The movie is like a sweater, beautifully crafted by a grandmother for her newly born grandchild, knit with utmost thoughtfulness and care to pass on her love and warmth to the little one. It's a tale of friendship between two individuals of different generations, united thorough similar perspective to celebrate life that is a chaos and struggle, depicted through the city of Kolkata which is present in every aspect of the movie as the most powerful supporting cast.
It is not verbose and on the contrary so subtle and simplistic that the viewer wouldn't realize when he has set on an internally emotional journey of human transformation that would leave few teardrops clinging onto the corner of the eyes or when there would be a lingering smile on his face. The movie starts like a Dutt signature film that one expects it to follow the Madly Bangalee pattern but then it does breakthrough and transcends to something else altogether. It gets woven through so many magical scenes that one would be tempted to describe some of those but words won't be doing justice (its so tempting but don't want to give any spoilers. Still one should lookout for the scene where Ranjan sits together to have lunch with fellow actors and also the last scene). The moral dilemma and conflict of the urban, of a modern citizen has been so well captured but with a refreshing humor and backed by brilliant editing, cinematography, and timely musical scores. This is one hell of a tribute to Mrinal Sen as the man's worldview has been presented through the relationship of Mrinal and Anjan brilliantly depicted by organic and spontaneous acting by Dutt himself and Sawon Chakraborty. I was ready to give the movie a 10/10 if the Kolkata panorama locations were more varied.
Watching a film like Chaalchitra Ekhon, in OTT platform makes one realise how we as viewers have failed good cinema. The impact of the movie has made me buy a HDMI cable to screen it on TV for my parents and especially to my father who is a massive fan of Mrinal Sen as a director and Anjan Dutt as an actor. This should have been screened at every hall throughout the Bengal, to be viewed by the maximum audience to watch what indie Bengalee cinema can be, to experience how a director outdoes himself to create his magnum opus till date.
