Chotuskone: Perplexing, intimidating and at times taxing

Srijit's Chotuskone was seen by me purely for the hype it created and my co-brother's blatant praise for the same. Alas, it never really takes off, from where other of his work was. Too pseudo, too overtly intellectual (read forced) and too abstract.

Sorry to digress, I have read somewhere the foundation of anything abstract (read music, painting or any form of culture) has strong grounding in realism. Good evidences of such are found in the works of the fabled Pablo Picasso, who had initial grounding in realistic art and gradually experimented with abstract.

The problem with Srijit and his work, perhaps there is a grounding issue in his style of cinema as foundation of his work seems questionable. All of his work, to me have been on the lines of being surreal, abstract (maybe I can express this better by using a Bengali word like durboddho) and nihilist in it's form. Autograph or Baishe Sharabon or Hemlock, all fall in the same trap. His Mishor Rohosho was experimentative and he wanted viewers to look at Kakababu and Sontu from his side, which never went well in my scheme of things. Perhaps a Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr's version of Sherlock broke the norm better yet remained so grounded in the foundation. However, in all it's criticism, this one (Chotuskone) is a far better work of Srijit as compared to his past body of work.

I think for a while I would like to dwell on the good part of the cinema. The plot (overall) works well and the script (even though with loose ends) looks tighter. A cinema in cinema is always a "look forward to" thing and with four industry heavyweights pitted against each other, it is indeed a moment of "aha". However, beyond that none of them, Aparna, Chiranjeet or Gautam fail to make a mark. Parambroto's role is cutout and he does that in the last 15 minutes of the climax. Yet, his end is sudden and though I never tried to look for a "how" but felt cheated and asked "why".

The central plot running in tandem with the protagonist's past through the black and white version works well and how I wished the Director could have built on this more. However, in all of this the one thing or one character that stood out was that of Kaushik Ganguly and his 10-15 minutes in the movie, must watch. Wish, the Director could have given more time to building the central plot of a wronged director and how one could have had more of Kaushik Ganguly to see. Also one would have liked use of more visual metaphors like the playing cards etc. play up more through the movie, which was limited, dunno why?

There are too many sub plots running through the movie and one really needs to keep a tab. It is not nothing something one waits for or probably was there a "oh did I miss that" feeling, But seemed to at a point irritate and it was about convalescence.

We never needed the personal life of the characters of Trina (Aparna Sen), Dipto (Chiranjeet) or Sakhyo's (Gautam Ghose) play up so much and upset the story telling. They were jerks or perhaps imbalancers in the process.

We never wanted those voodoo lighting or camera to play so much of trick with us (developed my sciatica problems) or our minds. Keep it simple, Srijit as they say.

We know you wanted to prove a point or underline a moment, but Sir, there is a the lost art of "keeping things simple" we need to revive (maybe my own two bit, watch (Pather Panchali) the moment when Durga's death is conveyed by her mother (Sarbajaya) to her father (Harihar) without a single dialogue and those sciatica induced photography, simple as they say and message goes miles).

Music of the movie now very trademark; the combination of Anupam, Srijit, Srikanto and the rest of the team. Good to hear will be Bosonto and Boba Tunnel, not to say Shetai Satyi sounded good.

The movie is long, a tad close to three hours and could have easily be squeezed to less than 180 minutes of run time.

Yet, in all it's sense Chotuskone deserves at least a dekko and witness the maturity in Bengal cinema and still the attempt to work on a plot or script or story, missing sorely in the Hindi film industry. What next? May be a পঁচকোণ!