Friday film Clerk

I didn’t think the bathtub scene was daring. To be honest, every man has fantasies and the film underlines the meeting point of realism and romanticism. I have posed bare-bodied in many of my films. If you remember, Rituparno (Ghosh) got me to show a lot more in Chokher Bali. The script of Clerk demanded it, so I agreed to do it. Besides, if we can’t handle such scenes being mature actors, I don’t think we should call ourselves actors at all. — Prosenjit

Directed by: Subhadro Choudhury

Starring: Prosenjit and Anindita Bose

The story: Tracking the routine life of Biplab, a lonely, unambitious and unmarried clerk, is all that is there by way of a plot — except that Biplab’s nights are as colourful as his days are dull.

A clerk at a government office, Biplab pounds his typewriter with a straight face every day, downs a few pegs on his way back home and then prepares for a long night of tender phone chat with his pick of Bollywood heroines. Kareena, Urmila, Priyanka, Aishwarya.... He spins a romantic yarn with each of them where he is their confidant and lover boy. You of course know there’s no one at the other end. He shuns the real world — the pretty young thing living next door doesn’t excite him — for a vicarious life in a fictive realm.

The illusory world brushes perilously close to the real world, and finally closes in on him with the news of Aishwarya marrying Abhishek Bachchan. Aishwarya, Biplab believed, was betrothed to him. And just when you start wondering if this maniac-like obsession with fantasies calls for medical attention, Biplab wakes up to the real world of people and female companionship (in the form of neighbour Anindita).

Prosenjit looks his part, expressing more through his facial muscles than words. His performance is restrained and layered. Anindita, in her short but sweet role, does a good job.

Watch out for: The bathtub scene where Prosenjit lolls in a green tub, wearing — it appears — nothing. Also, Shirsha Ray’s camerawork that heightens the stark contrast between the harsh days and soft, glowing nights. Tanmoy Chakraborty’s set design is arresting too. Biplab’s make-believe world comes alive in the candle-lit room adorned with tantalising posters of Bollywood heroines.