Parambrata, Mainak, Tanusree and Birsa at Param’s residence off the Bypass. Picture: Rashbehari Das

Obhishopto Nighty (directed by Birsa Dasgupta and produced by Shree Venkatesh Films, starring Parambrata, Tanusree, Locket Chatterjee, Paoli Dam, Indraneil Sengupta and others) has become the talking point of Tolly world. t2 plays devil’s advocate and plays up some negative feedback. Over to Team Nighty plus Mainak, who loved the film.

THE CONCEPT IS FUNNIER THAN THE FILM

Birsa: But whatever reactions I have got from people so far is that they are laughing a lot and finding it very funny.

Tanusree: Some people are planning to watch the film for a second time, while some people didn’t get the film.

Param: The question asked was that it’s not funny....

Birsa: See, it was meant to repel a few people.

Param: Absolutely. But the question wasn’t about being repelled.

Mainak: Obhishopto Nighty is an in-your-face unabashed male chauvinist film. The sexual innuendoes are very in-your-face which may not be funny to a lot of people.

Param: There’s a certain section of the audience who find Bhagam Bhag (2006) very funny.

Birsa: Or Delhi Belly.

Param: Birsa and I love (Emir) Kusturica films. We watch his films in repeat mode. But a few of our close friends don’t like his films.

Birsa: Or they say Delhi Belly is toilet humour.... The audience is either loving the film or are repelled. Raima (Sen) told me she laughed a lot. I never thought my film will have houseful shows in Sheorapully and South City.

Param: Actually the jokes are also very in-house…

Mainak: When I saw the posters I hated it. I thought what’s Birsa doing? Will it be like Grand Masti (2013)? And that’s how I’d gone to watch the film. I watched it in a closed room, alone. And when I started watching I felt this film is making fun of itself, the director is making fun of himself and that starts becoming addictive. It’s almost like little sketches of jokes that we do on a daily basis. And that is what is becoming addictive to the audience.

Parambrata and Tanusree in Obhishopto Nighty

IT’S A B-GRADE FILM

Birsa: We are celebrating trash in a nonsensical manner to mock the pseudo society.

Mainak: It’s a trashy ‘B’ movie. The biggest filmmakers all across go out of their way to make these B movies because it’s fun.

Param: The similarities between Kanti Shah’s films and Obhishopto Nighty is that it celebrates B movies. The difference is that Kanti Shah doesn’t realise that he is making B-grade films! (Laughs)

Mainak: Nighty more than being a good, bad or ugly film, it’s opening a door to creating a sub-genre. But a lot of people are saying that the jokes in the film are very boka boka (stupid). They felt the film is funny just to us.

Birsa: What happens is that when you are trying to make a film like this which has no reference point at least in Bangla cinema then at some point you tend to go overboard, try to mock something and you end up mocking people you are the closest to.

THE FIRST CHAPTER TENDS TO DRAG

Birsa: The first chapter is where the audience is laughing the most. I have got several calls and reactions which say that Dutta Barir Hahakar is the funniest. We could have broken it up. But we decided to have the ultimate sex jokes in the first chapter. In this chapter all the women in the family — Locket Chatterjee, Kousani Roy and Tanima Sen — are affected by the nightie. That sets the film. It is for the mass.

Param: But personally, I didn’t like the first half. Actually when we enter the main narrative I feel as a film it’s a better film.

Birsa: We dragged the first chapter deliberately and the word-of-mouth is that a young tuition teacher is making out with an old lady (Tanima)!

Param: See, I am objective about the films that I do but I think the kitsch quotient could have been a little more. We could have made it tackier!

Birsa: I agree.

Mainak: See, Dev D is a cult film today but it cannot exist without Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas.

Birsa: Obhishopto Nighty was a very difficult film to make because we had no clue what to make.

Tanusree: There’s no reference point.

Param: Let’s take Dabangg, for instance. I laugh out loud watching the film. There’s a larger section of the audience that watches Dabangg very seriously. For them it’s a serious Salman Khan movie. But only a section of the audience realises that the kind of films that Salman Khan does, Dabangg is actually mocking those.

THE CENSOR BOARD SUFFIX JUST ADDS TO THE RUNNING TIME

Mainak: I thought that added to the fun.

Birsa: From an intellectual point it’s a fantastic device that Debaloy (Bhattacharya, scriptwriter) brought in where after every 20 minutes the censor board comes in and analyses the film. The general public are not bothered about how the censor board came in…

Tanusree: They just laughed a lot.

Birsa: The last scene where we show ‘Obhishopto Pyjama coming soon’ we make a mockery of death as well and they also make a comment that the film won’t run!

Param: I laughed the loudest in the scene where Dev appears in a guest appearance.

A PLUS POINT FOR TANUSREE, WHO LOOKS VERY FRESH

Birsa: We wanted somebody for that role who would look fresh because in the film she is a wannabe actress.

Tanusree: Birsa had actually asked me which role I would like to play — Monica (Paoli Dam) or Apsara (Tanusree)?

Birsa: They chose their characters.

Mainak: Every actor was very aptly cast in the film.