Suman Mukhopadhyay, flanked by Aparna Sen and Rituparna, at The Conclave after-party

Starring: Rituparna Sengupta, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Arun Mukhopadhyay, Anjan Dutt, Biplab Chatterjee, Sreelekha Mitra

Directed by: Suman Mukhopadhyay

What to watch out for in this three-in-one film that looks at Calcutta, its chaos and complexities:

The first short, in which an upper-middle class man (Anjan Dutt) and an overly inquisitive man of modest means (Biplab Chatterjee) are thrown together to spend a night in a hospital, is the most grounded and well executed of the three. As they spend many a restless hour worrying about the fate of their loved ones fighting for life, the two come face to face with the vicious and grimy underbelly of the city. Both Dutt and Chatterjee turn in stellar performances.

“Mine is an unconventional character but people’s reactions have been positive,” beamed Chandan Roy Sanyal at the party

As the face of the common man who lives under constant fear and ultimately falls prey to it, Arun Mukhopadhyay is the life of the second short. His Birenda is a memorable sketch of a city-dweller walking the thin line as insecurity and the perils of modern urban living threaten his existence.

Rituparna leaves a mark as a frustrated wife trapped in a loveless marriage, while Sreelekha does justice to her bit role of a Marx-spouting, Tolstoy-quoting aantel other woman in the third story. In his big Bengali debut, Chandan pitches his on-the-edge Rohit well but somehow it never rises to the level of Kaminey’s Mikhail. You watch him get high on a cocktail of drink and drugs, but the performance fails to reach a crescendo.

Kulbhushan Kharbanda with Shubhashish Mukhopadhyay and Biplab Chatterjee at the premiere. “Bengal is always known to experiment with cinema and M@K is an example of that,” said the veteran actor, a friend of Suman

Rupam’s score heightens the edgy, no-holds-barred feel. The zesty lyrics, symbolising the pains and perils of life in the fast lane, lift even the mundane parts of the film.

Whether it is the dark tones and the play between light and shade in the first short, the dull grey fabric of the second or the vibrancy of the third, Indranil Mukherjee’s cinematography brings M@K alive.