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The ties that bind

Shoma A Chatterji

Utsav, in most Indian languages, translates as festival. It is therefore fitting that Tara, the Bengali avatar of Star Television, opened its floodgates to a 'festival' of entertainment with Rituparno Ghosh's Indo-American co-produced telefilm Utsav.

With his excellent background in the world of ad films, Ghosh has presented a finely packaged product to everyone's satisfaction.

Let us look at the real-life setting. Star launched its Bengali channel -- Tara, and decided to inaugurate its movie programme with a premiere of an unreleased film. To illustrate the festive spirit of the inauguration, it had to be a good film by an internationally recognised name that sells among cine loving Bengalies everywhere. So, who else but Rituparno Ghosh?

He is bright and articulate, can twist a question around his little finger and throw back an answer, tongue firmly in cheek. As he did on the small screen after his film ended. All this is significant for a new satellite launch in a regional lingo.

But which of Rituparno's films should Tara have chosen? Unishe April? No. Too many have seen it already. And it's too depressing for the festive spirit. Dahan? Definitely not. You can't talk of a story on a woman's molestation and the aftermath for a premiere show! Asookh? Sorry, Debasree does not exactly ooze glamour anymore. Besides, it is too dark and too brooding for a festival-hungry audience.

Bariwaali? Again, too sad, though it has not yet been premiered in India, or elsewhere, before or after the Netpac award. Anupam Kher wouldn't dream of spoiling the business prospects of his production-debut by permitting its telecast on Tara before its public release, would he? So, Utsav it and Utsav it was.

The story begins with Durga Pooja being celebrated in the spacious, ancestral house of an elderly lady. Like always, her two sons and two daughters arrive with their families to celebrate the festival together.

But the scenario has changed considerably from a happier and crowded past when many friends and relatives would arrive to celebrate the Pooja together and the house would light up with fun, joy and the happiness of reunion, albeit a brief one.

But the fragmentation of the joint family has broken people up into private islands of isolation and alienation, briefly intruded into, during this week, from Panchami, the day before the festival begins, to Ekadashi, the day immediately following Bijoya Dashami.

What happens on the first day when the children begin to arrive? Have things changed by Ekadashi, when everything is quiet and the house is being emptied of children who have reduced themselves to becoming guests who arrive, only to depart? This, sums up the story line of Utsav, produced by Cinemawalla, a NRI concern founded last year by Tapan Biswas and Sutapa Ghosh.

Rituparno uses the Durga Pooja as the peg on which to hang the film. A strapping young man, Joy (Ratulshankar Ghosh), grandson of the matriarch (Madhabi Mukherjee) who lives alone in the mansion, makes his observations on the house, the family, the festival, visually, through the lens of his camera.

He wants to become a filmmaker but has submitted to his father's wishes of pursuing an MBA abroad. His comments on trivialities around the house bear allegories that bring across his passion for films and film-making. "I have heard these pooja vessels were used by Satyajit Ray in Debi" he says, "my mother told me this though she was very small then."

The camera pans across the house, explores the long corridors, the windows, the courtyard where the sculptor is putting finishing touches to the Mother Goddess and her children. Bumba, one of the matriarch's grandchildren, sits in front of the sculptor, questioning him about Durga and her four children.

Slowly, as we warm up to the family reunion, the cracks in the festive family begin to show. The children want the house to be sold. The older daughter (Mamata Shankar) has problems with her husband in Singapore, who has not come to be part of the festivities. These problems revolve around her earlier affair with a cousin, Sisir, (Dipankar Dey in a brief appearance) who has now made it big and wants to buy the house.

Younger daughter (Rituparna Sengupta) is about to split with her husband (Prasenjit) who chooses to drown his failure in the bottle and live off his wife. The younger son (Bodhisatta Majumdar) has problems with his present job abroad and needs money.

Joy, the filmmaker-not-to-be, recognises his attraction for Shampa (Arpita Pal), daughter of the eldest son (Pradip Mukherjee) and therefore, his first cousin. "I was scared to go to the movies with your family because I was afraid I'd have to sit next to you" she confesses.

The matriarch plays the part of an unbiased but wisened observer who never intrudes, and offers counsel only when asked. History begins to repeat itself. Yet, before it does, it is Ekadashi and time for everyone to leave. Each problem gets resolved, slowly, subtly, totally bereft of melodrama, as naturally as life itself.

The narrative is often broken into, with insights by Joy who is in a hurry to capture everything and everyone with his video-camera. He keeps on interspersing his closing in with the camera with comments on the goings-on, spiced up with his love for Bengali films. " Aparna Sen's Parama opened with a close-up of the Durga icon" he says as he captures the Sindoor Utsav on Bijoya Dashami day. "Why must every married woman wear the regulatory uniform of the red-bordered white saree during Durga pooja?" he asks himself.

Intricate womanly details like the women rolling our luchis or sorting out flowers for pushpanjali enrich the tapestry of the narrative. The film closes with the now-familiar Rituparno insignia of hope and optimism. The house remains unsold, the matriarch now living with her youngest daughter and a now-sober son-in-law, defining a life of contentment and happy reconciliation.

Rituparno challenges the close-up status quo of the small screen format by using mid-shots, long-shots, close-ups and tight close-ups as fluidly as one does for the large screen. He fleshes out every single character in the film, despite the fact that this is the very first film where he has worked with as many as a dozen people.

He takes care to stress the positive side of each character, which helps make each resolution all that more credible and smooth. Dialogue, one of his strongest points, is picked straight out of real life sans circumlocution, sans melodramatic embroidery, sans frills.

Aveek Mukherjee's brilliant camera work captures the shadows lurking behind the pillars along with the brilliance of the decor around the Durga icon, the single-umbrella Durga symbolising the unity within an extended family. His sensitive camera grasps the frequent tears in Rituparna's darkcircled eyes, the confused expression in Bodhisatta's face when wife Monika (Anuradha Roy) tells him that she knew all along about his problem with his job, the antique, marble-topped table in the matriarch's bedroom as she prepares to retire for the night, closing in on every small detail.

Arghya Kamal Mitra's editing matches the rich quality of the film, while the single Tagore song acts like a metaphor, mending relationships, creating new ones, sustaining the ones that are already there. Sounds from outside the space of the film, bring the world outside in at times, such as the blaring loudspeaker belting out songs from the neighbourhood community pooja.

Music direction by Debajyoti Misra, art direction by Indraneel Ghosh and make-up by Debi Haldar do fitting justice to the film.

Rituparno holds absolute command over his actors throughout the film. Whether it is Madhabi as the matriarch, or the deconstructed Prasenjit as the younger son-in-law, each one lives the role he/she is called upon to play. Rituparna Sengupta excels as the younger daughter while Ratulshankar Ghosh sparkles in his debut as Joy. Arpita Pal furthers the promise she revealed in Asookh.

Does this mean that Utsav is a perfect film? Not really. There are three major glitches that could be edited out to enrich the quality of the film. Firstly, the overindulgence with the Sisir episode, bringing out Mamata's bitterness with the family for having been forced to bend under filial pressures. This could be trimmed down a bit.

Also, isn't Sisir wanting to buy the house a bit too much of a coincidence? Then there's Madhabi's sudden retreat into nostalgia where she reminisces about her revolutionary husband who turned her life into one of anxiety and fear. The latter is an oft-repeated Bengali cliche one does not expect of a director like Rituparno.

Did I call the film a finely packaged product? So what if I did. What's wrong if the product makes your time spent in front of the idiot box an aesthetically fulfilling and socially significant experience?