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Anjan Dutt is ready to hit the mountain trail to crack the mystery of a missing picture with Abar Bomkesh, based on the story Chitrachor. The filmmaker unveils to t2 his second outing with the dhoti-clad Bengali sleuth a year after Bomkesh Bakshi spun quite a success story.
Why did you choose Chitrachor?
Of the four stories, the rights of which I had acquired, two were Calcutta-based and two outside. I did the first story in Calcutta because that’s where Bomkesh starts out. His house is in Calcutta and he’s settled there. For this one, I wanted to go out of Calcutta because it would be visually more exciting. Also, Bomkesh is known for solving most of his cases in places like Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Madhupur or Ghatshila, where most Bengalis would travel to at a certain point of time.
Second, it’s easier for me to create a period outside Calcutta. In Calcutta we felt very stifled. Now that I’m going out, I’m more confident of recreating the ’60s. Chitrachor happens to be an outdoor story with an interesting combination of thriller and relationships, which Saradindu Bandopadhyay is famous for. If Feluda is thriller and travelogue, Bomkesh is thriller and adult relationships. Since Bomkesh is a married detective, Satyabati’s relationship with Bomkesh takes on a different role now and becomes more exciting as he fights and argues with his wife while solving a crime
Are you going by the book?
I start with the theft of a picture, which actually happens later in the book, and then go back to Bomkesh who is sick and recuperating in the fresh mountain air of the Dooars. There he interacts with the Bengali community which includes a professor, banker, planter, district magistrate and police officer. Although on holiday, he inadvertently gets involved in a crime that happens there and all these people become suspects.
Some things I will never change about Bomkesh; the period, which is the ’60s, his Khoka will never grow up and Satyabati will either travel with him, stay back with Khoka or go to her brother in Benaras.
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| Abir and Ushasie as Bomkesh and Satyabati. Pictures by Anindya Shankar Ray |
Who have you retained from the previous cast?
My Bomkesh will always be Abir (Chatterjee), Ajit will always be Saswata (Chatterjee) and Ushasie will always be Satyabati. That apart, I’m working with good theatre actors. I’m not looking at any other value-addition of stars. The hero of the film is Bomkesh. Everybody should go to see Abir and get to see a lot of good actors. The fresh faces include Kaushik Sen, Sudipa Bose and Kunal Padhy. I’m repeating Chandan Sen, Pijush Ganguly, Biswajit Chakraborty... Swastika (Mukherjee) is there in a guest appearance as a widow.
Any lessons learnt from the first film?
Yes. We did not recreate the period well. It was acceptable as the ’60s but too minimalist because a major constraint was budget. The ’60s are a difficult period to recreate in a place like Calcutta. We had to locate lanes and bylanes and try to hide little things like television antennas. There’s no point in making a period film if you can’t recreate the era through the artefacts, roads, houses and cars.
How will you do it differently this time?
I’m looking at a scale which is grand and usually not seen here. Something you’ve seen in a Chokher Bali. I don’t want to compromise on the look, feel, decor or costumes. Be it old cigarette cases, an old model of a Mercedes Benz, paintings or costumes — everything will have the feel of what the ’60s was all about. Our producer (Rana Sarkar) wants the film to be a high-end brand because that’s what Bomkesh is. We’re working a lot harder on the look. We’re sourcing props from the Asiatic Society and auctioneers and studying that period extensively. A time that witnessed the resurgence of Bengali cinema on the one hand and post-Independence political corruption on the other. The richest of Bengalis flourished during that time. It opened up to the western traditions. I want to recreate the Uttam-Suchitra-Supriya world of cinema.
When and where does Abar Bomkesh go on the floors?
We’re doing the interiors in Calcutta from October 10 and then shifting to the Dooars by the month end. We will be shooting there till November end for the exteriors, tea bungalow, local market, the mist and fog....
How about a signature Bomkesh theme music?
The theme music we created for the first one was good so we’re retaining that and trying to improve it. Neel and I are always labelled as fooling around with Rabindranath so this time we’ll have a very old-fashioned Rabindrasangeet. We’re sticking to the exact arrangement and getting it sung by Srabani Sen.
You’ve made a leap from light urbane stories into period detective thriller. Why?
All this while my films have been catering to young Calcutta so the basic reason for doing Bomkesh was to get across to the suburbs a little bit, the older generation and a bigger family audience. Bomkesh is such a popular character and his novels are still bestsellers. Ananda Publishers had told me that the demand for books had risen during the film’s release. But the sales had always been good. So, I knew there was an audience out there. I knew I would get to reach a bigger audience and I got the rights for four films but I thought it would take at least two or three to make it big. I never expected it to be financially this viable after Bomkesh. We generated a huge amount of money from the halls.
Do you aim to roll out a Feluda-like franchise with Bomkesh?
Yes, I think the audience also expects an alternative to Feluda. Feluda is the only yearly detective thriller in Bengali that comes and is popular so I think the audience expects another character from the storybooks. By virtue of the fact that Sandip (Ray) has decided to make his films very modern and I have decided to make Bomkesh a period film, we will always differ from each other. I’m looking at Bomkesh as a period detective thriller with the old Bengali charm. Bangali bhadralok in dhuti-panjabi yet a very intelligent man who fights crime.
One of the reasons for doing Bomkesh is because Bengali literature is filled with detective thrillers that have remained untapped for some unknown reason. Goutam Ghose or Lal (Suman Mukhopadhyay) dabble in Sunil Gangopadhyay or Tagore but otherwise literature seems to have vanished from cinema. As I’m growing older, I’m falling back on literature.
