Kaalbela: Revisiting the Turbulent 1970s review
Kaalbela is Samaresh Majumdar's second of his famous trilogy. The three novels are Uttaradhikar, Kaalbela and Kaalpurush. Director Gautam Ghose picked Kaalbela. He made structural changes in the narrative from literature to film, but has remained loyal to the framework of the original novel. The trilogy is an epic-like reflection of a young boy, Animesh, who grows up in Jalpaiguri, comes to Kolkata and gets involved in student politics of CPI (M), then gets into the Naxalite uprising that leads to disillusionment and disappointment, followed by the story of his son, Arko.
      Kaalbela opens on the banks of a river with Animesh's voice-over recollecting his past, closing in on two pairs of hands joined in a pledge to love and be loved, forever. The camera moves back to this river bank again and again, like the refrain of a long-forgotten song, a metaphor for the river remaining unchanged in its ebbs and flows, oblivious to the turbulence in the world beyond. The camera moves back to Animesh's Jalpaiguri home, offering a glimpse of his strict father, an affectionate step-mother, a pontificating grandfather who tells him to pack the old gramophone and the records, and a widowed aunt. The narrative moves to Black-and-White, showing Animesh stepping into a fracas between the armed police and student activists in Kolkata. He is marked by the police as a student political activist without being one. He moves into the home of his father's friend and develops a deep bonding with his daughter. But they do not fall in love. The culture-shock, when he moves into a student hostel - of waiting in a long queue for morning ablutions, the dilapidated state of the hostel, the general chaos, is soon overcome thanks to his room-mate who boosts his sagging spirits through his beautiful poetry inspired often by his daily quota of country liquor. The shots of the student mess, sometimes captured in top angle, reveal the face of a Kolkata not many are aware of.
      Characters walk in and out of his life, some offering solid support such as his poet-roommate, his parents, and Madhurilata, who falls in love with him, while others, like his political mentors, add more restlessness to his restive soul than bring him peace - mental, emotional or moral. Madhurilata's rebellion, the film quietly, but repeatedly insists, is stronger, bolder but quieter than Animesh's. It is Madhurilata who is and has been always in charge - of her life, of her faith in love, of Animesh and little son Arko's life too. A young woman's individual struggle to stick to her principles, in life or in love, is no less rebellious than a young man's involvement in collective revolution soaked with the blood of human lives.
      Ghosh's music, flowing freely between and among a couple of beautiful Tagore songs, strains of the International played on Animesh's grandfather's old gramophone, songs of revolution, is moving, captivating and functions as an elaboration of the characters. Indranil Mukhopadhyay's cinematography captures the peeling walls of Animesh's hostel room as deftly as it does the yellows, the siennas and the browns of Bolpur, the greenery of the North Bengal forests and top angle shots of a turbulent Kolkata, not to forget the blue sky rising from the river bank in all its placidity. Though the film explores a politically explosive subject, Ghosh has soaked the screenplay with music and poetry as both were synonymous with the time and social ambience of the story. The narrative is dotted with archival stock shots in Black-and-White, used a bit too often, perhaps, than necessary.
      The characterizations come across lucidly. Top marks go to Anandi Ghosh who plays Animesh's close friend, followed by Paoli Dam who, as Madhurilata, not only puts in a dedicated performance, but also surprises everyone with her soulful rendering of Tagore songs. Parambrato is good performance-wise but is weak in terms of his soft, romantic looks that even his hardcore life of an extremist cannot roughen and toughen over time. He appears self-conscious in the love scenes. Rudraneel is wonderful as the poet friend who seeks inspiration from the bottle. Soumitra lends his genius to the character of the cynical grandfather. The police torture is sometimes shown, sometimes kept away, captured through Animesh's emotion-less voice-over saying, "It took me half an hour to reach the toilet from my cell," as the camera shows Animesh dragging himself from cell to toilet and back, his legs crippled forever. Touches that suggest brutal violence instead of showing these graphically, define the signs of the powerful filmmaker that Ghose is.
      So, what's wrong? Kaalbela is a very good film. But, it lacks the power and the force it demands. It spells out the triumph of technology - good music, good sound effects, good production design, excellent dialogue, brilliant acting - over the ability to bring out the core message of the film - a story of the endurance of the human spirit born purely out of one's faith in love which really means, one's faith in oneself. The other lapses are (a) a somewhat loose script that is too verbose in the first half, (b) overlong footage, and (c) the revolutionary leader Sunil-da wearing streaked and tinted hair in 1970!
First appeared in The Statesman
