Crowning the wish of Chitrangada…

Lets say that one of the most enigmatic directors of the Indian cinema, Rituporno Ghosh started his journey in this particular film, “Chitrangadaa – The crowning wish”, from where he left his scripts in his earlier acting venture, “Memories in March”. The sensitive notion about sexual preference and choosing one’s identity is the subject of this movie. Rituporno Ghosh, armed with a vast knowledge in cinema, practical wisdom and a perfect insight about this section of the society crafted his story in a commendable screenplay. His direction was exceptional and the frames that comes and goes on the screen gives us a mesmerizing experience as far as watching an outstanding cinema is concerned. The narration and the present story including all the characters were wonderfully show-cased in the film. The experience and creativity of “Rituporno Ghosh” was quite significant in the entire movie. He dominated the sequences on every part of the movie and was quite successful.

A still from the movie..

The epic Mahabharata tells us a story about “Chitrangadaa”, who met Arjun in the woods during his term of exile and falls in love with the dashing archer brother among the Pandavas. She was the princes of Manipura and being the sole heir to the throne his father, the king of Manipura brought her up as his son. She used to dress like a man as well. However, Chitrangadaa was profoundly in love with Arjun and wanted to marry him. She discovered her wish to be like woman and defied her father to marry him. Rituporno Ghosh’s “Chitrangadaa” evidently takes some reference from the epic and also merges Rabindranath Tagore’s musical drama with the same title.

Mr. Anjan Dutt played a casual yet a very “close to my heart” character in this film. Jishu Sengupta (who plays Partho, a drummer) and Raima Sen (Kosturi, a dancer and friend of Partho) also steals the show with their skills and comforting screen presence. Jishu’s acting skills were beautifully highlighted by the director. Kudos! Rituporno, himself did a great job as an actor after “Memories in March”. He looked quite exhausted in some of the scenes which might be because of his age. Otherwise the makeup and styling was special as well. The screenplay is impeccable and I loved the switch of scenes that narrated the story about Rudra, a choreographer and director of a famous dance troop in Kolkata. He is an extremely talented person and professes a creative art form. He is a special person in all other aspects as well. He prefers an identity where he himself will be responsible for his sexual orientation and emotional boundaries. He and Partho falls in love with each other and at a dramatic quandary (which I thought was quite feeble a cause.), Rudra decides to go through a complete medical transformation to be the lady among the two. However, the film gives us some interesting insight of human psychology and describes the end of the story which is quite shocking as far as emotions are concerned and you can easily label the movie as a psychological tragedy.

The film deals with a minor yet significant section of our society who equally has the right to live a life like we do. The classy dialogues, metaphorical explanations (‘spiral staircase’ to site one example), arty references, incredible editing and some stunning cinematography provide the viewers a lot of pleasant feelings which are completely gentle, humane and at par with the taste of the modern creative audience. It is quite evident that Mr. Ghosh has designed this movie (listen how the director feels) like his own child. The hard work in-front of the lens and behind the camera along with the entire effort to convert an idea into a reality should be acknowledged with a round of standing ovation, No words will adequately do justice to define the movie, “Chitrangadaa”. It is more of an organic audio-visual experience than something that can be expressed in phrases and idioms. I would prefer suggesting it to all the film lovers of the country who wishes to watch something interactive in terms of emotion, drama, empathy and creative thoughts when they go to the theater.

My Rating:- 8/10… 🙂 and now you can watch the trailer as well…

Cast & Crew :

Director : Rituparno Ghosh
Producer : Shree Venkatesh Films

Story : Rituparno Ghosh
Cinematographer : Abhik Mukhopadhyay
Editor : Arghyakamal Mitra
Art Director : Indranil Ghosh
Assistant Director : Sanjoy Nag

Star Cast :

Rituparno Ghosh 

Jisshu Sengupta
Raima Sen

Anjan Dutt

Anasuya Majumdar
Dipankar De
Koushik Bandyopadhyay