Yesterday I was watching Saant Paanke Baandha never having seen it before, and I was surprised how nuanced the story was and how beautiful Suchitra and Soumitra acted. Specially Suchitra who went beyond her image of superstar and so subtly portrayed the pain, conflict, determination and helplessness of a young woman who is caught between her husband and her mother and wants to have life and career of her own! She totally shadowed Soumitra whom I consider one of the greatest actor ever walked on the earth. And mind you we are talking about 60s society and it's a commercial movie which did good business and not something which was limited to coffee house intellectuals.
And when I look at today's movies, even counting out the garbage by dev, jit et al, even so called good directors can't go beyond usual concoction of slangs, extra marital, smoking which according to them I guess portrays the life and struggle of a modern forward thinking woman. Not that I'm judging or opposed to women or men for that matter having fun, having my fair share of sins myself, but bengali movies these days, even the ones made for multiplexes are as subtle as sledgehammer!!
