Human emotions dont resonate with anything more than melancholy because deep down we all live in grey. Chhotolok has everything of making a brilliant thriller; slowburning sustained suspense, tightly knit screenplay, no short cut to climax and resolution. But above all, the melancholy it emanates, of our fractured realities, our own selves and hypocrisies, leaves us with a pensive contemplation. The director, Indranil Roychowdhury is known for his minimalist style and brilliant capability of storytelling, has created a masterpiece here.
The plotline with its twist and turns first becomes a successful thriller but then transcends into a social critique. It captures the class ridden society, its hierarchies, conflicts and pragmatism of the 'powerless' which is often imcomprehensible in today's 'society of control'. The director and writers didn't fall into the usual OTT trope using unncessary violence to make it gore which often looks imposed and superficial, indeed they were able to reflect the deeply entrenched structural violence using the firey acting by Daminee Basu and Priyanka Sarkar alongwith the amazing cast.
This is indeed a gem and hopefully we will be seeing more of it in coming years.
