Watched the film Bhooter Bhabishat finally. Not that I’m a great addict of films, but I do take a moment or two out of a day’s work to catch glimpses of the discussions on such things, and some days back Anandabazar Patrika hyped this film right on the front page with reviews from eminent personalities in the Bengali Film Industry. Naturally enough my interest roused, and after watching the film, I’m not that disappointed as I am after watching recent Bengali Films.
This film had few nice satire points.
- The film had nice pinches on our modern day youth, their talks, their mode-of-talking and above all, the language. I hope to write someday about the language of our youth – a mixture of Bengali, English, Hindi and in the end, speaking neither correctly. Speaking out words like “cool”, “hot” (in the end both means almost the same) very frequently in between sentences, Bengali students speaking bengali as if they don’t even know how to speak their mother-tongue properly, speaking in some sort of abusive tone are the very indices which define modern day youth’s “coolness”. They happen to take pride in this weird style, and they fancy themselves in it as well. I find it absolutely boring to speak in this way – be who you are, and as someone rightly said: – “The biggest challenge in modern day society is to be who you are in a world where everyone is trying to make you someone else.”
- The songs of the young generation is also appealingly repulsive. No offence, I’m not going to debate on whether the songs of the old days were really golden, or is it that Scientific Advancement aided by “coolness” requires you to sing songs barely tolerable, and with at least a few decibels above hearing limits, but the director of this film has nicely and wittily portrayed out the general view of our parents’ generation towards the modern day songs. I’ve always wondered what do the persons who sing such songs make of it – don’t they feel uncomfortable shouting anomalously like that – or is it that they love to hear their own voice being pitched above all? Do they ever wonder that their loud-chat-yelling songs can be distressful for some? Well, this film gives the answers to some extent, the singers of some songs actually do not think of such things, they know they are doing something that may reach immortality status and that their audience will applaud them even if they don’t understand a word of what they are chattering. Whatever – that’s the norm of this generation.
- Atheism – if anyone knew what it actually is! Nowadays some sort of inherent assumption works in the mindset of the youth that Religion is not cool. Ah – if only they had known what Religion actually is, or if they find it uncool, whether they have anything better in place of it! This mindset is being put up in the film, along with other features of the modern-day-youth as well. Along with this, the concept of the old people to associate everything and anything with a “worship” is portrayed as well, be it something to celebrate or not, bengalees have a tendency to host a Puja in it’s commemoration course. Not to mention their hatred towards people who do not like such formalities in worships.
- The working of the young-generation mind is being put up on a two-font basis. Firstly, they find it difficult to recognize and appreciate true talent. In the sense, that most of my Bengalee Readers may find it usual – the legendary Sukumar Roy compositions which has been our indispensable and faithful friend on most occasions and in almost all frames of mind is being mocked at by the present day youth – “Sukumar Roy aabol tabol likhle genius, ar amra pagol….” if that’s the monologue I remember properly. All of us who have gone through the writings of the great man know what it is, the film paints as if our modern day young people cannot find that same taste and humor. Also the tendency of our student-hood to commit suicides every now and then has been a problem in our modern day scenario as well. (Read this post in Times of India). I’d prefer not to elaborate on this issue to much extent as I don’t know (I don’t want to know either!) the things or incidents that propel students to end their lives, what goes so violently wrong that drives them into this highly traumatized state of mind? May be I don’t know what true love, friendship, examinations mean to them that on failure in these spheres make them “failures” in real life, and somehow make them realize that their lives are now over and that they MUST die!
- Ghoti-Bangal, the cutest part of the story! Such adda‘s seem to be integral parts in almost all retired bengalee’s in the tea-shops lining the roads on summer evenings! Even in picnics, all you need is a pair of Hilsa and some knowledge about the Padma river along with a couple of old men, preferably retired, with loads of time – bang! It starts! Not that this is much of a productive topic to ponder about (well, for that matter I find loads of topics boring, or useless, ranging from IPL courses to private Deepika Padukone interviews), but this is something that relives 1971 memoirs – horribly violent and frightening for some. Whatever be it, our elder parents/grandparents aged people love this argument.
Definitely this film is worth a watch. A one and half hour film gives you some rare entertainment that you usually get from Bengali films as such. I think I’ve covered up as much as could be covered in one short write-up on a film which lived upto it’s standards. Pardon me if I’ve missed something.
One point that I’d like to add is this film is different from the likes of other heavy-budget films like – 100% love and all those foreign-shot ones. It’s way way better, it’s not having too many band-like-songs, one thing however that amused me was cigar smoking by actresses in public – I thought that was banned.