Arna Mukhopadhyay is slowly emerging as a director to be reckoned with. Over the last decade or so, he has taken over the mantle of Natadha, a theatre group, from his mentor, Shib Mukhopadhyay. In Athoi, an adaptation of Othello, for instance, his acumen in exploring casteism in contemporary Bengali society and its ramifications on the wider social spectrum was evident. An inclination to flirt with physicality in method acting and a flair for uncovering deeper resonances in Hindi film songs have become his signatures. With Bijane Bisher Neel, he enters the darker layers of human psychology and, that too, in style, showing signs of maturity in every department.
Brilliantly scripted by Soumit Deb, virtually uncapped but a bundle of talent, Bijane Bisher Neel finds a Calcutta-based film director, Sudarshan (Mukhopadhyay himself), at a crossroads in his career. Although he finds a sympathetic wife in Maya (Upabela Pal), the inability to find a producer for a new project keeps him on tenterhooks. When Kanishka (Arpan Ghoshal), a struggling newcomer, sends him a cracker of a script and seeks his opinion, an unnerved Sudarshan invites him home on the pretext of a meaningful discussion and, suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
Bengali theatre has rarely attempted a thriller with such pace and panache as Bijane Bisher Neel achieves. And this is not just about sudden twists and turns, but also about taking advantage of the resources abundant in popular culture. Mukhopadhyay makes no bones about his fascination for thrillers as he keeps projecting posters of cult films like Kill Bill, Parasite, Sholay and Don on the cyclorama. Such projections, combined with quotes like “The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies” and whacky images, help form a metanarrative of crime and passion. Hit songs of Kishore Kumar pep up the action sequences that he and Ghoshal execute with jaw-dropping effect. Their sizzling chemistry, supported by Pal and Tanuja Dey and Sumit Panja essaying madcap characters, makes Bijane Bisher Neel a stunner of a watch.