Tannishtha Chatterjee with Subrata Datta in Bibar

Will Subrata Sen do a Samaresh Basu with his celluloid version of Bibar? Well, chances are slim as a lot has changed since Basu had stormed the Seventies? sensibility with his bold, controversial narrative. What remains to be seen is the extent to which the film lives up to the novel.

?Thematically, I haven?t deviated from the book at all. But as the book was set in 1960s and the film is in contemporary times, I have incorporated changes that were relevant, like NRI characters or the use of cell phones,? says Sen.

The novel tracks the life of Biresh, an executive and a social climber, who seems to be in love with a high-class call girl, Neeta. In desperation to break out of his monotonous middle-class moorings, Biresh has a string of affairs with other women, including a much older socialite. All the while, he?s hurtling towards that one climactic day when he murders Neeta.

The book had kicked up a controversy for Samaresh Basu?s generous use of expletives, and Sen (once bitten by the Hothat Neerar Jonyo censor slap) is just happy that the censor board has passed the two-hour-long film without a single cut, bold scenes and all.

Sen has retained the novel?s linear structure, but punctuated with a few non-linear sequences, giving it the feel of ?a stream-of-consciousness narrative?. Only the murder, which comes at the end of the book, starts the film and the story unfolds through flashbacks. The film also has fewer characters than the book.

The soundtrack, scored by Debojyoti Misra, has a rollicking track with the feel of Bollywood in the Sixties and Seventies, says Sen. Produced by Kamal Bansal, the film was shot mainly in Calcutta except a dream sequence in Chandipur-on-sea.

Bibar features Subrata Datta, a National School of Drama (NSD) graduate, as Biresh and Tannishtha Chatterjee, also from NSD, as Neeta. The cast includes Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Dulal Lahiri, newcomer Payel Sarkar and Rita Bhimani in a special appearance.

Subrata Datta forayed into Bengali films with Sen?s Swapner Feriwala. In Bollywood, he played a bit role as one of the compatriots of Mangal Pandey in the Aamir Khan blockbuster, and a more fleshed-out character (that of the villain) in Tango Charlie, starring Ajay Devgan and Nandana Dev Sen.

The dusky Tannishtha has had better luck with films, starring as one of the female leads in German director Florian Gallerberger?s Shadows of Time, shot mostly in Calcutta and on the outskirts. Yet to be released in Bengal, Shadows of Time is currently running the festival circuit.

Bibar releases on March 10 at the four multiplexes and standalone halls including Mitra, Menoka, Purabi and Metro, which will be screening a Bengali film after quite a gap.