After Kahaani, Sujoy Ghosh directs an engaging short film with great art work. The figurines are beautiful and true-to-life. The story is a take on Ahalya, a story from The Ramayana and other sources of Indian mythology, about infidelity. While Ahalya gets cursed to be a stone when found in bed with Lord Indra, in the original story, the director explores his creative freedom here to twist things, by coming up with the story and screenplay, to have the actual male sinners themselves bear the consequences.
That it is in Bengali gives it more flavour, with pleasing subtitles. Natural performances by Soumitra Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, and Tota Roy Chowdhury. I also liked that this was directly available on Youtube. Top rated. Short film, short review. :)
And yes, here is a great article that helped me in understanding the film better...
http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/seen-sujoy-ghoshs-ahalya-heres-myth-sex-infidelity-inspired-film-2358486.html
Personally, it helped that I read the link above before watching the film.
I interpreted that the married couple Goutam and Ahalya are in love, here, despite their age gap, and Ahalya just plays along with her husband, who realizes that he is not in a position to offer sexual pleasure to his wife. At the same time, he wants his wife to enjoy her youth (read l-i-b-i-d-o), while not letting go of the male subjects - that choose to sin with her - through punishment. Is that not possession in a villainous, sadistic manner?! Inspector Indra has his choices (and chances) and his fate is decided by what he decides to do. It was also interesting, I thought, that one of the characters in the film is named Arjun. :)
Yes, there is evil and it is subtly eerie. Gosh! A well-laid trap, Ghosh!!
TGIF! Happy weekend!
That it is in Bengali gives it more flavour, with pleasing subtitles. Natural performances by Soumitra Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, and Tota Roy Chowdhury. I also liked that this was directly available on Youtube. Top rated. Short film, short review. :)
And yes, here is a great article that helped me in understanding the film better...
http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/seen-sujoy-ghoshs-ahalya-heres-myth-sex-infidelity-inspired-film-2358486.html
Personally, it helped that I read the link above before watching the film.
I interpreted that the married couple Goutam and Ahalya are in love, here, despite their age gap, and Ahalya just plays along with her husband, who realizes that he is not in a position to offer sexual pleasure to his wife. At the same time, he wants his wife to enjoy her youth (read l-i-b-i-d-o), while not letting go of the male subjects - that choose to sin with her - through punishment. Is that not possession in a villainous, sadistic manner?! Inspector Indra has his choices (and chances) and his fate is decided by what he decides to do. It was also interesting, I thought, that one of the characters in the film is named Arjun. :)
Yes, there is evil and it is subtly eerie. Gosh! A well-laid trap, Ghosh!!
TGIF! Happy weekend!
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