Television

"Acceptance of something new in the system is good, but completely denying the thing just on its predictable negative impacts is the foolish act, it is depended upon us, how we use it so it results'', everything has its limitations but with proper usage it could turn to be the boon and the same thing may cause the negative impact if it crosses its limitation.

2012's Bangladesh movie ''Television'' has something interesting story to know about, it's the story that revolves around the old village chairman's orthodox traditional restrictions and changing modern mind of that community youngsters, that old village chairman has some negative stereotypes regarding the changing trends and the advent of technology which may mislead its community members and about posing threat to their tradition, in order to avoid its impact he imposes various rules and bans the use of various modern gadgets like mobile and television, but the question is until what extent such practices prevails to be in action? At the end of the movie the same old village chairman who unfortunately misses the chance of visiting the pilgrim place witnesses the same pilgrim place in the television and reaches the state of euphoria and finally realising that every thing in this world has its own pros and cons, but its consequence is depended on how we use them.

The entire casting is so good that each and every artist had provided full justice to their respective roles, the story has been neatly narrated and no doubt it reaches the mind of people and evoke their emotions, very fine and incredible work done by the young Bangladesh film maker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki.

This move was very fantastic beside it was educational.

In a rural village in present day Bangladesh (though sometimes the village seems to have frozen in time, at times only the presence of cell phones tell us we are in the present), a strict religious elder, called the Uncle by the scared locals, has banned the presence of television, among other things, as he believes the Koran bans the creation of images. This is not well taken by the local community, who seems less bothered by the coming of modernity than he is. A subplot has the tentative, clandestine and obviously chaste romance between a pretty vivacious girl called Kohinoor, that seems to represent a more modern face of the country and the cowed son of the Uncle.

Since I have never been to Bangladesh, I don't know how realistic this film is. The movie is interesting and never boring, though it sometimes goes over the top. A more subtle approach would have served it better. For instance, the village leader is almost always portrayed as an ignorant thug, a petty tyrant over his fellow villagers. A sign of his ignorance is that his desire to go to the Hajj crashes down when he realizes that he needs a passport, yet taking a photo for it is a big no no according to his beliefs. Only in the final scene, we are able to empathize a little with him.

The subject of the film is both a literal and a metaphorical one at the same time. I was lucky to see the very 1st show of 'TELEVISION'. Farooki Mostofa Sarwar and his team has taken Bengali cinema to a new level. He has dealt with a bold subject, seldom explored in world cinema and has hit it quite hard! This cinema deserves world-wide exposure. Mark the day fellow film-lovers, this is a proud moment. Watch it and spread the word. 'Television' is the only movie in the history of Bangladesh that just had a houseful first day first show. A must see for locals, and for foreigners if you want to taste a Bengali film- this could be your appetizer and main dish!

I went to the cinema on the very first show with enormous positive anticipation about this film as it has got the highest media hype in our country. The film entertained me on various angles but I was not mesmerized or something like that. I was convinced that it was a good film because of the intriguing content, standout performance by one of the main actors - Mosharraf Karim, and the twist in the later part of the movie. The cinematography could have been much better. The director used the "handheld camera" technique in random sequences and it didn't serve the point. As we all know that this technique is mainly used to create intensity in an intense sequence. Misunderstanding this concept, can create viewing disturbance. I would have talked about some more aspects but unfortunately I won't. Because this film does not deserve the actual criticism. Let me tell you why.

The main shocking fact about the film is, this film is a total conceptual copy of another Turkish film "Vizontele". The main concept in both films is, bringing a television to a remote village and creating the story of how the people and the society react to it. The design of the script in both movies are aimed to entertain the audience by the situational humor and the shocking ending. I would say that in case of disturbing ending, the Turkish film was light years ahead. It slaps you hard out of nowhere. In "Television", the same scripting design was followed by the writer and it might move you if you didn't see the Turkish one. But as a Director like Sarwar Farooki, I am deeply disappointed by this silly attempt of deceiving the audience. After finding all these, I totally lost all the charm about this movie and I think the director should answer this grand theft.

Mostafa Farooki is a very popular director and a creative one. But if he starts thinking that he can watch the less known movies of world cinema (in fact, "Vizontele" is not so less known) and make movies out of those, he should just join the mainstream Bangla Cinema and do the Bollywood rip offs. It would be easier, isn't it?