Spoilers ahead…
Some thirty minutes into Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshi!, based on the character created by Saradindu Bandopadhyay, I realised I still hadn’t gotten a lock on whatever was going on, and my mind began to drift to Banerjee’s Love Sex aur Dhokha. In that film, he made us believe we were watching a re-enactment of Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. He even named the lovers Rahul and Shruti, so their initials would match those of Raj and Simran. And then he threw an axe-wielding (okay, hockey stick-wielding) psychopath into the mix. Forget happily ever after – they ended up in the hereafter. It was like biting into a bar of chocolate and discovering dead lizard. I wondered if Detective Byomkesh Bakshi! began as a similar act of subversion, if Banerjee made his backers (Yash Raj Studios) believe they were in for a re-enactment of, say, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies. But? Another bar of chocolate. Another dead lizard.
Not since Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Saawariya, the film that was supposed to justify Sony Pictures’ investment in the Indian market, has a major filmmaker made something so… idiosyncratic for a major studio. Bhansali teased us with the prospect of a love story with star kids – we expected a heart-warming romance and got something with the temperature of Pluto. Banerjee, similarly, teases us with pulpy highlights. 500 kilos of opium. A book with porny illustrations. Gruesome murders. Strychnine poisoning. A corpse swarming with ants. Chinese gangsters. Sedition. Blackmail. We expect a thriller – a noir thriller, given the early sight of a looming Expressionistic shadow. What we get, instead, is… well, it’s hard to say what it is. Probably the only thing we can say for sure is that it is an origins story.
It’s easy to see why, the matching initials apart, Dibakar Banerjee was drawn to Detective Bakshy (played by Sushant Singh Rajput). This director has always been sympathetic towards the upwardly mobile, the underdog – and that’s what Byomkesh is. For a while, he’s hopelessly out of his depth, but he soldiers on and gets where he wants to be, and like the classic Banerjee protagonist, he will achieve his aims through equal parts playacting and hoodwinking. In an early scene, he glimpses an actress named Angoori Devi (Swastika Mukherjee) discard her sari and plunge into the water in her swimsuit – he averts his eyes. Angoori Devi tells her assistant, “Dekhne do. Shaayad inhone pehle dekha nahin hai.” (Let him watch. He’s probably not seen anything like this.) She’s right. He’s inexperienced. After the swim, after getting dressed, she embarrasses him further by flashing a leg.
He has no social graces either – in that department too, he’s a virgin. In the scene in which he meets his to-be sidekick (Ajit, played by Anand Tiwari), the latter is worried about his missing father. Byomkesh proposes a few theories in a clinical, multiple-choice format – (D) your father has run away with another woman. Ajit, unsurprisingly, slaps Byomkesh. Rajput, sporting a unibrow, plays Byomkesh like a benign robot that’s learning the ways of humankind. I laughed seeing him on a chair, his spine erect, one leg crossed over the other. I kept waiting to see if he’d slouch. His philosophy is equally rigid: Is duniya mein ‘aise hi’ kuch nahin hota. Everything is logical, everything comes with a reason.
The setting is Calcutta, caught between the British on one side, the Japanese on the other. It’s 1943. This gives Banerjee and his team to indulge in some characteristically brilliant detailing – even if everything is reminiscent of Hollywood. Angoori Devi is styled like a Clara Bow type. The posters on the streets scream out Shadow of a Doubt and The Ox-Bow Incident, 1943 releases both. But the biggest blockbuster in India at the time was Ashok Kumar’s Kismat, our first one-crore grosser. That doesn’t seem to be playing anywhere. Or maybe that’s not cool enough to be part of the immaculate production design. After all, Banerjee does take a lot of his cues from Hollywood and other foreign cinema.
On a moment-by-moment basis, Banerjee’s cinema is sensual, fulfilling and, more than anything else, precise. He’s Indian cinema’s answer to a Swiss watchmaker – everything’s just so. And in wanting everything to be just so, he sometimes drains all the juice from his material. The anachronistic score (Sneha Khanwalkar and others) is a relief, because it shakes things up. Suddenly, there’s life. And then the score dies down. We’re back to long stretches of silence – it begins to feel like an eternity inside the theatre. There’s no doubt about Banerjee’s talent. If you’re the kind, you could dine on the images alone. Byomkesh sitting opposite Dr. Guha (Neeraj Kabi), a lantern between them casting the most gorgeous shadows. Angoori Devi marinating in a bathtub and the upside-down heart of her face as she leans back and Byomkesh places a cigarette between her heavily lipsticked lips. The extraordinary wide shot as Byomkesh and Angoori Devi enter a dining hall, where a man at the head of the table is having some soup. The shot takes in so much, it conjures up, in an instant, an entire way of life.
But shots alone cannot sustain a movie. There needs to be some energy as well. After the tenth or so deliberately composed image – you can practically hear Banerjee behind the scenes, scratching his chin thoughtfully – I began to wish the camera would sneak into one of those cinema halls screening Shadow of a Doubt instead. At least Hitchcock did not think he was above mere “entertainment.” Detective Byomkesh Bakshi! suffers from the high-mindedness that suffocated Shanghai as well. We aren’t just making a movie. We’re sculpting a masterpiece. The result? A sluggish pace. This wouldn’t be a problem if the characters were well-drawn, interesting, or if the plot was gripping. But no and no. And in the midst of all this supreme good taste, the pulpy elements (“villain laughs maniacally;” “femme fatale stares seductively”) come off looking ridiculous. Towards the end, we get, out of nowhere, a Tarantinoesque bloodbath that looks like something the studio ordered after seeing the rushes and panicking. You can hear Aditya Chopra screaming: Enough with the lizards already. Gimme some fucking chocolate.
KEY:
- Is duniya mein ‘aise hi’ kuch nahin hota. = Nothing happens ‘just like that’.
Copyright ©2015 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Rony Patra
April 3, 2015
I agree with your observation that the final carnage at the end of the movie appears out of nowhere. However, I still feel this is the best noir-thriller to have come out of Hindi cinema in years.
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Srikanth
April 3, 2015
What a pity. I was really looking forward to seeing this film. Would you still say this is worth a watch purely for those idiosyncrasies you were talking about? Or would that be too much of a stretch? Its just that Dibakar Banerjee is such an exciting filmmaker, its tough to accept the fact that his movie could be so dull.
On a side note, how would you rate this film against the various other Bakshi versions, especially Satyajit Ray’s Chiriyakhana and Rajit Kapur’s television serial?
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sanjana
April 3, 2015
I am surprised by this review and your argument seems to be valid. Let us see how the audience receive it as most of the critics except you perhaps, are raving about this film.
Usually you take time to review a hindi film. I think you were waiting to see this film and could not wait.
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brangan
April 3, 2015
Srikanth: You should go and watch it. Dibakar Banerjee remains an important filmmaker.
Haven’t seen the Ray film. And have only sketchy memories of the series.
sanjana: Oh, this week the Tamil films were released on Wed/Thu. So I was able to catch this today. Otherwise I manage to catch Hindi films only on the weekend.
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olemisstarana
April 4, 2015
Some thoughts –
I was disappointed in Banerjee’s rendering of Angoori Devi… there is nothing more than simpering, very stylized and so artificial that she looks far too cloying like a dusting of saccharine – literally. I wish there was some dirt, some scratches, a whiff of something more. And Swastika Mukherjee is a really mediocre actress to boot. I believe Rani Mukherjee was going to play her and I think that might have been an interesting choice – she would have to have been older, sadder, wiser, perhaps?
Also, Detective Bakshi is so refreshingly weak-stomached when it comes to the seamier, gory aspects of his job. He winces, he pukes, he pales when he sees blood, decaying corpses, slashed torsos. It’s just a beat each time, but it works for me… He is sad when someone dies – even the “expendable” characters.
Sushant Singh is just so comfortable in the role. He sits cross legged in a stranger’s bed, digs into a thali with his knees folded up to his chin, hops onto a hammock and tucks his feet so neatly under himself, and crawls into Ajit’s mosquito net without so much as a thought. Physically, he works magic with the scene. Though, that unibrow. I could have done without that unibrow.
Speaking of Ajit – yay for a nerdy Bengali babu moshai with owl glasses being the muscle of the story.
More later, BR – this is a movie that didn’t completely satisfy me, but there is a lot to chew on. And I love everything else Banerjee has done thus far.
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olemisstarana
April 4, 2015
Breaking Bad, Bengali Style – thanks,y’all!
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brangan
April 4, 2015
olemisstarana: See, that’s the thing with DB — at least for me. Everything in his films is fascinating on paper. Like you say: “Speaking of Ajit – yay for a nerdy Bengali babu moshai with owl glasses being the muscle of the story.” His films give you so much to write about — how this means this, how that means that.
But I find something is lost in the execution.
“nerdy Bengali babu moshai with owl glasses being the muscle” on screen doesn’t have the punch that “nerdy Bengali babu moshai with owl glasses being the muscle” has on paper, as a conceptual construct.
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Vidya Murugan
April 4, 2015
I loved the TV series directed by Basu Chatterjee. Every since, it has been hard for me to see Rajit Kapoor on screen and not think Byomkesh Bakshi.
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Utkal Mohanty
April 5, 2015
Watching Detective Byomkesh Bakshy on the big screen was an exhilarating experience.
I have had mixed feelings about Dibakar Banerjee’s films. I found his Khosla Ka Ghosla utterly charming. Missed Oye Lucky Oye. Found Love, Sex and Dhoka, very smart but with something missing and therefore not quite memorable. Shanghai was again very well made, but there was something clinical and underwhelming about it. So I did not quite know how DBB was going to turn out.
But I was hooked from Frame 1. Actually I entered the show a few minutes late, and when I took my seat, Byomkesh was trying to lie his way through to get a room in the hostel run by Dr Atanu Guha. The energy of the film got to me right away. Kolkata has never been presented in this kinetic avatar before. Trams zigzagging across streets, opium junkies, Chinese gangs, Japanese dentists, Burmese seductresses …ah it’s the queen of the east indeed. Add to it a dhoti-clad Bengali detective born and brought up in Munger and you have all the ingredients of a crackling fare. And Banerjee keeps spraying fresh droplets of oil to keep the pan sizzling whenever the heat simmers down a little. It’s slow-cooked fare, but not lacking in spice or sizzle, not at any part of its 135minutes running time.
What I love about the film is the way Banerjee lets us on in the very beginning that he is here to tell us a good story. Could there ever be an actress like Angooribala in Kolkata, was there ever a hostel in the Kolkata of 40’s where Japanese and Bengalis stay together … or has Kolkata ever had a dhoti clad private dick ready to take on Chinese gangs? This is not that kind of a film…one that researches to find out some arcane facts and then goes about recreating realities. It’s about telling a tall tale….in the tradition of all those cock-and-bull stories that all the Bengali writs from Premendra Mitra ( Ghana-da)to Satyajit Ray ( Felu-da) have been spinning, with their imagination and craft of story-telling being their most dependable tool rather than any real knowledge of the world of crime and international intrigues. And this is as tall as tales come…with a mix of opium cartels, gang wars, the fatal attraction between a Burmese seductress and a Bengali criminal mastermind, pre-independence Bengal politics, exciting scientific discovery and the power tussle between the British and the Japanese. Whoaw! Delicious.
I like the expressionistic mode in which Banerjee tells his tale. The moody cinematography of Nikos Andritsakis ( I am trying hard to memorize this name) with rich colours and haunting interplay of light and shadow, the playful and pulsating music of Sneha Khanwalkar and the entire production design makes sure that you can’t take your eyes ( an your ears) off from the screen for a second. I cannot get the pumping rhythm of Khanwalkar’s soundtrack out of my mind, neither the wicked ‘ I don’t know what time it is , I don’t care what time it is, it’s the time for Calcutta Kiss” , nor the tantalizingly short phrases of Malkauns, and Baul song, and thumri ( More Piya mose na bole and Jao jao) that waft in between from time to time. I like the grunge look of the Gajanan Sikdar’s chemical factory and Dr Atanu Guha’s hostel. I like the carefully calibrated balance that Banerjee maintains between a pan-Indian look and feel and some hard-core Bangaliana ( take the inmates of the hostel, including the tea-boy ( Puti?). I like the droll humour ( sample: “Blood! Okay, forget the blood, just get the tea.’ Or the exchange in Bhojpuri between Byomkesh and the two security guards of the factory.) And I like the robust plot.
The performances are first rate. I liked to tongue-in-cheek faux-femme-fatale act of Swastika and the over-the-top clever villainy of Neeraj Kabi. And I think Sushant Singh Rajput may have pulled off an impossible cat here – create a genuine character franchise for the big screen. He makes Byomkesh very human…not super-intelligent, just above-average , with just awe bit of swagger, knowing and acknowledging when he has been beaten, and learning from his mistakes to evolve and move on.
It’s a character arch that will be interesting to observe over upcoming sequels ( I hope.)
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Madan
April 5, 2015
I didn’t mind the slow pace. Nice to see an Indian detective caper handled that way. The problem was the denouement itself was an utter flop. No surprise at all, not for me anyway. Banerjee played out his cards way too early in the plot. I wouldn’t have minded that if it hadn’t been billed a Byomkesh Bakshi film. I expected a proper detective whodunnit and this ended up more like a time-period version of Kahaani.
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olemisstarana
April 6, 2015
Ah… true. Sometimes the conceit is very attractive in theory. Though I will say that Banerjee tends not to belabor points, and this is where we may part ways. I like the under-application of paint to paper. Ajith is the muscle, and that doesn’t require a raised eyebrow. He also is slightly miffed when Dr. Guha (delicious, delicious Niraj Kabi), tells Bakshy that he is the prodigal son, and Ajith is passed over again. It’s subtle – it’s not important to much else, but I love the wrinkle in the character development… which was sorely missing in Angoori Devi’s characterization. I liked Angoori Devi’s paan chewing sidekick way more. In an earlier movie, OLLO this was true of the young Abhay Deol’s relationship with his predatory step mother. Great conceit, great execution.
Also, I saw it in Pittsburgh and was pretty jarred by some of the editing. I am not an expert by any means, I just know something is off when I see it, and there were several instances where a very intense moment just fizzles out seconds later. And the historical detail – lovely, very encouraging to see this level of research and scene setting in a mainstream Hindi movie, but in my opinion all the details were held just a beat and a half too long. The opening credits for instance, Bakshy, sitting in a tram, is blurred in favor of the rolling cityscape behind him – this almost felt as though it were a metaphor for how Banerjee visually treated each discrete building block. We pan out because, and this is just my opinion, Banerjee wanted to be acknowledged for his work in this context. Just a beat and a half too long…
I’ll end with this – I strictly avoid reading your blog before I go see a movie I really really want to see. Such is the power you wield…
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Amrita
April 6, 2015
Once I figured out the central mystery in itself was going nowhere (seriously, who WASN’T 30 steps in front of the detective here?) I could really settle into the movie and just appreciate it for the vivid mood painting it was. The little sight gags, the callbacks, the detailing was exquisite.
The comparison with Bhansali is interesting – you and I have disagreed before on Bhansali, but if the two of them are on a plane, I tip toward the Banerjee end. It’s clever, it’s not maudlin, and the stylized visuals are used towards very different ends.
I wasn’t bored at any point simply because there was so much for me to see. What a wonderful thing in a movie. It’s the kind of thing that drags me out to the cinema.
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brangan
April 6, 2015
olemisstarana: I find it somewhat contradictory when you say “Banerjee tends not to belabor points” and also “all the details were held just a beat and a half too long.”
There were many places in the film where there was truly great stuff but I was put off by Banerjee holding us by the collar and pointing and saying, “Look, look, there’s all this great stuff.” I completely agree with you when you say “beat and a half too long.” For such an intelligent filmmaker, he doesn’t seem to trust us very much.
And oh dear god, that climactic scene with the revelations. Seriously?
delicious, delicious Niraj Kabi
Okay, this performance did not work for me at all 🙂
OLLO… Great conceit, great execution.
Here, I’ll agree with you. DB’s finest hour. The film hasn’t dated one bit. Great detailing, language, performances, energy, and of course music/score — just about everything coalesced magically in this one.
Amrita: Fair enough Amrita. There have been other films where I too have ignored the narrative and dined on the sumptuous details alone. It just didn’t happen for me with this one.
BTW, I wasn’t comparing Bhansali and DB at all — just the fact that this is probably the most idiosyncratic (in the sense of not being what the studio expected at all) studio film since “Saawariya.”
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tejas
April 6, 2015
I dined on the images alone, and boy, what a dinner it was.
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brangan
April 6, 2015
An interesting interview with the co-writer, Urmi Juvekar:
http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/fun-films-dont-need-to-be-frivolous/article7068352.ece
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Rahul
April 6, 2015
I did not see this as a mystery movie – more as a mock biopic. When I heard that Dibakar is making this , I was a bit skeptical because something that works on TV may not work on film. I would have found it underwhelming if the film focused too much on the case, going through the trope of red herrings before winding up with the denouement .
Instead, I liked the route that he took, which was creating an artificial noirish world representing Calcutta of a certain time with imagined international intrigue , smattering of cartoonish violence, characters emphasising certain traits from typical bengali literature a pulsating score and picture postcard perfect visuals . I think what the film -maker is saying to me is that – look, I will take a unibrowed, bumbling , unstylish and singularly uncool Bengali male and create a James Bond out of him by visual and aural style. He succeeded and I enjoyed it.
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Gopala Krishnan
April 6, 2015
Listen to ok kanmani yet?
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Rishi
April 6, 2015
Tarantino-esque ending is a great way to describe it. Fascinating film, nonetheless! I love that Bollywood can come out with movies like this, even if they become a little too esoteric at times. And Sushant Singh Rajput’s acting was surprisingly great!
I really do hope this becomes some sort of a trilogy or series of some sort. One thing that I really appreciate about the character of Byomkesh Bakshy is that he ages and he’s not immortal like many popular characters.
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Zico Ghosh
April 8, 2015
It worked for me as an origin story. In the sense, I’ll be a little sad if YRF, going by the somewhat lukewarm response, doesn’t go ahead with their original idea of building a franchisee on this. I’d love to revisit this wonderfully dark and cartoony universe filled with femme fatales, mysterious Chinamen and dangerous secrets locked inside something as trivial as paan ka dibbas. I enjoyed it as a sort of a period fantasy, a reconstruction of a time and place that now seems mythical. I’ve a feeling, he can give us something much more solid than this if there is a sequel.
And of course, I am “one of those”, who’d dine on the images alone, so much so that I plan to watch it again.
But I agree that there were problems with the flow of the narrative and it couldn’t quite become greater than the sum of its parts. And I wonder what went wrong, given all the meat already present in Sharadindu’s original stories.
Curious to know if you’d like to see a franchise grow from here. And a little more on Sushant’s performance. Surprisingly, I liked him and thought his inexperience and nervous energy totally went with the character.
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Zico Ghosh
April 8, 2015
Also, check this out if you have the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STyyKuo-AD4
DB on Sharadindu’s stories and the visual style of Bengali pulp fictions he was inspired for the film.
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brangan
April 8, 2015
Zico Ghosh: About the franchise, I’m indifferent at this point — though anything DB does is of interest. And I generally enjoyed Sushant’s performance. He didn’t overdo the bungling etc., and generally came across as someone who’s still being made — which is kinda the point of the film.
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MANK
April 8, 2015
The posters on the streets scream out Shadow of a Doubt and The Ox-Bow Incident, 1943 releases both. But the biggest blockbuster in India at the time was Ashok Kumar’s Kismat, our first one-crore grosser. That doesn’t seem to be playing anywhere.
Brangan, thats an astute observation. adding the fact that hollywood movies took a long time to get released in india in those days, i doubt these 2 films ever made it here in the same year. And to think that Kismet ran for some 200 weeks in calcutta, the omission is extremely jarring. That film would have been the star wars of its time.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Hitchcock reference in your review, Hitch never considered it beneath himself in entertaining the audience and paced his films accordingly. I wonder why serious filmmakers consider slow pace equals great art? i wished – and in many ways expected- to see a hitchcockian thriller, but in the end the film was neither here nor there. I love visual stylization and detailing, especially in a detective movie. -Hitchcock, Polanski and brian de palma are my absolute favorites, But its just not style alone that made chinatown, blow out, Vertigo or rear window the classic thrillers that they are, It required an equally flawless narrative .
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Ashish Jha
April 10, 2015
I do not agree with this review. Over all the movie reviews that I have read of brangan, he has a tendency to view much stupider movies with kiddie gloves and look at the positives, and movies that are genuinely different and trying to present a totally different take on Byomkesh Bakshy, the daggers are out.
I genuinely found the movie intresting, maybe because I had not read the book prior to the viewing and did not know who was who in the movie. And I was pleasantly surprised by what was on screen.
I’m sorry but I beg to differ totally brangan
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Madan
April 12, 2015
I think there’s a word for that and it’s ‘balance’. Not everybody dislikes stupid films (ergo, they must have indeed have some redeeming qualities) and not everybody wholeheartedly appreciates ‘different’ films. I liked this film only up to a point, for instance, and the second half certainly marred what positive impressions I did have. Rangan ostensibly writes from a purely subjective perspective but this tendency to balance out the good with the bad in all films also unwittingly (or otherwise) helps serve the purpose of the larger readership of a newspaper like Hindu.
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brangan
April 12, 2015
Madan: It’s not balance, IMO, and it has nothing to do with The Hindu. I was writing this way even before I joined The Hindu.
The thing we’re talking about here is the inability of people to understand that just because you think a film is stupid it doesn’t mean the film is really stupid.
You could find it stupid; I could find it stupid.
You could find it stupid; I could find it great.
You could find it stupid; I could find it meh, but with a few interesting things worth talking about.
My reviews/views are about those “interesting things worth talking about.” And what strikes me as “interesting” you may find boring or stupid or equally interesting.
I’ve written really long reviews of films I don’t especially like, really short reviews of films I love. It’s about the things that — at that moment — I find “interesting” to write about.
I am less interested in placing the film on a good/average/bad scale than in talking about these things in the film that interest me.
The problem is most readers look for one thing only: Did he like the film? Did he dislike the film?
IMO, I don’t think this review says I dislike the film. You cannot dislike a film and have a line like “On a moment-by-moment basis, Banerjee’s cinema is sensual, fulfilling and, more than anything else, precise. ” The predominant emotion in this line is admiration.
I don’t dismiss the film outright. I don’t treat the film with contempt. I take it seriously and point out the problems I have with it. I praise the detailing. I bring out the “interesting” aspect about this film being an idiosyncratic studio movie – which is always a good thing in my book. I talk a bit about the protagonists in Dibakar’s oeuvre.
Over the years I have found that you cannot dictate how anyone will read/process a review. You’ll say something and they’ll catch a completely different context/meaning. Some of them are nice enough (or interested enough) to initiate a discussion — and I’m happy to have that discussion. Because sometimes this discussion helps me clarify my own thoughts.
But one thing I do know now is that most people skim through reviews really fast, and do the 2+2=5 thing, and get all kinds of worked up about what they think I am saying. (Not just ‘me’; this is true of all writing all over the web. See the comments sections and you’ll see many people frothing about something the writer never meant in the first place.)
Like in my piece about the songs of “O Kadhal Kanmani,” the whole “my hand is trembling slightly” was a running gag in my mind. I was amazed at the number of people who thought I was being serious. One person actually complimented me for being “brave” and acknowledging my fears in public. I must have resembled a goldfish then.
Then again, “meaning” is something we create for ourselves with the apparatus we have, and it’s not fair for writers, either, to expect what they mean to always match the meaning created in the reader’s mind.
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Madan
April 12, 2015
Never said that you write this way specifically for Hindu. Only that this tendency to look for something interesting as a talking point also has the effect (which is now confirmed to be unintended) of balancing your reviews.
Yes, I agree completely, there’s no such thing as an universally stupid or universally great film and also that this is something people don’t seem to comprehend. My comment was really addressed to Ashish rather than you directly…that, there’s actually nothing wrong with finding something praiseworthy about a supposedly stupid film and not going totally gaga about a supposedly great film.
The word you have used to describe your approach – interesting – is itself very balanced because interesting is neither good nor bad. It describes simply an aspect or aspects of the film and leaves it to the viewer to decide whether this interesting aspect resonates with him or not. I mentioned that it works for Hindu because if you wrote subjective reviews entirely from a rant-rave perspective, it would not imo serve the purpose of a widely read daily. People are looking for reasons why they should or shouldn’t go to see a movie.
In earlier times, before the advent of badly written paid reviews or overly politically correct ones (or both!), reviewers highlighted a few hit/miss aspects of a film to convince the reader. You do not intend to convince a reader to watch a film but by putting your thoughts about ‘interesting’ aspects, you help guide the reader as to whether it would be interesting from his/her perspective.
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dirtroad
April 12, 2015
Nobody’s talking about how silly the plot and climax is. The Japanese coming to attack Calcutta and being deterred in the last moment by a fake air-raid siren?? Is that all that there is to save the world?? And possibly had they really come to invade they would have had an air-raid in any way to divert attention…so the air raid siren would not be anything unexpected. And how conveniently on ‘that’ very day no bombings happen which keeps happening intermittently in the movie..just so Byomkesh can play it up. And even after taking Calcutta, how will the Japanese turn this ‘free’ Bengal in the middle of a world war to a ‘drug capital’?? Extremely hokey for a plot and a climax. This globalization was not required at all. AND….what if the villains decided to bump off the chemist in a broad daylight car accident?? Then there would be no mystery, no lockdown of factory, no Byomkesh, no blackmail…….etc etcetc. Very silly villains who are planning to conquer the world !!! This has been an all image and no brains product, The weakest of any Dibakar movies.
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Sohil Nikam
April 12, 2015
There is indeed a reference to Kismat. It’s when Byomkesh is riding the tram to go to the lodge. A poster of the film is beautifully passed in the background and we get to see it through the window.
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MANK
April 12, 2015
One person actually complimented me for being “brave” and acknowledging my fears in public
Ha Ha , brangan sir, even the response you generate among your readers is LOL. But i think its a good thing and i consider it as a compliment to your writing..B’coz your writing is so unique, that such reactions come your way. 99% of your reviewer peers write in pretty much the same way. ( -I like the film- I dislike the film?, this is a good film, this is a bad film, go watch this film- dont watch this)- while you go in to the intricacies and detailing.So when the readers are confronted with your oddball piece among the pile of reviews , its bound to generate extreme reactions.one supposes that you would be used to it by now.
Aside, have you read the pieces written by Nathan Rabin(of the Manic pixie dream girl fame)? or his book My year of flops. If yes your views? I find the detailing & tongue in cheek quality in his writing very similair to yours.
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brangan
April 12, 2015
Sohil Nikam: Oh, is there? My bad, then.
MANK: I have read some pieces by Nathan Rabin, but not enough to discern a style. Will check out some more. Thanks.
Another writer I’ve been meaning to check out is Abraham Verghese. Someone said my writing reminded them of him.
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Deepak
April 12, 2015
Different strokes for different folks I suppose, because whatever worked for you somehow worked for me (except the elongated, overblown ending). I had a great time at the movies with this one. I kinda saw it like a live action TinTin movie with all the capers that Bakshi has in the movie. I absolutely loved the details, like an ad for Brylcreem and “Eno’s” fruit salt. I also absolutely loved the chase scene where the party sevak follows Bakshi and Ajit. The camera tracks the chase from across the street where we see Bakshi bumping into a passer by. The camera then starts tracking this passerby who is looking behind angrily at Bakshi until… he bumps into the following sevak and then rejoins the chase. Maybe this was a bit twee, but I was riveted the whole way.
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MANK
April 12, 2015
Brangan, you’re welcome. Try and get his book My year of flops .Make sure never to read them with your coffee cup in your hand. Man each entry is a masterpiece. The way he details bad movies like On deadly ground and Last action hero, ROFL!
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Deepak
April 13, 2015
Sorry, I meant whatever didn’t work for you worked for me. Chalk it out to first post jitters after spending a long time lurking around here. 🙂
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Aadit
June 6, 2015
Was excited to see the film being a fan of detective films. I was very dissapointed by shanghai. It had nothing new to say. The trailers of this film however suggested something more entertaining. Was dissapointed by this film too. All that detailing and nothing else to hold onto. The film felt lifeless… a promising franchise most probably nipped in the bud going by the BO collections
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Pankaj
June 10, 2015
I only managed to see it last week, and have been thinking a lot about it. I think Anguri Devi symbolized her city Rangoon. She is beautiful and pretty, but she was used and abused, like the city of Rangoon that fell under Japanese control. In fact, at one point, she even makes a remark that Japanese took her beautiful city. The fact that she dies was again referring to the capture of Rangoon by the Japanese forces. Were the other characters were a representation of their cities. For instance, was Satyawati a representation of the city of Calcutta? She is beautiful, cultured, headstrong, but not completely independent, like the city of Calcutta itself. And, the British Police Inspector Wilke always had a dog with him, was that some indication how Britishers treated India? Perhaps, that explains the scene where there is written History of Love on the board, and beneath that is written Sexual and Divine, and Feudalism and Oppression. The sexual and divine nature of Anguri Devi contrasts with feudalism and oppression of Rangoon.
There is a woman who is seen only as a blurred figure and stays in the room right opposite to Byomkesh’s room. There are at least two instances where Byomkesh closes the door when he sees her underscoring a sort of a sexual tension between him and the lady. I also felt the instance where Dr. Guha revealed that he was a freedom fighter, and asked Byomkesh to join the movement, had strong homoerotic tones. The way that Dr. Guha puts his hand on Byomkesh’s head, and tries to set his hair, and the way Byomkesh is repulsed by it highlighted this homoeroticism; also, not to forget the fact Dr. Guha puts a board outside his house that says, “Kewal purushon ke liye”, that it is only for men. At a later instance, Ajit even remarks that Dr. Guha seems to love Byomkesh. I will be very curious to see Dr.Guha’s or Yang Guang’s sexual antics in the coming sequel (if at all).
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Rony Patra
June 11, 2015
Great interpretation, Pankaj. But how does Byomkesh fit into that argument. Firstly, he isn’t a Bengali, being originally from Munger in Bihar. How is he a representation of Munger? Or is he a mirror for the stasis of the freedom movement in Bengal?
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pankaj1905
June 12, 2015
Rony, that is what I was not sure about, I saw that in the female characters, especially Anguri Devi’s characters. The film had so many intriguing facets that I have not been able to find a convincing explanation. For example – The fancy dress party where a man comes and says the policeman that he is wearing a nice dress, and he remarks that is his uniform. Was that a joke that the police is doing nothing and is only wearing dresses, while another man is saving Calcutta? The joke on the damsel in distress, at two places Ajit calls Satyawati, “Bechari, Besahara.” What was that about? The meaning of one eye between them. Why did Yang Guan gouge his own eye? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind? Any meaning of the flowers that Satyawati was holding, and later the gardener was seen among them, and Dr. Watanabe was seen smelling. Byomkesh takes a bath two times. Was there any special reason behind it? The film has so many facets, and which gives so much to think about. My thoughts (not review here)
http://dichotomy-of-irony.blogspot.com/2015/06/detective-byomkesh-bakshy.html
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Sev
November 4, 2015
“Then again, “meaning” is something we create for ourselves with the apparatus we have”
The above sentence echoes what I was attempting to communicate to my family about trying to maintain a communication with my dad who passed on a month ago (in fact, on Agatha Christie’s birthday, a fact your blog reminded me of, and one which seemed especially meaningful to me as, over the years, Chrisitie’s stories have wormed their way into my life, and distracted me and given me company in moments of stress or loneliness). So, thanks, Mr. Rangan. And your writing too (or the way it reads to me) has been a source of immense engagement and joy, and since my dad’s passing, much like Christie’s. Your blog, in that sense, has wormed its way into some of my life’s harshest days. So, much like Christie’s writing, I can’t help but think of your blog (among a few others) on being asked to name a “favourite” blog even though the adjective “favourite” is too vague to me and one of my least used ones. Thanks again!
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brangan
November 4, 2015
Sev: I’m not sure how one responds to such a comment, but “thank you”, I guess, would be a start. Thank you for reading. And thank you for taking the time to detail your engagement with my writing. I’m touched beyond words. Thank you.
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NeDhaPa
November 4, 2015
Sorry for your loss Sev. Time is great healer.
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Shah Shahid
February 9, 2016
I don’t entirely disagree with your Review, (which was an absolute treat to read by the way, Your analysis and eloquence makes me ashamed of my own writing. 😐 ) however, I did like some of the things you seemed to have a problem with.
I absolutely loved the setting and visuals, but wasn’t as aware of the filmmaker’s direct influence and composition as you, which may be more due to my naivete. I feel the time period isn’t something as explored in Bollywood, so was very interesting to experience that in this film. The Hollywood-esque aesthetic didn’t seem like a bad thing to me. Susanth Singh Rajput was brilliant I feel in the role, as well as Neera Kabi, who I now recognize is in ‘Talvar’, which makes me want to watch that so much more! I think we can agree the film is well acted, despite it’s issues?
Before your review, I found that most people complained that story wasn’t as much of a mystery as other, say, Hollywood films. My review focuses on that a bit, as well as the fact that the film didn’t try to cram in too much exposition or dumb down the complexity of the narrative. In my opinion anyways.
Feel free to take a look at my own review, and I look forward to challenging and reflecting on my own writing by continuing to read yours. Despite the self esteem issues is causes in my immediately thereafter. 😐
http://www.blankpagebeatdown.com/movie-review-detective-byomkesh-bakshy-2015/
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MANK
February 19, 2017
Well i was watching Ray’s Apu trilogy recently – thanks to a sparkling new Criterion restored Blu Ray, Brangan, if you havent got it , you should run and grab it, the restoration is spectacular. – so i come across this scene in Apur sansar where we see a blurred figure of a women in the window who stays in the room right across apu’s room and Apu shuts the door on her.( later Sharmila tagore’s Aparna – wasnt that Rani mukherjee’s name in Hey Ram 🙂 – mentions this in a letter that she writes to apu that she envies that women in the neighborhood window because she gets to see him every day). it just instantly struck me that i have seen that image in some recent film . after scratching my head for a while, it came to me that its from Byomkesh Bakshi . so that was quite a nod from DB to Ray
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Kid
February 19, 2017
MANK: Nice catch (and thanks for the criterion collection shoutout…I do want to get to it), that hadn’t struck me at all. But I am not surprised, Banerjee’s short in Bombay Talkies was based on Ray’s short story “Patol Babu”. The other director who has continuously referenced Ray is Sujoy Ghosh. In Kahaani itself you see a number of hat-tips to Ray- the tram scenes (Mahanagar), the character of Vidya’s husband (Prof. Shonku), the consistent mention of “running hot water” (Joi Baba Felunath), the location of the guesthouse in which Vidya stays is also the location of Feluda’s residence etc. But my favourite one arrives in Ghosh’s production Te3n- the cigarette which the Sabyasachi Chakraborty (who plays the culprit here) smokes is Charminar, now Chakraborty has played Feluda a number of times (in fact he was Sandip Ray’s Feluda) and Feluda only smokes Charminar. The interesting thing of course is that here Sabysachi is not the detective, but a suspect (and eventually turns out to be the kidnapper). Shoojit Sircar’s “Piku” (the title) is itself a nod to Ray’s short Pikoor Diary.
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KK
November 4, 2018
I generally like your views but I guess this time you are a victim,of what I call,the disease of conventionality. You look at Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock,the pace is breakneck. You look at Cumerbatch’s version,Sherlock comes as a sociopath with an Intelligence that’s beyond an average human’s comprehensive power. So I don’t agree with a conventional nature of treating the story. And if it results in a slow pace,I don’t see what’s the problem.I haven’t seen other Bakshy interpretation but what I liked in this movie is slow-burn nature. Plus it was really plot heavy and they needed to slow down the pace to explain all the essential details before the climax finally ties up all loose ends. The movie wasn’t just about Bakshy,it was also about the world he inhabits. Much of the historical events referenced in the movie was unknown to me prior to watching the movie. I think it’s the closest banerjee can come to making a true blue commercial movie. This movie is to Banerjee what Batman Begins was to Nolan. And I think the tarantinoesque post climax scene seems organic cause it mirrors another scene which happened in the beginning of the movie.
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