagong in terms of authenticity and honesty.

Probably one has seen it in Gowariker's version but Pain's execution brings in layers to the characters. Those revolutionaries were but human it the end. They had weaknesses and fear of failures which are captured with precision. The revolutionaries are portrayed as mortal with strong will power and self-belief. MasterDa's characterization is flawless and the strategic depth in the movement comes out effortlessly through the proceedings. The masterstroke of the screenplay (Co-written by Shonali Bose) is telling the whole story through the eye of a boy named "Jhunku". Through his eyes we build an image of Masterda, NirmalSen, Preetilatha and other revolutionaries of his gang. With people already aware of the fate of Masterda, Jhunku's angle gave a fresh perspective for audience viewing. Brownie points must be given to the writers for showcasing the human side of the British officers. Barry John's character shows inner conflict which is too evident from being a family man. Anurag Aurora as Ahsanaullah & AllexO'neil as Johson depicted sadism with perfection.

Pain excels in his directorial debut. His style of execution should be a lesson to film-makers, even those who are directing for over years but still fails to show any spark. The film gives ray of hope to all of us, that making an honest effort is more important than success or failure. After all leaving NASA to make a film on this uncharted territory speaks volume about the person. Pain also got ample support from his technical team. Eric Zimmerman's cinematography is brilliant. The way he had captured the forest terrains helped the audience to visually stretch back to the era of 1920s. With ample support from teams of Production Design (dependable SamirChanda), Costume design (NeelanjanaGhose) and Art Direction ( AmitRoy) the realistic feel of the freedom struggle is aptly created, reliving those days of uprising. Aldo Velasco's editing deserves mentioning. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music flows with the narrative."Ishaan" -nice composition and with the tragic history behind the song one can't help but to admire the spirit of the director who is an inspiration to many.It's difficult to move ahead with life after such a tragedy.

The film boasts of some finest actors of contemporary cinema. ManojBajpayee fits in as MasterDa and again surprised us with his abilities. NawazuddinSiddiqui is getting is due after a long struggle and showing meteoric rise with meaningful cinema. After GOW, Siddiqui sparkled as Nirmal Sen in this film. He is one of the rare actors of current cinema who can emote with his whole body. RajKumarYadav as Lokenath Bal and Jaideep Ahlawat as Anant Singh are superb. All these four seem to carry the energy of GOW (though Chittagong was shot much before GOW). Delzad Hiwale should be given standing ovation for his portrayal of Jhunku who is awestruck by Masterda and gradually becomes part of the revolution. His transformation from a shaky rich kid to a rebel with a cause has been textured with perfection. Another find of this film is Vega Tamotia who played the role of Preetilata has flawless expressions. Veteran Barry John adds human value to Wilkinson who is serving the queen and at the same time is empathetic to Jhunku. Vijay Verma as older Jhunku leaves good impression. Dibyendu Bhattacharya (last seen as chunni in DevD) is brilliant as Ambika and should get more opportunities in future. Overall the huge supporting cast are as fine tuned as the leading cast.

With people's apathy towards our own history more such Chittagong needs to be made so that we can at least feel pride in something which has been long lost with corruption. Chittagong also reflects triumph of human spirit at every level. Chittagong also boosts such independent film makers to come with their own style and start a new wave in Hindi cinema.Kudos to Anurag Kashyap,Pranay Roy for supporting this brilliant independent cinema which was made 3 years back and got subdued by the biggies of the business.

Immediate Box office might not be huge; but it will go down in the history as a brilliant film that fought all odds to get release.It also shows a new angle to freedom struggle, scanning unknown characters from the page of history books to reality. The film is a must watch for cine-lovers, history-lovers and all who wants to know about bunch of fearless,self-sacrificing young souls who can inject ray of hope to the new generation & helps in becoming strong, righteous characters.

Yes, the film is about the independence movement in the last stage. A stage where civil disobedience movement and "bharat choro andolan" has hit the high note. In it's backdrop Bedabarat Pain articulates together the lives of a few revolutionaries from eastern Bengal struggling for independence against a ruthless British empire.

Like all Indian independence related movies this one is also a 'biographic' way of showing the film.It is a genre cliché of all independence movies that heroism should prevail in order to ring bells of protest among the audience.

It's the main story of Jhunku alias Subhendu Roy a 14 year old teenager who influenced by the Master Surya Sen and troupe to join and fight for the cause of independence. Surya Sen, acts as his mentor for uprising preparing him mentally and keeping up the challenge of becoming a rebel by training him in akhadas (body building gyms of yonder days) and by giving proper training in armaments regiment in the dense jungles where police patrols are not prominent.In this process the story becomes a two-fold. The early part detailing the struggles of Master da Surya Sen, Nirmal Chandra Sen (both now consider great martyrs of the Indian Independence movement) Lokenath Baal, Anant Singh, Gonesh Ghosh, Sukhendu Chakraborty, Ahasanullah, Binob Behari and several others trying to capture the Chittagong regiment by by making a coup-de-tat on the Chittagong Arms cantonment and striking the European club so as to strike terror in the hearts of the colonialists.

The later part of the cinema shows the gruesome struggle of the leaders of members of the partisan group. The struggle is intermittently present through out, the second half shows that one required nerves of steel to stand up in those times. While attacking the arms forgery and police quarters to seize arms Surya Sen instructs his younger comrades to do only the needful and not make a bloodbath out of the enemy, but the same rule won't apply for them when are caught.

The real issue of the cinema was to highlight the point that one doesn't require a lot expertise militancy to overthrow a government following a coup-de-tat. Surya Sen and his fellow comrades had done that just a by a mere bunch of inexperienced locally trained under-aged guerrillas. Vietnam war was famous for using the guerrilla warfare techniques but I think our Vietnamese counterparts may have taken cue from our Indian Independence warfare struggles where the britishers were ambushed in the dense jungles and beaten despite having more artillery and man-power.

Speaking of execution I would praise it in a thematic level. The story line was well adept and it didn't go overboard to entail it. Overtly romanticism was avoided in order to make it less focused on individual lives and more on the nucleus of the struggle. Manoj Bajpai's portrayal of Surya sen was calm and cool leader was good. It was pro-physical archetype of depiction. Though there is a bit laughable sequence where Jhunku is shown reading a letter in Bengali but the pronunciation is in Hindi. It's hard to guess on whether it was a deliberate attempt or had the director forgot to edit that portion. Speaking of the camera-work it was very good and impressive. The color tone was rightly adjusted in this cinema. If one looks closely the camera focuses on from top and slowly coming down to reveal on the earthly matters going down. This could be seen as making a visualized suggestion of the endeavor being a noble effort above this mortal world.

The sound mixing is very poor and left me disappointed at moments. At times the speaker would crackle so loudly that it was having an electrical problem. Sounds from the background felt unreal and was a dubious dubbing effort.

All said but the real star of this film shall be Bedabrata Pain. Being an eminent scientist himself, he decided to make a film on shoe-string budget detailing the painful tasks taken by our freedom fighters against an empire. In a way the film reflects pain own painful task of directing,producing and marketing the film against a heartless and plastic bollywood cheap selling empire. In a way it deserves praise. In a way I hope he sticks around and makes another independent film which can amaze us.

I think every Indian irrespective of class and society should see this movie and also show it their children. Children often complain that history is boring, I am sure that after seeing Chittagong most children would gleefully go through their history books in order to know more about their leaders and the sacrifices they made for the motherland. Strangely this film was also dedicated to Pain's own child who died of an accident 2 years early.

I wish that independent films like these find more success and more audience so that the filmmakers would get rewarded for their honest efforts in good films to cater to the masses.

What worked: What made this movie special is the content the movie presents; a pre independence times in India, lead by the group of school students. This true story makes its impact fully when the movie ends because that's when the real revolution became a reality in Chittagong. Well written, acted and directed, also the scores are good. The lead Manoj, Rajkumar and Nawaasuddhin shine as always. What did not work: If I were the makers,maybe I would put some more time depicting the psyche of the revels, especially the leader and also introspective reflections so that the intend became inevitable. Final verdict: recommended