The Land of Cards

One thing is certain: this film doesn't hold back on experiments, no matter how eccentric. The avant-garde style is very unlikely of mainstream Bengali cinema, which nowadays is a rat race of making box office hits.

Rabindranath is a sensitive topic to us Bengalis, and naturally we tend to have a rather conservative stance. This transgressive film crosses the boundary of the "acceptable", venturing into the wild world of experimentalism, mending Tagore in ways that wreck havoc on our traditional mindset, forcing us to reformulate the notion of him and his body of work. The surreal nature of the film may obscure some the plot, yet it adds to the element of mystery shrouding the protagonists and their goals. This film unabashedly criticizes facism through its core message of anarchy that blooms within the women. Though explicitly political in nature, it never ignores the human element; culminated in the last scene of making love.

Even through its rooted in imagination, yet it is strangely realistic as it brings Tagore out of the books applies in a modern sociopoltical context. The cards depict a facist society, where every citizen is a soldier, bestowed the duty of protecting the state at the cost of losing their individuality. This is a feminist critique of totalitarianism.

Directed by Qaushiq Mukherjee (of the 2010 cult film Gandu the loser fame) this film, stands true to its word, being a quirky take on the play of the same name written by Rabindranath Tagore. The film's narrative has great shades of surrealism, fantasy and neo noir which as an impressive graph of development where two stories go hand in hand and they intersect at the pre climax , plus after few scenes with hardly any dialogues, the film takes a sweet boost and the rest is assured, drawing inspirations from Satyajit Ray's film "Goopy Gyen Bagha Byen" and the director's own previous work. The best part of the film lies in the cinematography by Manu Dacosee and the director himself, where every frame is a pure work of art and noir, the music score by Neel and Miti Adhikari and Q which takes on the Rabindra Sangeet with a tinge of some loud Western music making every song worth listening, then even editing by Nikon is great that well compliments the narrative, the performances by Tilotama Shome, Joyraj, Anubrata, Imaad Shah and Rii Sen. The film is a must watch for cinema lovers. My rating would be: 4/5. 

I don't know where the fascist aspect of government was coming from in the film's description but I suspect they were trying to be politically correct. This was about a primitive society being run along the lines of primitive beliefs. This film may be contemporary, but the society and the politics is 2000 years old in the film. The only social justice aspect of this might have originated in religion.

The film did not rise to my expectations. Not having read the original poem this movie is based on, means I have nothing to compare it to. That said, I can comfortably state that the production was off. The editing was terrible. Colour management was non-existent. Shots were taken and combined without artistic merit. The photography was terrible. In short, I can go on but won't. I've seen better grade school shoots that presented greater talent and mustered higher artistic merit.

I have decided not to comment on the story as I could only get half way through the movie. Suffice it to say, there are three story lines. Nothing happened in any of them except to show a mentally deranged hopeful play producer in one and a bored prince in another. The third up to that point had no story but might have held some historical significance had there been any context applied to those scenes. As there was no attempt made to manage the expectations of the audience, I will never know.

I actually really like psychedelic movies and programs. When done properly, they raise the production values and artistic merit of the project substantially. This film had none of that. Cuts were tossed into the air and edited together based on how they landed on the floor.

Everything about this film is a complete misrepresentation of what it really is and about. I don't appreciate poor editing skills as being represented as a psychedelic art work. Frankly, that's contemptible. Contrasting timelines is not an unusual method of stylizing elements to a story. There was zero story logic for doing it here.

This was a sadly unprofessional attempt at movie making. No modestly qualified experts were involved in production, only amateurs.

Qaushiq Mukherjee also known as 'Q' is known for directing films 'Gandu'. He is well known for making psychedelic films, which have overdose of visuals style of editing cuts like a fashion film with parallel narrative taking you a trip of music and visuals in a world governed by the characters which takes you on journey.

'Tasher Desh' is a modern take on revolution breaking rules and coming out of the shackles of the society. 'Tasher Desh' in English means 'Country of cards' reminds you Satyajit Rays 'Chess Players' and movies like Dreams by Akira Kurosawa and Takshi Kitnao's way of story telling and narrative structure.

The songs of Rabindranath Tagore with new age music bring life to stretched conversations between the writer and the widower and the relationships between the royal prince and the princess and the queen.

The writer's story is in black and white whereas he characters are in color. Mixed with claustrophobia and open spaces of beaches in the land of cards.

Its Rabindranath Tagore's play retold.

What is this movie this means nothing I like dog star man and crazy moves like this but really this is not a good movie is not logic in being crazy and because of this nothing about movies interesting I would rather spend a few months reading the original form then to read and match this crazy nonsense again.