A whole crop of youth-oriented films has been hitting the screen over the past few years; a ‘youth’ fad, one might say.

We see young actors in frothy, bubbly, fun-loving exuberance, young love breaking out of traditional moulds — and these traits seem to be the defining feature of youth in media. To me, the spirit of youth has a much deeper and timeless significance. It has to do with a mad passion for life, a desire to push known frontiers, break social mores, and I was delighted to find it again after a long time in Anjan Dutt’s Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona.

A bunch of musicians — Nondon Bagchi, Lew Hilt and Amyt Datta — in their late fifties, along with Abani Sen the popstar protagonist played by Anjan Dutt himself, present a melange of characteristics seldom seen in the ‘youth’ films today that are invariably played by Liril-fresh teens and tweens.

Abani Sen and his band of oldies are mad, irreverent, lusty, awkward, amusing, passionate and adorable in all their ugliness. They ‘hang loose’, yet they bond with a singleness of purpose to make music in their own idiom. Kabir Suman the baldy is another face of youth who suddenly drops his guitar in search of other pastures, something even more meaningful perhaps.

In a strange way, these weather-beaten men seem to recover, for me at least, the essence of young, unspoilt and the ever-adventurous.

Ranjana is a very Bengali film. Not only by its CBFC certification but by its core Bengaliness. The Bengali rock band that plays in the suburbs of Calcutta as well as in Someplace Else holds practice sessions in a decadent vintage mansion deep in the heart of north Calcutta, the ancestral property of Abani Sen where he lives with his faithful domestic help. This is an important aspect of the quintessential Calcutta ethos and Ranjana records the critical juncture in a live session that will go down in the history of the evolution of Bengali music.

Anjan Dutt’s Abani Sen, both in terms of characterisation and portrayal, is more than spellbinding. I have seldom seen an actor take ownership of a character with such consummate ease. In my reckoning, with this one performance, Anjan ranks among the international best, past and present. Although I don’t know whether he realises this himself.

I am not a trade analyst, so I can’t predict the commercial fate of the film. But as a student of cinema, I will hold Ranjana as a delicate, precious and lasting experience.