All that glitters...

In an interview to ilovekolkata last week, first-time film director Birsa Dasgupta said filmmaking runs in his blood. “My grandfather was sort of a pioneer in documentary filmmaking in India. Since childhood I’ve been seeing the flashbulbs, watching my father say, ‘Lights! Camera! Action!’” he said.

Does coming from a family with some filmmaking background help? Maybe, as Tollywood is largely an industry that places lineage over ability, familiarity over propriety and loyalty over quality-- giving a 'dad’s son' some kind of 'legitimacy' to pursue a career in films. He gets guidance, money, favours and other supports that help him take off rather smoothly. But does it also guarantee quality? Let’s look at Birsa Dasgupta’s 033 for answer.

1.    Swastika Mukherjee’s Mrinalini, who descends on Kolkata from her hometown Delhi, speaks in chaste South Kolkata accent. Her Mass Communication final exam is due next year, but her dad insists she stay back--so that she can “track back to her roots”! She puts up in a city hotel; at night, she emerges draped in a white towel fresh from a bath when somebody knocks on her hotel room door. She crawls onto her bed and curls up, frightened, her camcorder recording her expressions. The knocking continues at regular intervals till dawn; she remains inside the towel. A bareback Swastika definitely rouses voyeuristic delights, but wouldn’t a woman, in such a situation, change into something that can give better protection to her modesty? We can’t but think of her safety.

Worse still, she shows the footage to Sabyasachi Chakraborty’s Santiago, who is roughly her father’s age, the following day. And we thought a young girl would feel shy and uncomfortable doing that. Are we the old school type?

2.    As far as our little knowledge of music goes, a song has to be good in its lyric, music and performance in order to be successful. But Mrinalini suggests that band 033 needs to “achieve” a song on Kolkata to make it popular, and we get nicely-knit eyebrows. What does achieving a song mean? The film doesn’t have a clue about it. Or, was it hidden in Mrinalini’s suggestion that all they need to do to break the creative block is practice the song on Mondarmoni seashore? I’m not sure.

3.    Parambrata’s Shom is shown to be living off his mother’s meagre income since his father left them. Imagine this: A struggling mother’s only son is deliberately bunking exams lest a degree in engineering should help him land a job and detach him from 033! Birsa just showed us how selfish creative sorts can get.

4.    At the beginning, Mrinalini discovers Shom is her brother. But the knowledge doesn’t stop her from allowing Shom to come close to her---to the point where Shom attempts to kiss her and she reveals the secret. Although a kahani-mein-twist of sorts gifts some legitimacy to their relation later, it hardly justifies Mrinalini’s act of hiding the truth. Their relation is central to 033’s plot, but its handling is ridiculously weak. Or, should we, for a moment, consider the film is a veiled salute to sibling romance?

The list can go further, but at the cost of readers’ patience. So I’d rather not go into matters like Rudra’s birdnest-wig, wandering dialogues or the objective of Santiago’s character. Hyped as a tribute to Kolkata’s band movement, the film, as it seems, wants to show the bands in poor light. It’s difficult to believe members of promising bands lumbering across the city rhyming words—let alone those of the better-known groups. All I know is they are professional, talented and committed--not the outlandish sort that 033 shows us.
 
Birsa assisted director Anurag Kashyap in some projects who has extensive knowledge of film narratives and technical treatment. Birsa, unfortunately, seems to be under the spell of the latter. The G-minor (Santiago’s residence) sequences show clear influence of Ghulal and Dev D. Edgy camera movements, psychedelic hues, flurry of jump cuts, abrupt frame jumps—they all look so out of place and cause headache. Chandrabindoo’s music is distinct, but wasted in the film. The actors give no impression that they got Sohag Sen’s guidance.

033 has some sheen on its surface, but that’s just a brittle layer. Few minutes into the film, it crumbles. Here is a simple question to Birsa: Why do you think we enjoy movies by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shyam Benegal, Gautam Ghosh or by young directors like Rajkumar Hirani and Dibakar Banerjee? Hope you find an answer soon.


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