There is just something about beautiful movies that makes them so effortlessly loveable. ‘Antaheen’ is one such movie. And even though it does try to ruin it with some really jittery additions to the narrative, I have failed, quite miserably, in my attempt to not like it. I am in love with this movie and after having watched it twice , I am very sure that it is indeed one of the finest that Bengali cinema has produced in the last couple of years.
There is no single storyline which carries you forward. But writer Shyamal Sengupta’s narrative shuffles between characters and it is their individual slices of life that build the streamlines which finally coalesce to the larger story arc. And Director Anirudhha Roy Chowdhury aces in that. It is a collage of love stories, one which speaks of love in different forms and in varying degrees. So there is Love in the first drops of rain which drench the Kolkata horizon; there is love in the heavy shower which splashes the glass panes; there is love in a random sight such as a kite stuck to a roof antennae. And there is love in the endless wait for a stranger’s call. While ‘Antaheen’ can be accused of high emotional and hopeless romantic exaggeration, it also portrays real life moments with equal ease. Moments of loneliness and mid-life crisis, and moments of unhappiness in marriages.
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Ghar [ Home ] is one of those movies which I have heard more than seen. I know it has Rekha and Vinod Mehra in the lead roles, and I know it has one of the most memorable songs ever in Indian cinema. But, apart from catching up with the songs, I had known or seen very little of the movie. And now that I have seen it, I find it quite pleasantly surprising, on how brilliantly subtle and sensitive this movie is. Ghar is directed by Late Manick Chatterjee [ contrary to the misconception that Gulzar directed it]. Be it the polka dots on Vinod Mehra’s shirt, or Vinod Mehra’s mentioning of the 1970′s movie Sunflower [the one where De Sica directs Sophia Loren]; being a movie of the 70s, this movie is filled with references of that period. But that is just me being a bit too inquisitive about that period. Ghar, as a movie, captures an intense husband-wife relationship which struggles through an unfortunate incident. And when you see Ghar, you get the realisation that it does not take huge mansions or eye-blinding visuals to tell a story, when simplicity does it all so perfectly. The title here is a metaphor which plays at different levels. It refers to the initial premise of the story, when the couple faces difficulty in finding a proper home to settle down. But it is also refers to the home shared by the hearts of two lovers brought to the test due to an unfortunate incident. The home which provides shelter also becomes a space of insecurity and grief. All of this is revealed in layers in the plot, and I won’t keep pondering over it. Oh, there is so much to talk about. Brevity has never been one of my skills, but I will do my best to keep my praises short.
