Chotushkone (2014)

Could have been a masterpiece but faltered at the last hurdle, mainly due to the casting choice of the director. Parambrata has an easy going style of acting, but it is too stereotype, and it is high time somebody takes his place in the industry, as someone already has, the one very talented Ritwik Chakraborty. Another choice was Chiranjeet, though I heard Anjan Dutta was Srijit's original preference. He, however, did not do that bad, though Mr Dutta could have been a class apart. A thriller is bound to pivot around its climax and it could have been a clincher, if not for a weak performance by Param. This role was tailor-made for Ritwik. The director missed a big trick there. Ritwik could have clinched it for him in that last scene. Otherwise, the direction was masterful, Srijit himself is the real star of this movie. Use of colour, style of storytelling, cinematography, wonderful songs and their picturisations, all make it a worthy viewable experience. Would have wanted to give a 6.5, but IMDB not allowing so, sorry for being harsh here... 6/10.

I would've liked to rate this movie a '6.5', but unfortunately IMDb did not let me to do that, so in the end I decided to settle for six stars. The six stars are for the fact that the film had great potential to be an excellent one that leaves a lasting impression on the minds of the audiences deserving a whooping 7.5 stars , but somehow this one quite missed the mark,though not completely, and ended up being just about above average. Watching "Chotushkone" was deja vu in terms of my viewing experience for some of Srijit Mukherjee's other, widely acclaimed works like "Autograph" and "Jaatishwaar"- all well-executed plots with glaringly obvious loopholes that are rather hard to fathom and harder to digest, especially coming from a filmmaker of Mukherjee's caliber.All in all, a project well executed, with all the required ingredients for greatness like commendable performances, good music, a suspenseful plot with a twist ending that moves at an adequate pace to be able to cast its spell on its viewers and leave an impression. However, specific sequences of the film, especially towards the end are boiler plate, watered down versions that leave a lot to be desired. Like they say, the devil is really in the details.

A married woman's hand writing, apparently, her last letter; an exhausted man returning home after a day's work, rather languidly, only to find his wife hanging from the ceiling of his house with his son looking at the lifeless frame ( all shot in the sepia tone ); two actors of the past era trying to come to terms with their differences and mouthing lines from Tagore's Ghare Baire only to widen the chasm between them all the more; the actors requesting a director to become producer and suggesting their friend as the director; the start of the shooting ( all shot in black and white ) - the film kicks off with moments ( scenes ) like these, which, along the warp and woof of the creative piece by Srijit, are strewn about as are dried-up and shrivelled-up leaves on an avenue to give the way its realism and magic realism. A viewer would find it hard to relate these scenes with the main plot along the progression of the movie till the unknotting. The film tells, or rather, seems to tell the story of four film- makers who have been assigned the task of directing four short films for a single anthology of a film with the common theme of death. This venture brings together Trina ( Aparna Sen ), Shakyo ( Goutam Ghosh ), Dipta ( Chiranjeet ), Jayabrata ( Parambrata ). They all go out to the Henry's Island to discuss at length about the film where the idiosyncrasies of the characters ( directors themselves ) are brought to the fore. Their past lives catch up with them - their successes, their failures, their deeds, misdeeds, regrets and all that have made them what they are. The pinch of dark humour can be felt at times, in fact, with increasing frequency, near the end of the movie.The overriding themes of love, betrayal, retribution, regret, repercussion and their interplay with inklings of several other undercurrents of themes of 'smoking and the sensor board', 'smoking and health injury', 'life likened to the game of cards', 'creator and the created', 'life and afterlife', 'reel and real' and so on appear at proper places to hammer sensibility into the minds of the audience and the people of the society thereof.Use of colour has been a significant contribution to the film. Starting from sepia to black-white to colour with green, red, blue and the former two in between create a strange embroidery of insights relating directly or indirectly to the main plot of the film.Astute cinematography by Sudeep Chatterjee captures a vengeful Jayabrata inching towards his goal, the reel-life characters unwittingly revealing, with their characteristic behaviour and style, their real-life dilemmas and situations. Anupam's lyrics at just places give rise to the progression towards the dénouement.An erudite Srijit never misses a chance to allude to Ghare Baire, Mr and Mrs Iyer, Troyee, the Pandora's Box, Shakespeare, King-Queen- Jack-and-Joker, etc. to accentuate the effect at various moments in the film. Every moment, every incident seem to be connected to the main plot. When Shakyo and Dipta sit in a room and discuss about films, they both have the cards King-Queen-Jack without each of them knowing it. This indicates a rift of friendship between them despite their overtly good bonding. It also indicates that the unknown angle ('kone' or the Joker) would appear before them to complete the quadrangle or the fourth cards of the quartet. The Joker or Jayabrata leaves no stone unturned to let not a minute pinch of suspicion lay waste his platter-full plan of liquidating the three directors in a bungalow till the very fag end. The sudden realization of the whole story of four short films being a pretext makes the three captive directors nonchalant as a lull before the storm; and they do realize that a stormy death is what they each deserve for a family was laid waste long back only because of them. The Pandora's Box is opened very slowly and silently along the progression of the film, but Hope reigns at last when Dipta and Trina, together, take responsibility of the mad film producer essayed by Kaushik Ganguly and he does it beyond comparison.To sum up, it can be said that the director makes the film socially acceptable by meting out justice when Jayabrata receives the shot meant for Trina and his song 'Chiro shokha hey...' stops abruptly. 'An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind' rings in everyone's ears long after the film has ended.

THIS WAS A THRILLER!!!! A film, which actually thrilled, enthralled and literally gave goosebumps at many points. The main strength of the movie is its excellent cinematography and surrealistic depiction of stories within a story. When the three veteran directors are telling their stories in the film, they themselves acted as the protagonist as well as the Narrator of the stories. :) It was truly amazing! Srijit Mukherji again proved his creative brilliance with this. We all knew Chiranjeet as an actor of cheap commercial films. But after watching this film, we understand how underrated he has been always. Srijit has drawn out the awesome acting quality from him. Brilliant portray of character by each actor in the film. And added to that, Anupam's excellent music direction and songs. The film showing the long past of film industry as well as the present, has been ornamented with two songs from two genres. The twist in the story is completely unprecedented and the acting of Kaushik Ganguly before the last scene can't be praised by any word known to me...it's beyond extra-ordinary..superb, mind-blowing, and any such adjective one can use... In a nutshell, from every aspect of film...ranging from Direction to Photography, Cinematography to background score, music/songs to acting.. I have neither found a single flaw nor a point of weakness. The movie is overall dumb-founding! P.S. : Joyobroto(Parambrata Chatterjee) getting shot accidentally while singing "Chirosokha he...chhero na" (a famous Rabindra Sangeet meaning "O my Friend forever..Don't leave me") was heart-wrenching and I had to leave the theaters in tears! I hardly remember a thriller to be such a complete movie.. Unforgettable!!!!