Praktan hit theatres — with a Thor-like hammer — on May 27, and two things haven’t stopped ringing since. The box-office turnstiles and the phones of director duo Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay-Nandita Roy. A flood of calls, Facebook posts, tweets and messages have signalled the Praktan sweep at cinemas — Rs 5.5 crore in 16 days (“excluding overseas collections”), for a film made on a budget of Rs 2 crore.
t2 dropped into their Windows office near Priya cinema on a weekday evening to talk Praktan, Prosenjit-Rituparna and profits with Shibu-Nandita and presenter Atanu Raychaudhuri.
PRAKTAN = PROFITS
Give us three reasons for the super success of Praktan...
Shiboprosad: Content. Casting. Mounting or making of the movie.
Nandita: I will add music.
Atanu: Also the directors!
Shiboprosad: And the promotion.
What made you up the budget of Praktan to Rs 2 crore, your most expensive film? You must have been super-confident about the film, given that the world was waiting for you to slip up after the Bela Sheshe phenomenon...
Shiboprosad: From the casting to making a set for a train to computer graphics, the film needed this kind of a budget. The success of Bela Sheshe gave us the confidence to go bigger.
Atanu: We were confident.
Nandita: Our first step was the selection of the story. And we knew we would be paying for that. After Bela Sheshe, we wanted to do a film based on a relationship… we wanted to do a romantic story. And then we got the favourite romantic pair of Bengal together… their comeback was a huge USP for the film.
How has the film fared at the plexes, the single screens and the districts?
Shiboprosad: Apart from multiplexes, the single-screen theatres like Ashoka, Prachi, Mitra have fared really well.
Atanu: Some of the single-screen theatres have got a fresh lease of life...
Shiboprosad: Silver Screen in Behrampore has 92 per cent collections. INOX (Liluah) has 70 per cent collections. INOX (Burdwan) has more than 60 per cent. The 11.55am show at INOX (South City) goes nearly full. PVR Diamond Plaza has 78 per cent on a regular day, Ajanta in Behala 80 per cent, South City on a regular day is 75 per cent. The one show in Nandan had 100 per cent collections the last two weeks. Priya went 100 per cent for two weeks. Mini Sushma in Sheoraphuli has close to 50 per cent collections on a regular day. Ranaghat Talkies, Prachi, Indira have done really well.
Praktan has broken even within a week, from ticket sales alone. Is that something you had hoped for or is this even beyond your expectations?
Nandita: We were confident of recovering the cost. We knew that the film would do really well with the audience. We didn’t expect that it would happen so soon. Perhaps this happened also because of the success of Bela Sheshe.
Atanu: People were just waiting for a Shiboprosad-Nandita film.
Shiboprosad: I have received a number of calls or messages saying, ‘This is our story,’ or ‘How did you know this? It is my story,’ or ‘We know the couple in the story.’ Another message read — ‘Does this person stalk us? Otherwise how would he know our story.’ So our films resonate with the audience because the story or the characters are so relatable. Another thing is that our films are steeped in Bangaliana. Praktan is inspired from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Hothat Dekha and Suchitra Bhattacharjee’s short story Ujaan.
The success of Praktan augurs well for the Bengali film industry too. It’ll help the industry. After Bela Sheshe, the national studios are also keeping a keen eye on the Bengali film market. So Praktan’s success is also the success of the entire film industry. After Praktan, many investors from outside Bengal would now want to invest here. They know that the market is there for them to invest in. It’s not a monopoly.
Also, you can release a film with good content any time of the year. One need not wait for the Pujas or Christmas holidays. We have done that. Our Ichche released on July 15, Muktodhara came out on August 3, Alik Sukh on July 19, Ramdhanu on June 6, Bela Sheshe on May 1 and Praktan on May 27. So come rain or shine, our films have worked.
Praktan released in 101 theatres in Bengal, and another 43 across India — Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune. People are messaging and tweeting from New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles (the film also released overseas in nine centres)…. The effect of the success of Praktan will be felt by producers and directors in the future. Eros International is distributing the film nationally, that’s a huge thing for us.
Atanu: This is the globalisation of Bengali films.
THE GAME CHANGERS
Let’s put it bluntly: only your films consistently make money in Tollywood. What are you doing right?
Nandita: We are providing good content. Our plus point probably is the simplicity... we can tell a story simply, khub shundor kore on celluloid. The audience can relate to the story. They feel it’s their story.
Shiboprosad: Personal connect. One of the key factors.
Atanu: Also, we believe in making family films, for the whole family. Everyone can watch it together.
Shiboprosad: This film has connected with everyone, from the teenagers to the elderly people.... Pure content wins hearts.
What are the others doing wrong?
Shiboprosad: One thing that is really bad for the industry is remakes. Script writers toiri hoy na… you don’t get to see good script writers. Which is why there is a dearth of Bengali script writers. Same reason why we don’t have good choreographers now. They are just copying. And if you go on doing remakes you won’t get great actresses since the films they are copying are mostly hero-centric and the actresses have very little role to play in the scheme of things. As a whole the industry is not growing.
And can you imagine the perception people have about our industry across India? ‘Aapke wahan toh copy, remake chalta hai na?’ I have heard this. Of course, there is a new group of filmmakers trying to change things. Like cigarette smoking is injurious to health, doing remakes is injurious to the film industry. This should come as a statutory warning before the film is screened.
What is the Shibu-Nandita formula for success?
Shiboprosad: God is there (smiles).
Atanu: We are dedicated, sincere and honest to cinema.
Why not open a tutorial for Tolly directors and producers?!
(Shiboprosad laughs out loud) What are you saying?!?
Who is your target audience?
Shiboprosad: All categories. Some people have come back to the theatres after 25 years to watch Praktan.
Nandita: The family. I would like my film to be enjoyed by the whole family.
The one standout feature of Bela Sheshe’s success was that it drew a large non-Bengali audience. What is the standout feature of Praktan’s success?
Shiboprosad: The non-Bengali crowd has come back once again. Praktan shows in Quest, Forum, Mani Square went houseful.
After Bela Sheshe, how much pressure were you under to deliver with Praktan?
Shiboprosad: No, there was no pressure with Praktan. The only tension we had was with the comeback of these two icons — Prosenjit and Rituparna... that they had put so much trust in us and we wanted to give joggo morjada to that.
THE COMEBACK
So, did you consciously plot to give Praktan an X-factor — Prosenjit-Rituparna’s reunion — to ensure a box-office draw?
Shiboprosad: Casting plays a very crucial role in our films. And we have always tried to do it differently. Starting with Sohini (Sengupta) in Ichche, Nigel (Akkara) in Muktodhara, to Debshankar Halder and Rituparna Sengupta in Alik Sukh, Gargee (Roychowdhury), Rachana (Banerjee) and me in Ramdhanu. The Prosenjit-Rituparna pairing was essential for the film, because when they are looking at each other or holding hands you also somehow think of their stories, their personal connect. You need a successful romantic pair to do a romantic film. This film would have been impossible without Prosenjit-Rituparna and Aparajita Adhya. These three were a must.
Nandita: We wrote the script keeping them in mind.
Why did you then not weave a story just around ProParna?
Shiboprosad: You also need a Sanjeev Kumar, an Amjad Khan in Sholay, right?! You need an Amrish Puri in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. And you need an Aparajita Adhya in Praktan. You need the actors, sub-plots and other characters as well.
SMALL > BIG SCREEN
That brings us to the other big point... is the small screen now driving the big screen in terms of actors, tone and tenor, relatable characters and situations?
Shiboprosad: No, no, the top elements or themes in Bengali TV shows are snakes, tantra, ghostly and supernatural things, four weddings… these things don’t happen in films. Bengali films and the TV shows are completely different. There are good actors in television, who should have been in films in the first place.
And Aparajita Adhya is the…
Shiboprosad: Amitabh Bachchan of the small screen! She is so popular. She gets mobbed whenever she comes to our office for meetings. It is sheer madness. As an actor, she is effortless.
Nandita: She is a natural actress, very spontaneous.
Did you cast her, Biswanath Basu and Manali Dey to lure the large TV audience?
Shiboprosad: No. When you are buying a ticket, then the math is very different. With television, I am not obliged to watch the show. But from the audience point of view, the paisa vasool factor is very important. One has to be entertained. And you need something special in your film to get the audience who is coming back with their family members. We always get repeat audience.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Today, Anupam and Anindya are superstars. So, giving them screen time as themselves was a master stroke. When did that idea come to you? Was this another intelligent investment to make Project Praktan risk-free?
Shiboprosad: Didi (Nandita) came up with the idea for the film in 2003. At that time Bhoomi was supposed to be in the film, and we had planned out the story with the band and its songs. But then the band broke up… (only Surojit is there in the film now). And finally, be it the music or the cast, a film has 10 minutes to grab the audience’s attention. Then your content speaks. That’s the universal truth. And if the film doesn’t hold your attention, you’ll start fiddling with your phone.
NEXT UP
Investing Rs 2 crore in a Bengali film means the producer… a) has no business sense b) is pursuing a vanity project c) has so much money that he doesn’t mind burning some. Atanu, what gives you the confidence to back Team Shibu-Nandita?
Atanu: On the second day I went to Priya and the guy selling popcorn there told me, ‘Sir, my sales will go down for the next 10 weeks.’ Which means people will not be coming out during a Praktan show to buy his popcorn! I have been presenting their films — Muktodhara, Alik Sukh, Ramdhanu, Bela Sheshe and Praktan — since 2012, and I have full faith in them because only they know how to get the audience into the theatres and fill it up. I don’t think anyone else can do that with such consistency. We are a family.
What next for Shibu-Nandita-Atanu?
Atanu: We are planning to start a new film.
Shiboprosad: We would like to go big with our films on a national level. We are also on the lookout for good scripts that we can present.
Nandita: We would like to launch new directors. It is time for our production house (Windows) to grow.
Finally, what kind of opposition do you face from the Tollywood ‘establishment’?
Atanu: Neither have we got any help nor have we faced any opposition. We have not been affected in any way.
Shiboprosad: When your content is strong, nothing else matters. This is a business after all, and no one will show you the red carpet.
Are Shibu-Nandita the game changers of Tollywood? Tell t2@abp.in
As a modern, independent, working, married woman with a demanding job, Praktan really bothered me. And then I read what co-director Nandita Roy told my colleague Arindam: “We are providing good content. Our plus point is the simplicity... and the audience can relate to the story. They feel it’s their story.” That bothered me even more than the movie — the fact that Praktan is a monster hit proves that she is right. The Audience in Calcutta 2016 does relate to the story. That makes it scary, man! So, here are my 10 grrrrr bits....
• In one of the first scenes, Rituparna’s character Sudipa lashes out at Prosenjit’s character Ujaan for not being allowed to wear jeans or sleeveless tees or smoke because of his family. I couldn’t help but wonder why a woman who is as progressive as we are made to believe Sudipa is would give up on all that? Why couldn’t she be shown smoking secretly in her room, without antagonising Ujaan’s ‘family’? I think not smoking in front of your family members out of respect is acceptable, not smoking because it is bad for health is of course acceptable, but not smoking because someone else sees it as “something bad” is ludicrous. Why wasn’t she making those choices?
• Prosenjit’s second wife, Malini or Molly, who waxes eloquent about her husband and mother-in-law and how much they love her, lists out reasons that make me cringe. Let your mother-in-law control the kitchen, let her serve your husband the food [why the husband can’t serve himself the food is beyond me but that is besides the point here]… “five-year investment, lifetime return with interest” is how she explains it. Which, to me, sends out the message that if you are submissive you are a successful wife. Else…
• When Sudipa asks Molly if she has a job, she giggles and says that she had a job but not as high-flying as Sudipa’s and which she quit after having the baby. And again you are left feeling that there are people in the audience who might be wondering if a little less education and a less successful career would have saved Sudipa’s marriage. Yikes!
• Many of the things Molly says leaves you horrified because of what it implies. ‘If once in a month he can make some time for me I am happy. That one day he is entirely mine. I don’t need my husband around every day”. This seems to be in the film just to drive home the point that Sudipa did not give Ujaan the space he needed. Almost as if the character of Molly exists just to prove that whatever Sudipa did was wrong.
• Who the hell expects their wife to take their “permission” before going somewhere? If you said you need to inform him, I’d say you are right. But take permission?!? And Sudipa was about to leave for Bombay without informing anyone at home! Who does that? It seemed to say that the modern woman is thoughtless. Trust me, we are not.
• At the start of the film, Sudipa calls her friends and abuses her ex-husband and his family for destroying her life, yet all she does for the rest of the film is regret what she has done. She even goes on to tell Molly that she has learnt that “adjustment and compromise is not defeat”. I agree, it isn’t. But if acceptance and compromise mean that it’s okay for him to forget your birthday or it is okay for him to get angry because YOU, someone who earns well, had the audacity to book tickets for a holiday, or it is okay for him to be pissy about your late hours, or it is okay when he leaves you with his family when you are losing your child, then it IS defeat.
• When she finally talks to Ujaan on the train, Sudipa tells him that she likes Molly and that she can see she makes him happy. He says, wait for it, ‘what can I say, she changed me’. He goes on to say how Molly was so young and guileless that he just couldn’t hold out against her. And then there was their daughter, who also changed everything. So, the lesson we are supposed to learn from this is that you have to be a younger, guileless, less educated, undemanding, domesticated (established through everything Molly says and does) to “change” the man into a better human being? So a man’s becoming less of a pig is also the prerogative of the wife? And of course she needs to produce a child. That solves everything else that needs to be solved.
So people like us — independent, working women who don’t define themselves by their wombs — will never make a man happy and therefore never have a happy marriage.
• Most insultingly, when she was crying over Ujaan and her horrible marriage and regretting “her” mistakes and how happy Ujaan was now, she never mentioned that she had moved on too! That too, as we saw, with a man who actually gives her the space and accepts her for who she is! What is wrong with her?! You have a man who appreciates what you are and you are actually giving yourself a crick in the neck looking longingly back at the man who put you through hell? So wrong. Why couldn’t she just have said ‘Hey, I am glad to see you have found someone who makes you happy and so have I’. I left feeling sorry for Saswata Chatterjee’s character for being saddled with a woman who didn’t appreciate him.
• The last scene where Molly thanks Sudipa for the “gift of Ujaan”, almost like saying ‘thanks for your mistake’, and Sudipa looks on as Ujaan leaves, you remember that last scene from Ijazat. Just that somehow Rituparna is the Naseeruddin Shah of the piece and Aparajita Adhya and Prosenjit, Shashi Kapoor and Rekha respectively. And you just can’t shake off the disturbing implication.
• It is worrying that such a film is a colossal commercial success and I feel sorry for all the women who will have a worse time holding their own and struggling to maintain the work-home balance, thanks to this film. Its message that compromise and sacrifice is needed solely on a woman’s part to make a man happy and maintain a happy family is, plainly put, detrimental, disastrous, damaging, disgusting... duh!
Chandreyee Chatterjee
Is the message of Praktan regressive for women? Tell t2@abp.in
