Jisshu Sengupta is pacing up and down, N. Viswanathan is waiting for action, pipe firmly in mouth, Rituparna Sengupta is chatting with her hairdresser and makeup artiste? All in a house on Rashbehari Avenue, where Ashoke Viswanathan and his cast are camping for Andhakarer Shabdo (Sounds of Darkness).
This project, which Ashoke calls his most ambitious, has a film within a film. Which means that he is capturing Tota Roy Chowdhury while he shoots his first feature film. If Ashoke?s film has only Tota in the lead, Tota?s film flaunts a star cast of Jisshu, Rituparna, N. Viswanathan (Ashoke?s father) and Aloknanda Roy. For both the films, cinematographer Shirsha Roy is behind the camera.
?You can say it?s a narrative experiment where two parallel stories merge into each other. Through the first one, I am trying to show the travails of a film-maker, how several external factors and issues creep in and distort the end product. That there is always a shadow between what he had conceived and what he has executed,? says the film-maker who debuted with the talked-about Shunyo Theke Shuru almost a decade ago.
So there?s Tota out to make his ?art? film but a little confused, the fussy and frugal producer Kunal Mitra and Tota?s girlfriend Rachana Shah who tries to impose her idealistic film institute ideas on him.
The script has been a collaborative effort involving Ashoke, Shankar Bhattacharya, Ashim Chatterjee, Nandini Ghosal and Naresh Das, who is also producing Andhakarer Shabdo.
Though his own experiences have enriched the screenplay, Ashok says he is not treating the film in a personal way. ?I have wanted to show what goes on behind the scenes, the wheeling-dealing during the exhibition and the film festival circuit, as I have seen it all myself.?
The inner story
What Tota tries to capture is a romantic story gone astray. This one is about a sensitive working woman (Rituparna) and a bright young man (Jisshu), with an educated, middle-class background, who fall in love. But an act of trespassing by Jisshu finds him being a labelled Peeping Tom by the media. The relationship sours and the hero flees to a village and settles down under the false identity of his mentally challenged brother (played by Saheb Chatterjee).
?Tota has scripted a chance meeting between his lead pair in the village but what happens is not quite what he had thought. Everybody, from the producer to the artistes and cameraman, has something to say and the film-maker slowly gets alienated from his original concept. This story is about gender oppression, about the male gaze. It?s also about how media control the minds of the characters, in Tota?s film,? explains Ashoke, who is also awaiting the release of Byatikrami, which he made last year.
For this story embedded within the main plot, Ashoke, however, is not using the usual techniques of showing the film-maker (Tota) with an eye to the camera. Rather, the two stories are juxtaposed to create illusions. ?Sometimes, you will wonder whether Tota is visualising a particular scene in his mind or whether he?s actually shooting it. The shooting part is de-emphasised,? he laughs.
What makes the original story stand out from its offshoot is its ?colourful and sensuous? texture. Tota?s art film, on the other hand, has been given a gritty and realistic look.
The cast and crew of Andhakarer Shabdo will soon move on to the streets and restaurants to can some shots, before shifting to Birbhum for the final schedule.
