SVF

On rewind mode, Tollywood embraces neo-mainstream

Kolkata: If issues like open defecation and menstrual hygiene are providing food for thought to mainstream Bollywood movies, can Tollywood be left far behind?
Mainstream Bengali cinema – apart from literary adaptations and whodunits – is mirroring social realities of today’s Bengal. Keeping an eye on the cash registers no longer only means relying only on the girl-meets-boy story. From child sex abuse at a Ranikuthi school to eye donation, from dementia to terrorism – matinee idols are embracing scripts with all these subjects and more.

According to Prosenjit Chatterjee, his recent screen outings – ‘Drishtikone’ and ‘Mayurakshi’ – are continuing the trend set by yesteryear Tollywood. Bengali cinema, he reminded, have had a history of making such movies. As reference, he cites Asit Sen’s “Dweep Jele Jai” – the 1959 blockbuster that hinged on the iconic performance of Suchitra Sen in the role of a psychiatric ward nurse, the haunting “Ei raat tomar amar” song by Hemanta Kumar and Anil Gupta’s silhouetted shots. “Mainstream Tollywood is going back to those days. Cinema is the best medium to communicate. One way of communication is to go the didactic way. The other way is to do it intelligently. Dev’s ‘Kabir’ tried to give a strong message even while sticking to a mainstream format. Today’s mainstream audience isn’t alienated while movies touch issues like mental health (‘Mayurakshi’) and involuntary organ harvesting (‘Drishtikone’),” Chatterjee said.

A still of ‘Drishtikone’
According to Srijit Mukherji, everything changed with his Prosenjit-starrer ‘Autograph’. “The niche subject of my film got an overwhelming popularity. Then, came ‘Baishey Srabon’, ‘Bhooter Bhobisyot’, ‘Hemlock Society’ and Nandita Roy-Shiboprasad Mukherjee films. Now, Kaushik Ganguly’s movies have also joined this brigade which has got bigger and stronger with the escapist mainstream cinema not doing well. Stars are also keen to explore new territories. Dev had intelligently made the shift with ‘Buno Hansh’,” said Mukherji whose forthcoming “Uma” is about a girl dealing with terminal illness. Up next is a 2018 adaptation “Chowinghee” to highlight the hotel industry of contemporary Kolkata.

A still from ‘Haami’