Several years ago I heard of a director named John Abraham in Kerala. He first made pictures with crowdfunding, we saw those pictures of him. The purpose of making that picture was to go to the village and show the pictures, he did that. We don’t have much history of crowdfunding in Bengal, so Ujjwal Basu’s new film ‘Doodhpither Gachh’ is definitely an exception! About a thousand people from one of the villages of Narayanpur in 24 Parganas have come forward to make this film with their money, good efforts have to accept it. But was director Ujjwal Basu able to use that money properly? This picture provoked that question!
Yes, he chose Grambangla as the location of the picture, but using that location, he was able to show any real truth about the rural Bengal! How much or showed the rural environment! The real goal was to select the story. We saw a small farming family, with three children, having a hard time. Although poverty is a constant companion, children are sent to school in absolutely modern uniforms. Basanti, Lakshmi, Gaur There is no rural sign in anyone’s face, tell them to walk in a big city, only husband and wife are a bit rural. The school shown is also quite tidy. I doubt how many such schools we have in any village of present-day Bengal!
Ujjwal Basu’s cameraman with his instrument showed yellow mustard fields, bamboo bushes, ponds, sweet roads, horizon nature, but there is no life in that show, only the rurality of nature. The story goes that he will go to Varanasi with his grandmother holding the sick little boy Baina. He almost hid and left, getting on the train behind Grandma. Later, at another station, Grandma saw her grandson and took him down to an address less station. The night is spent in a secluded ashram. Meanwhile, the parents find the lost son and move to the station. And just then Gaur left her dead grandmother in the ashram and got on another train. Why did he do that? Not exactly understood. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. These unknown questions will only embarrass the viewer, why didn’t the director understand it? Just taking pictures with a camera is not a movie. What is needed is a neat story. The characters need to have a relationship with that story. Otherwise, it is just a picture and not a movie.
From ‘Pather Panchali’ to ‘Sahaj Paather Gappo’, the story must have taken an urgent place in the films about rural Bengal. This ‘Doodhpither Gachh’ picture in no way gave the viewer a glimpse of any story. So if the spectator gets bored after seeing half the picture from the hall, he can’t be blamed. One request to Ujjwal Babu, please learn to make pictures a little but take pictures with crowdfunding. The only exception in this film is Damini Beni Basu. She did the mother’s character. But Guy’s wife seemed to see how much more the battery could work, but she didn’t get much help from the screenplay about acting. So everything has been idle labor. What about the rest of the child artists, they have not even received the training to become urban children or rural children
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