The Sole Witness

Gei Oni

A scene from Gei Oni

The story of “Gey Oni” is an historical epic which interweaves the story of the first wave of Jewish European migration to Palestine, at the end of the 19th century, with an unusual love story between Fania, a young Russian immigrant, and Yechiel, a native Jew. Fania has a secret about herself which she keeps abstracted from Yechiel until the climax and then they live happily ever after.

I guess we should officially declare a film genre called “immigration films” because there are just too many of them and each one is equally a learning experience for history lovers like me. The film effectively showcased cultures of the parts of earth abstracted from us. It also invoked me to read more about the Jewish migration and the atrocities they faced from other communities and that was saddening.

The film was a drag and passive at few times. It doesn’t tell a tightly bound story instead portrays effect of the social upheaval on the relationships among the characters in the film.

Boatwreck/Naukadoobi

A scene from Naukadoobi

Naukadoobi, is based on Tagore’s novel and adapted by Rituparna Ghosh into a full-fledged feature film. The protagonist Ramesh who is in love with a girl named Hemnalini, agrees to marry to another girl chosen for him by his father who is a complete stranger to Ramesh. While they are returning to their village after Ramesh’s marriage function, the boat in which they are travelling gets drowned. Ramesh survives from the tragic incident while his father is dead. He finds himself besides a girl Kamala, who is draped in wedding attire. He brings her home as his wife.

But his original love for Hemnalini doesn’t let him rest and while he tries to keep his marriage news secret, he asks Hemnalini to marry him. Later his secret is revealed by Hemnalini’s brother and this mentally affects her and the marriage is cancelled. Ramesh decides to start a new life with Kamala after moving out from Calcutta.

Hemnalini, with her father, goes to Kashi for a sabbatical where she meets a doctor and starts liking him. Here, Kamala while glancing through an old newspaper comes to know that Ramesh wasn’t the one destined to marry her! Will she find her real husband? What happens to Ramesh? To find answers these doubts, watch the film (which I hear will also be dubbed in Hindi and released on 23^rd January).

The story is awesome and the cinematography is also a visual treat. The performances by the actors are also superb. Rituparno always reveals the acting potentials of his actresses and this time its Riya Sen here. Didn’t expect her to be so expressive through her eyes(and not anything else :p) and a totally different portrayal compared to her bollywood flicks. Only issue was the movie proceeds at slow pace and looks dragged at the end. But as they said, the film was ready the night before the premiere, it can be excused. I still expect Rituparno to edit it more and make it more gripping like his other films.