som-2

I have seen this movie so many times that I remember the scenes and conversation even after many years...yes, I liked it that much..its another 10/10 movie in my list. Its a beautiful poetry of love affair between Julie, Jack and Joseph.

Joseph is truly a poet. Everything he says is a line of poetry. In fact, they should publish that as a work of poetry! Joesph came late in Julie's life. So what? Joseph doesn't believe in coming late is a sin. Joseph is ready to experiment with this triangle affair in a new dimension. He wants Julie to inform Jack about this relationship.

This breaks the conventional thinking about being honest in love affair, being able to love both at the same time without hesitation. However, its hard to continue this affair in a society dictated by moral value of ours.

Joesph is the character I like most when he says: "I love when streets are crowded. I love when its empty"..Joseph is a true lover of life, ambitious, confident! Jack on the other side looks sad, reads books, senses something wrong. Julie is the most interesting character and discovery of a new type: she is complex. Her smile makes you think about this moment of life; she loves to enjoy it, every moment of it. In fact, Joseph and Julie makes a perfect couple, I feel sorry for Jack though!

Phorpa is a simple and beautiful movie..it deserves more star than it got. This simple movie does not contain any gimmick, car chasing, fighting, evil spirit, hero-anti hero ( the conventional movie subjects ), but contains feelings expressed by very common people ( who are also political victim and list their country ). Its superb direction, since there was enough reason to show battles between countries, hatred among people and religion..but nothing was shown...in stead , it says: "Give up hatred, since you can't win over all the enemies..enemies are endless"..What a message!!! I hope audience gets the above message since it comes directly from the sufferers who has lost their own country, yet you don't hear much against anything! This carefully drawn story teaches us lot while its objective was not teaching... Its superb, its terrific..gets a 10 out of 10 rating!

If you have seen earlier movies of Mrinal Sen and had an opinion about those movies and didn't like it, you must try to see this one. A completely different movie. Love affair between a husband and a wife, between an ex-husband and a wife, affection in a family and a traditional village in India shown completely unique and different way. Traditional use of Tagore songs (very popular among the art film makers of Bengal, India) is also very unique and different. Since there is no copyright on Tagore songs any more, Mrinal Sen has used it very differently and the tune suites the environment; it brings a different meaning to "hope, joy, life, dance, death and birth".

Muslim minority community of Bengal is shown in this movie. I was afraid in the beginning as I am tired of seeing those riot scenes of India. (for which there is no solution, each religion kills the other and no one listens to their leaders, or do they listen?) But this movie was very different. Even with all the formula elements of a Bengali art film like Tagore songs, village scenes, minority community, a love affair between a wife and someone else etc., its very different, I was never bored.

I was also afraid in the beginning to see the name of only male voice singer..as I don't like the male voice in Tagore songs any more. However, Srikant Acharya has done an excellent job in these Tagore songs. Superb! After seeing the movie the very first time I am going to rate this movie higher than "Pather Panchali" by Satyajit Ray. I am going to watch it few more times in future (will update this review again).

I didn't see this movie even nominated in Cannes. Are Cannes folks missing something? Are they following the Hollywood trend these days? thank you for reading so far :-), som.