Rajkahini

The movie released in 2015 but unfortunately i couldn't have any chance to watch this. Today i just finished this movie and i am writing this review with tears in my eyes. Its a film about the post partition environment in India and Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The movie contains many emotional scenes where you can't stop yourself to cry. Very very thanks to the very talented director Mr. Srijit Mukherjee for making this kind of masterpiece. After so many years of partition we can feel the pain and the tortures of that time through this movie. Again Great Direction 🖤 and mind blowing performances from the actors also. If you are a true classic movie lover, you should watch this. Really this movie is going to be a gem of The Bengali Film Industry.

At the outset the director must be commended for taking on such a bold subject. But it seems he bit more than he could chew. The movie is excellent in patches and absolutely mediocre in the rest.

Apart from the gaping holes in the story and its portrayal, the acting is okay. The movie tries to steamroll its flaws by using a Galaxy of movie stars. Most of the characters are under developed and do not have a backside story. Some characters have no logical explanation about why they do what they do. Ex- Master. Also it is strange to assume that India was filled with rapists through and through.

The movie also generalizes the society of the time and even then fails to capture the essence of it.

The movie as a whole fails to do justice to the subject and you only leave the hall with some scenes, not the entire movie on your mind.

Actions speak louder than words. Nigel Akkara proved this phrase right through this film. I loved the performance of Nigel Akkara. He has played several characters in many films. Each character was unique in it's own way even this is another best performance of Nigel .

The first half was not quite up to the mark but it picked up steam in the second and the climax pretty well made up for it. Rituparna's acting did not look quite natural to begin with (she seemed to try too hard to get into that role), but came into her own as the movie progressed. The discourse between the two protagonists from the two principal political parties of both sides, namely Saswata and Koushik, looked over-dramatized at the beginning but their chemistry as well as the whole story started to get a foothold on to the audience mind as things progressed. Another minor glitch was the scene involving Radcliffe, which though a short but a major one in terms of backdrop of the movie. The acting looked amateurish there, a foreign proper actor could have been used in that role. Jishu stood out for me with his never seen before image but the grandma's portrayal seemed flawed again as she looked more like a normal household grandma than one in a brothel. The lesser known facts on partition were touched upon in adequate measure and the image of the society and its attitude towards these women who seemed like having no role or place in it other than being a few bodily commodities were portrayed uninhibitedly. The use of the unused part of the Tagore song in our national anthem was excellent to end with though. Apart from these few issues, the movie was truly hard hitting and a thought provoking one. It gets a 6/10 for the first half and 8/10 for the second from me, overall a 7/10!

Here are my two cents,

1. Not Director's (Srijit Mukherjee) best attempt; I think he does well in crime suspense genre than period genre. His direction shows parts brilliance as a very short simple story line stretches over 2 hours which could have well been within 1.5 hr. There are unnecessary attempt to develop characters of some who are not important for the main story-line. Nonetheless , the primary storyline is a touching one during the country's partition with mixture of fear, anguish, corruption, helplessness, courage and feminism.

2. Camera work great in some long and short shots, boring when continuously showed one half of faces of the two officers (Ilias and Prophullo) over different situations.

3. Acting mostly ordinary, Rituparna(Begam Jaan) tried hard to convince her character especially when she showed her anger on others, sometimes touching the border of melodrama. Rest are average with exception of Saswata(Prophullo), Kaushik(Ilias) and Jishu (Kabir). Why the actors casted for Lord Mountbatten so lackluster, and a British character Radcliff is played by an Indian face acted by an Indian!!!