Standing between the powerful and the powerless, our middle-class lives often confront a crucial question — should we hold onto our ideals or do whatever it takes to survive? Dhrubor Ashchorjo Jibon explores this dilemma through four different possibilities of Dhrubo’s life, told across four chapters.’ This synopsis provided by the maker of the film, Abhijit Chowdhury, outlines the film so aptly that the reviewer had no qualms about borrowing it verbatim. What, however, marks the film as different is its mode of presentation.
There are several elements that make it stand out as a film that entertains both the broader and finer aspects of the audience’s sensibilities. All four stories delineated through the four chapters in Dhrubo, the protagonist’s life, have the elements of a thriller intertwined with a tribute to four Bengal painters, Jamini Roy, Gaganendranath Tagore, Bikash Bhattacharjee and Benode Behari Mukherjee. The world woven in each chapter almost seamlessly weaves around the artworks of the artists without being obtrusive. While in one chapter of Dhrubo’s life the painting plays a direct role, in another it dissolves into a surreal blend of the painting with the film. In yet another, it is a leitmotif, while in the fourth it brings out the inner eye that lies within.
The film flows from one chapter to another quite seamlessly. The concession the filmmaker makes for the audience’s clear understanding of the four different explorations or possibilities in the protagonist’s life is the rewinded images after the first story. This was perhaps the young filmmaker’s attempt at clearing any confusion that the audience might have regarding the presentation of four chapters. This could have been avoided. But that does not take away from the evolution of each chapter. Though Dhrubo is the central character, confidently played by Rishav Basu, the other ensemble cast has a variety that needs to be applauded.
The filmmaker has definitely chosen his cast with a lot of thought, taking the look and feel of each character into consideration. A number of stage actors turned film actors are present and their performances are to be applauded. It would be difficult to specify and identify individual actors as the list is too long. Abhijit has managed to create a film where actors have shed their known images to become characters that blend into the stories. Ritwika Pal, who plays the love interest of Dhrubo, has competently portrayed the nuances in each of the versions that she appears in. Her portrayal of the blind girl in the last chapter needs a special mention.
Abhijit Chowdhury has worn three hats in this film: writer, director and editor. He therefore truly deserves the epithet, a new-age filmmaker, as he has explored the world of storytelling and visual effects with an elan that is admirable. The artistic and cinematic blend of the Durga Puja immersion sequence with Gaganendranath Tagore’s painting bears testimony to the competence of the VFX specialist Subhayan Chandra, the cinematographer Arnab Laha and of course the filmmaker.
Anandarupa
The reference to the lost painting of Jamini Roy from his Ramayan series, the dolls of Bikash Bhattacharjee depicting social evil and the murals of the visually impaired artist Benode Behari in depicting the inner vision that comes from physical disability— effective use of all these elements in the storyline is a testimony of Abhijit Chowdhury’s out-of-the-box thinking process.
Embracing new technology and combining it with new-age thoughts is the order of the day that Abhijit and his team have accepted and portrayed so competently in the film Dhrubor Aschorjo Jibon.
This is perhaps not a film that is driven by star power, yet it has the power to create stars. It is a new-age film that draws from old stories and experiences. Abhijit has borrowed extensively from art, history, social norms and combined it with the darker elements of the human mind to create a potpourri of experiences that are both entertaining and thought provoking. At this juncture it is important to mention the producers who had faith in the new thought process and were ready to invest in a venture that went beyond conventional perceptions of a successful film. Last but not the least, Dhrubor Aschorjo Jibon won the award for the best film in the Bengali Panorama Section of the Kolkata International Film Festival in 2024.