To evoke real fear and the threat of violence is a rarity in Indian cinema. Almost every second week a gangster film is made. Crores of money are spent on green screen violence. But we all, sensitive or otherwise, are never ever shocked. After a pretty long time and after Manorama Six Feet Under, Konkona Sensharma manages to evoke a gnawing sense of real fear that chains you to your seat and makes you question the latent sense of violence inherent in our petty bourgeois society, where masculinity is hollow bravado and repressed femininity leads to destructive lust.

Konkona’s debut film is almost as languid as Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly, where all the characters are as normal or as flawed as any of us in the auditorium. But the damage they do unwillingly is shocking and A Death In The Gunj reminds you of the philosophical height of Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri.

A coming-of-age film set in a winter week in 1979 at a once Anglo-Indian town called McCluskieganj (now in Jharkhand), amid a highly cosmopolitan Bengali family and non-Bengali friends, it clearly shows how gifted Konkona is as a screenwriter. Coupled with Sirsha Ray’s brooding, melancholic and almost flawless cinematography and an ensemble of absolutely brilliant actors, A Death In The Gunj forces you to question... are we at all civilised?
Everyone in the family smokes and drinks along with their parents, uses cuss words at random, is highly sexually liberal, financially successful. But as the story of Shutu, a withdrawn and weak Bengali cousin (Vikrant Massey) unfolds, we end up questioning, are they/we at all truly evolved?

Based on Mukul Sharma’s short story, which tries to recall felt experiences of a time, the film somehow becomes as real as Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane. Crafted so brilliantly and with so much complexity and passion, that I ended up thinking “did it really happen?”

EK JE AACHHE KONKONA

I had first seen a teenage Konkona on the cover page of Sananda magazine which was then edited by Aparna Sen. I referred her name to director Subrata Sen for his film Ek Je Aachhe Konya in which I was cast opposite her. But it became impossible for me to adjust my dates with Konkona’s upcoming exams. Sabyasachi Chakrabarty took my place and Konkona became a star. I somehow have this horse sense for good actors and knew she would be one of the finest in the country.

I wanted her badly opposite Clayton Rodgers in Bow Barracks Forever but the role was not that thick for Konkona. Years later I was again cast opposite her in Aparna Sen’s Iti Mrinalini. Dates clashed. Rajat Kapoor took my place. By then we had become thick as colleagues and family friends. Finally we faced each other on the sets of Aparna Sen’s Saari Raat in Hindi. It was sheer joy. Lots of fun. Now that she has put on the director’s hat, what comes as a revelation is how despite choosing a rather dark theme her tremendous sense of wit comes through.

FELT EXPERIENCES, WHERE MAKE-BELIEVE AND THE REAL WORLD COLLIDE

Konkona has claimed that she has been inspired by her childhood memories and stories she had heard in McCluskieganj. That is the strength of the film; felt experiences. I connect with it in the same way I connected with my Dutta Vs Dutta. Where make-believe and the real world collide. You can clearly see that every character etched, dialogue spoken, every scene is like a page from a lost diary.

Shutu is the black sheep of the family, almost an errand boy, who is bullied, ignored, pitied and finally sexually used. The undertone of brooding melancholia, despite the collage of hugely funny and highly witty scenes, makes you wait for the brewing volcano to erupt. And when it does erupt you are devastated.

Vikrant Massey is a powerhouse. Why? Because after a long time we have a young actor who is capable of being truly vulnerable without being pathetic. Shutu is very intelligent but a failure. He longs to join the club but is afraid and withdrawn. His only true connect is the child of the family, Tani. He loves dead insects and smokes in secret. The scene where he finds his dead father’s sweater and slowly ends up sniffling it, wearing it and finally sobbing, clearly shows Konkona’s mastery. I will live with that scene and sob in my spare time for a long while.

When I saw Gulshan Devaiah in Shaitan, I knew here is an actor who will storm. But his matter of fact, responsible, domesticated yet deeply deadly and violent Nandu is a stunning revelation. The scene where he forces Shutu to drive the car is simply outstanding. Despite being mostly cheerful his performance punches you hard in the face at times. Stunning is the only word I can think of for Gulshan Devaiah. Salute.

Ranvir Shorey has long proved himself to be capable of almost any role and to my mind is the most underrated ball of fire in Bollywood today. His suave, macho, highly energetic, stylish and brutal Vikram is the alter ego of the repressed Shutu. Here Konkona’s casting creates the dynamic clash that takes the film to a dizzy height. You end up watching sheer acting and almost ignore the narrative. The kabaddi scene that ends up in a violent fight between Vikram and Shutu, intercut with Shutu’s mother’s (voice by Aparna Sen) sad letter to her sister  is yet another dazzling moment of sheer cinema that proves Konkona knows the craft too well. You know that the fight is actually a fight for manhood. The letter reveals the sad predicament.

Tillotama Shome’s Bonnie will remain one of her finest performances. The added advantage here is that Konkona and Sirsha make her look ravishingly beautiful.

AN EROTICA THAT IS SIMPLY HAUNTING.... SEX IS BEAUTIFUL BUT FLEETING

Kalki Koechlin is one of the most deceptively subtle actors of our times. Her lusty yet sexually trapped Mimi is gorgeously dangerous. The scene where the drunk and sexually jealous Mimi seduces Shutu in the living room on a chair leaves you awestruck. As the chair keeps rocking and losing its balance with Sagar Desai’s guitar in the background getting more and more flamboyant, I am transported to an erotica that is simply haunting. That Konkona repeats the seduction of Shutu by Mimi in the graveyard and manages to make it even more dangerous proves her ability to handle sex scenes in a way very few Indian directors can today. You are never swayed away by the erotica but are pushed to think or feel the brutal predicament.

We have seen male filmmakers brilliantly pull off scenes where girls are seduced by selfish men. Here is a young woman filmmaker who pulls off just the opposite. Shutu is seduced twice and then dumped with such nonchalance that you know this film is not here to pamper your senses but actually doubt your own sense of morality. She proves that sex is actually beautiful but fleeting. Shutu does grow up. And the film rolls to a shocking, stunning climax.

DO NOT MISS THIS GEM

I am not here to reveal the story to you. That is neither my job as a critic nor my desire. I am here to provoke you to see it in the first week. Those of you who are tired of very average entertainment every week at the theatre and long to be emotionally bathed by the power of valid cinema, do not miss this gem.

Needless to say that Om Puri’s bumbling father and Tanuja’s kind but equally trapped mother add to the emotional complexity.

Sagar Desai’s minimalist but utterly haunting background score of pulsating guitar and percussion is an asset to the film, because it enhances the ghostly atmosphere.

But all good things leave you feeling wanting a bit more. I seriously wanted a bit more of moments where Shutu identifies with his equally failed, dead father. To me Shutu is the Oswald of Ibsen’s Ghost, where the boy is doomed to become the living ghost of his father. I only wish Konkona could have given me a bit more of that.

That a film about a family holiday in a romantic setting is actually a dangerous thriller is clear in the very first shot where Gulshan Devaiah’s Nandu and Jim Sarbh’s Brian look into the dicky of a car and reposition a corpse. Then the blue Ambassador car with a broken tail light drives into the dusk…. The game is set for A Death In The Gunj.
I only think that after the brutal climax, editors Aarif Sheikh and Manas Mittal, and Konkona should have cut back to the opening shot once again. Perhaps Konkona has her own reasons. I have mine.

But A Death In The Gunj makes me bow my 63-year-old head to Konkona for entering the arena of direction with such aplomb. Her sheer hard work is evident in every aspect. But only hard work and resilience cannot make good cinema. Konkona Sensharma has vision, guts and knows what she wants to say in a world where most are confused or shy away into being politically correct.

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