Alternate Movies

Utsab( not to be confused with girish karnad's utsav) is a bengali movie by rituparno ghosh. This is a nice movie that is set in the background of Bhagabati's(Madhabi Mukherjee) family celebrating the durga pooja.This is a realistic and intellectual 'hum apke hai kaun'.Ok hold on don't start thinking about a bunch of happy peoples singing and dancing, it has got nothing of that sort, it is totally bland in those aspects. This is a movie that celebrates life and the complexities of relations using various metaphors.

Rituparno sen gupta

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Bhagbati has 4 children’s two sons Asit(Pradip Mukherjee),Nishit(Bodhisattva Mazumdar) and two daughters Parul(Mamata Shankar), keya(Rituparna Sengupta).And it is durga pooja time and all the children’s are at their parents house to celebrate the festival. The movie starts with Parul's son Joy(Ratul Shankar Ghosh) recording the festival with his video cam. The movie slowly develops to show the problems faced by all the siblings of bhagbati like keya on the verge of divorce with her husband Arun(Prasenjit Chatterjee).

Shishir(Dipankar Dey) a relative who is also a big real estate agent is interested in buying the house. Most of the family members want to sell the house. With all there personal problems and the idea of selling the house, we get a feeling that this might be the last durga festival that is going to happen in that house. What happens to the house and everyones problems is the rest of the movies.
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Arpita Pal

The movie is visually very dull(except for images like the above).But even though at start you feel it is kind of slow and depicts mundane things, the movie is beautifully constructed to convey its theme.At the end you will think back all those small incidents in the movie and enjoy it.A totally positive movie.Bhagabati for example is very positive about arun the son in law, who is depicted as a hopeless character. she feels and convinces her daughter that he will change himself one day. Similarly arun talking to keya tells her what he saw when the durga idols Being immersed in the river.The boys jumped with the idol to take them out for recycling. Idol loses all the plaster over it, but still the frame remains which will be used to construct a new idol. Construction and deconstruction will keep happening but the structure will remain the same .The idol is the metaphor used for a person/relationship.

The movie slowly unfolds and you first come to know about the various characters, then there fears, there dreams, there past there future and what is there position in the current scenario. Like real life we misjudge certain characters at start and understand them better later.



The movie aptly points out the importance of communication within the family members, which is the main reason for problem in many cases. The characters first try to hide there problems, but later they open up and confide things to there siblings/son. The telephone was used as a metaphor for communication.



A beautiful moment in the movie is when shishir meets parul(ex lovers).There feelings for each other is expressed in those silent nods and glances that last for a few seconds. The relationship between joy and shompa is also expressed beautifully.

The construction deconstruction process is further conveyed in the cyclic nature of things that happen in the family. Joy's uncle asit wanted to study literature but his grand ma didn't want him to do it and asit ended up studying economics. He wants to get into film institute but his dad wants to do MBA and he is going to USA to do MBA.
The movie avoids all the emotional drama and ends with a beautiful climax. All there problems becomes beautiful memories.

Cast and credit:
The movie has a very good cast. Good acting by Rituparno sen gupta ,Mamata Shankar and prasenjeet.

I wish i didn't see the movie after watching madhabi.I always associated her with the poetic images of sathyajit ray in charulatha. From now on this image will also come into my thoughts when i think about her.

Madhabhi mukerjee

Alaknanda Roy .... Bonani, Nishit's wife
Anuradha Roy .... Monika, Asit's wife
Prasenjit Chatterjee .... Arun, Keya's husband
Ratul Shankar Ghosh .... Joy, Parul's son
Arpita Pal ....
Vinit Ranjan Maitra .... Bumba, Asit's son
Dipankar Dey .... Shishir (Special Appearance)
Madhabi Mukherjee .... Bhagabati
Pradip Mukherjee .... Asit
Bodhisattva Mazumdar .... Nishit
Alaknanda Roy .... Bonani, Nishit's wife
Anuradha Roy .... Monika, Asit's wife
Mamata Shankar .... Parul
Rituparna Sengupta .... Keya
Prasenjit Chatterjee .... Arun, Keya's husband
Ratul Shankar Ghosh .... Joy, Parul's son
Arpita Pal .... Shompa, Nishit's daughter
Vinit Ranjan Maitra .... Bumba, Asit's son
Dipankar Dey .... Shishir (Special Appearance)

Rituparno ghosh

Handling so many characters, showing there individuality and at the same time narrating the story in an interesting way is not an easy task to do.Rituparno ghosh has done it beautifully. He has scripted the movie brilliantly. The entire movie is shot in a house during the festival period. So the story progresses mostly on words rather than on any visual action. Even the past incidents are narrated in terms dialouges and not as flashbacks. But he does not waste any of the dialouges. Every single dialouge in the movie adds to the overall structure and is an essential piece of the story.

Music:
Music is by Debajyoti Mishra(Haazar chaurasi ki Maa).There is a beautiful rabindranath poem "Amalo dhabholo" which comes at various places in the movie. The song is sung my Sraboni Sen.

Awards:
Rituparno gosh got the national award for best direction in 2000.

Prasenjit Chatterjee & sengupta