Kalpurush

A very strong message for the male community. Till now the suicidal rate in males is higher than females. No one care about the mental health of the male. Society always keeps tremendous pressure to male to be successful his life from every aspect. Some males can handle that, some can't. Buddhadev Dasgupta urges all the victimized male persons to think about life's meaning like Rahul Bose. Most art film makers are mostly concerned about female issues. Thanks, Buddhadev Dasgupta to bring a male issue at least one time in his film.

Dasgupta's Kaalpursh is easily one of the finest films to come out in Bollywood. A mind-blowing astounding film. What a film! A film which isn't a commercial in any aspect, yet your gloved in it. Any award given to this flick will be insulting it. Two Thumps Way Up!

Performances: Mithun Chakraborty is a Legendary actor of Indian Cinema, My favorite actor. His performance here once again proves that he's the best in the business. Rahul Bose is outstanding, he's an actor who has the potential to go down as one of the most natural actors of Indian Cinema. Sameera Reddy is effortless. Others are also Good.

'Kaalpurush' is outstanding, mind blowing film, Which is rich in each and every aspect. Bravo!

This movie like any other Buddhadeb Dasgupta movies is wondering without a plot or story line. Even an aimless movie can be good movie if the execution is perfect. But in this 'art movie' of Buddhadeb, he fails in that department too. Ad nauseating overdose of 'symbolism' (he never abandoned his ambition to create at least one scene like the legendary filmmaker Ray), anachronistic events of rural Bengal, clichés galore and obsession with the nihilism make this movie a mess. If you really like to see good Bengali movies, go for old classics of Ray or Ghatak or for that matter go for the new movies by a few contemporary directors who make good movies without being 'artificial arty'. Buddhadeb, it seems, never learns from the past.

Kalpurush is the movie of one who knows how to live life...he is representative of all middle class family man. He is not very successful in his profession or not in marriage life..but his magic is to handle the tremendous pressure which a patriarchal society has been given to. The movie is like visual fragments of memory. Director seems to tells us a most realistic story in very unreliable way.

There is this father-son conversation in the climax of 'KALPURUSH'. I quote the English DVD-subtitle version. Shumonto tells his father: "I may not have become someone, but when I see two people in love, I smile. And when I see someone eating alone, I cry." Ashvini, his father, replies wistfully: "I wish I could've lived my life like you did." These 2 lines, perhaps, comprise the gist of this new film by Buddhadev Dasgupta - director of teeny-weeny gems like 'Tahader Katha', 'Bagh Bahadur', 'Uttara' & 'Mondo Meyer Upakhyan' - which took nearly 3 years to reach the cinemas in India.

The film opens with a man called Ashvini following a younger man called Shumonto, who, we are told, is his son. It seems that the father is stalking - or haunting, rather - his son. As the film progresses and we meet Shumonto's ambitious wife, Supriya, and his mother, Koyel, who seems to be tied up with something in her past, we realise that the son is, indeed, haunted by his father who was a somebody. He was a successful doctor and they had this beautiful family, but something - or someone - comes in and this happy husband-wife-child drift apart. This drifting apart is too hard for these three to endure, and the son, we see, is unable to lead even a proper relationship with his wife.

I don't know of too many father-son films from Bollywood or other Indian language films. I've seen only Ramesh Sippy's 'Shakti' & Feroze A. Khan's 'Gandhi, my father'. Both were the powerful types with dramatic, sad endings. I've also seen 'Thevar Magan' & its Hindi remake 'Virasat', but they were different. KALPURUSH is drama, but not the powerful type. It is, like other Dasgupta films, creatively- photographed, dream-like, poetic & soft. This keeps the viewer absolutely un-prepared for the surprise ending, for the film hardly feels like a father-son film. It starts like a husband-wife story, creates the tension, goes to become a mother-son film, and then explains why it is so, why the son is so, what was his relationship like with his father, what happens to the father, the mother, what the son's wife does, and how the son carries on with his life.

It would be unfair to dub KALPURUSH strictly for Buddhadev Dasgupta fans. However, I do suggest that the viewers acquaint themselves with Dasgupta's films before going to see KALPURUSH. Dasgupta's films are often accused of having a near-invisible storyline. KALPURUSH is no different. It starts, too, in a very un-Buddhadev Dasgupta-ish way. Instead of bare landscapes of Puruliya & Midnapore, one sees the trams of Calcutta in the opening credits. It helps, though, for it is like - What is this, urban Bengal? Soon after this, the film turns typical Dasgupta. The rural Bengal, this time, are the scenic outdoor locales of coastal Orissa.

The actors are stupendous. Mithun Chakraborty is a legend. This is his second film with Dasgupta. He plays his age, suits the part, one just has to see him in this one. Rahul Bose is so silent one could feel the loss of his loser character. Sameera Reddy has looked good in just 3 films - 'Musafir', 'Migration' & 'Kalpurush'. I haven't seen 'Ami, Yasin ar amar Madhubala' so I can't comment on that. She better shift to the Bengali film industry. A mentor like Dasgupta would surely do her a lot good. Sudipta Chakraborty's Other Woman role is short, but long enough to bring in that right amount of glamour, desire & heartbreak. Labony Sarkar is natural with a capital N.

With the usual Buddhadev Dasgupta tropes in place, KALPURUSH is a visual treat. There are bare landscapes, dry leaves flying in the wind, haunting background score, mysterious folk artistes in even more mysterious costumes & masks, dilapidated, old buildings, and things rustic and antique. This time there is also the sea and an aeroplane flying right outside the open window. KALPURUSH is a film which needs to be seen.