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narnia
Director: Andrew Adamson
Cast: Tilda Swinton, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley
7/10
What’s a child’s world like? Imagine the fantastic, conjure up the magical, weave fairytales and dream of fantasies. And rendering all that in film form is no problem with upscale technology. So you have grand-scale storytelling for kids with fabulous ‘no kids stuff’ special effects and grandeur of digitally simulated images, making the incredible seem virtually possible (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings). Andrew Adamson (Shrek), too, gives us a ‘magical mystery tour’ with his almost-epic adventure, Chronicles Of Narnia ? The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Faithfully adapted from C.S. Lewis’ classic series, the film tells a timeless legend. Addresses the child in all of us with its allegorical fable-like treatment. Teaches right from wrong and gives moral lessons about repercussions of greed and cruelty, and grace and rewards of sacrifice and compassion.
During WW II London air raids, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie are sent off to safety of a sprawling shadowy mansion in the English countryside. One day while playing hide and seek, the siblings stumble into a dusty, musty old wooden wardrobe, and tumble out to a snowy forest inhabited by charming human-beast creatures like Mr Tumnus the faun, Aslan the wise lion, talking beavers and chivalrous centaurs. This is the magical world of Narnia, under spell of the wicked white witch and waiting to be liberated by Eve’s daughters and Adam’s sons (director Adamson’s name nice coincidence), namely, the Pevensie children.
A huge battle between good and evil follows where bad witch is defeated by noble animal army. Peace and freedom in kingdom of Narnia is restored. After ages, Christmas is celebrated. Endless winter ends. Spring blossoms. The siblings are crowned kings and queens of east, west, north and south Narnia. Though the pace drags in places, the film’s structure holds together well as it moves backwards in time from modern (mansion) to medieval (castle) to pre-historic/mythical (woods). Where humans and animals coexist ? in a kind of probable parable zone of history, mystery and mythology.
Mandira Mitra
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nayak
Director: Sujit Guha
Cast: Prosenjit, Sayantani Ghosh, Swastika Mukherjee, Anamika Saha, Subhasish Mukherjee, Rajatava Dutta, Razzak, Mrinal Mukherjee, Shakuntala Barua, Ashish Vidhyarthi
5/10
hero
Director: Swapan Saha
Cast: Jeet, Koel Mallick, Tapas Paul, Razzak, Labony Sarkar
4/10
How justified it is for him to take on the Nayak mantle or if it’s not going to make die-hard Uttam worshippers squirm is another question, but that Prosenjit’s pull power on his fans is continuing with every film is not in doubt at all.
So, the posters of Sujit Guha’s Nayak didn’t really need to come with the tagline, The Real Hero, as if to counter the title, Hero, boldly splashed over heir apparent Jeet in Swapan Saha’s film released at the same time.
Swapan Saha has more blockbusters to his credit than any other Bengali director in recent times, and Jeet and Koel may have had big hits together and with Saha, but all of them put together don’t seem to be a match for the magic Prosenjit has over his fans, whether he is romancing Sayantani, winning the worship of Swastika Mukherjee, who performs well as a woman who takes to prostitution after her husband and child are burnt alive, or going through the typical filmy fight scenes.
All of which Jeet can hardly hope to match, even if the script of Hero had as much scope as Nayak’s. Nayak definitely has more dramatic moments and a more engrossing storyline with enough turns to keep the audiences hysterically whistling till the end. And it also has Subhasish, whom the audiences absolutely love in his beggar act, and which is actually quite hilarious.
Hero with its one-track story of Jeet doing a Romeo act under Koel’s balcony, does fall flat in comparison, with its best attraction remaining pretty-faced Koel. While our Nayak remains not the real hero as the tagline claims, but perhaps the only hero; that’s what the audience rooting clearly shows.
Deepali Singh
Treasure hunt: Find story in hole
agnishapath
Director: Probir Nandy
Cast: Indrajit Chowdhury, Rachana Banerjee
2/10
Agnishapath is not a story in which critics look for holes. It is essentially a hole in which the task is to find a story. Initially, the villains puncture the hero’s parents with bullets in a Punjab village, kidnapping his sister as an afterthought. Swearing revenge, the hero followed by villains, extras and crew then migrate to Calcutta, presumably to save shooting expenses. Sixteen years and as many songs later, our man finds his sister, villains, true love and sidekick, conveniently scattered around Ballygunge. To achieve this, the plot twists and turns impossibly, causing considerable agony to viewers.
The only good news is that, in Indrajit, Bengali cinema has found a hero who is photogenic below the neck. The bad news is that Swapan Saha (he’s the producer here) has lost his marbles.
Sudip Mallik
