ANSHUMAN CHAKRABORTY

On a balmy summer afternoon in a city known for its largesse as well as its ruthlessness, what better way there is where a chaotic mind can conceive of going through the motions other than watching a film?
What has one got to lose: it’s a short film clocking under twenty minutes, has a reputation of a good run at the short film festivals, has been recommended by a certified, thick skinned, authoritative cinephile and last but not the least, the holy grail of motives: a selection at the festival de Cannes.
Thus, motivated enough, I hit the play button.
And I finished it five minutes ago.
And this is the first time I am reviewing a short film.
In my entire life.
‘Ei Taxi’ is a trip down the abyss of the human mind, a whirlwind, hypnotic plunge with adequate glimpses of the flotsam, jetsam and the vast, amorphous unknown, everything that is beyond, down-under, faraway. Brilliantly conveyed through its visuals, replete with lurid neon-hurls, a world of bokeh with a life and motive of its own with close ups that are savage and relentless, the film creates a world of overwhelming sensory experience. Once garish, once perverse and once entrancing, even immersive, the film is an answer to endless questions that the viewer is forced to ask.
Some questions that will be asked will hover atop the realm of logic, while others will float above the domain of phenomenon, plausibility. And for some, the film will pose stark questions that will go further into the intangible space and question the very nature of reality. And that is where the film works its way through uncomplicated labyrinths that eventually push open the cellar doors of mind. And that is reason it stays with you. The setting and the characterization are real, to a terrorizing extent. Shantanu is spot on in his portrayal, almost scary in his conviction. You can almost smell his reek post a long, humid day in the oppressive Calcutta heat. His loneliness is tangible and it caresses you in strange places you did not know you had in you. Anuradha is enigmatic, bordering on a kitsch caricature, an old-world pulp magazine side attraction. That works massively by holding the narrative taut and yet leaving enough space for your imagination to pirouette. Her second avatar is remarkable in that setting and that addition shifts the weight of the whole story with such ease that you are forced to consider the possibility of déjà vu. Or the lack of it. The dialogues are quotidian yet cryptic. The pacing is fluid and fleeting and the editing is a mix of the cohesive and loosely subtle, that makes the viewer question the nature of temporality. The background score, a mix of old Jazz and funk, compliments the whole film, sets the Ftone, taking the visual trip into an aural frenzy, at once ebbing and flowing.
If Scorsese, Michael Chapman and Paul Schrader would take late night strolls around Calcutta in those infamous areas, they might definitely will the film to materialize from air.
All I can say is: Happy viewing, questioning and threading the elements. Enjoy doing the same thing again in a Sisyphean loop, exploring in a world that is existentially porous and ambiguous. And try and demystify the common in your common way.
To each his own cinema. To each his own question.
Thank you Anshuman Chakraborty. Godspeed.

Of course the context was sex.
It always is when you are a teenager, full of infantile angst, infinite curiosity and mighty floods of testosterone in your blazing bloodstream. Sonagacchi.
I was thirteen when I heard this word for the first time. Boys a little older than us would regal us their tales of carnal salvation which took us down joyous flights of fantasy. There were allusions, analogies and breathtaking details of the experience. Of the beauty of the women who dwelled this alternate universe. Sonagacchi was my rite to passage, where the oral history from the initiated introduced someone, albeit vicariously, to the intimate world of sex.
Or fucking.
There were more tales. Someone even told me I could find Bollywood siren-lookalikes peeping through the tiny windows there. That intrigued me deeply, but life had other plans. I could never make the trip.
Neither could I manage to watch a documentary film for the first twenty five years of my life. I am not counting watching reruns on National geographic and Discovery channel while stuffing food into your mouth minutes before school.
My first documentary film was ‘Titicut Follies’ in 2014, months after I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I could not go beyond the first fifteen minutes.
My second was ‘Encounters at the End of The World’ by the monolith known as Werner Herzog. It was 2015.
My third was ‘Burden of Dreams’ which I watched with someone very close to me, someone who claimed to love films. I was overwhelmed and that did not make much sense to her. That day, I realized for the first time something about me: I would rather get shot as a photojournalist chasing a store in war-torn Libya than die of a heroin overdose after a fashion shoot in Diu. I somehow associated myself more as a documentary filmmaker than a commercial one.
And tonight, I watched my fourth.
None of the above made me cry.
This one did. Just a bit, but enough.
This film is called ‘Paradise Lost Children’. Tonight Sonagacchi revisited me and wrung me at my most vulnerable spot which was not even formed nearly one and half decades ago. And that was entirely made possible because of a man I spoke to for the first time tonight: Anshuman Chakraborty. A reticent man who speaks with warmth and affection, he wanted me to watch his film.
I wondered why then.
Now I know: because no one ever got to see it beyond a handful of people. Stuck in developmental hell for over two years, the film finally got finished last year. One can imagine the disillusionment of the maker.
When I first saw the name of the documentary, I questioned the grammatical accuracy and told myself the fact that maybe the maker did not care.
But when you watch this labour of love, you will see the exact opposite. You will realize how words are redundant, when your grammar is the sheer amorous juxtaposition of image and sound. And storytelling.
Crafted with painstaking detail, infinite human warmth and poetry of every form conceivable, 'Paradise Lost Children' made me pine for that world: Sonagacchi. The film is not about prostitution. Or prostitutes. It’s not about their plight or their fight.
It’s rather about the posterity, from one such generation, that is caught in limbo in that dimension.
The film follows two friends from that world and chronicles their lives during Durga Puja. And in that process it takes you on a tediously evocative, emotionally taxing journey through that world and its denizens, especially these two young boys. When I first saw the protagonist, I already had a film of moisture. His earnestness, his worldview and his world along with his place in it just made me aware of several things, of human existence: mine, his and everyone else’s.
Written with aching honesty and lucid beauty, lavishly drenched in nostalgia in its most tangible form, the film gives one heady nostalgia, surging phases of contemplation and much to ponder upon. It certainly made me want to head to that part of the world and embrace it with all my heart. So that it can be broken only to be resurrected. One can only hope for that.
Brilliantly shot, the film is seldom intimate beyond a certain level comfort. Or discomfort. Equidistant from an emotional point at all times, the use of wide lenses makes you spatially aware in a way that helps you understand this world in an acutely physical way. You follow them, dwell upon them and then trace your way back. I have rarely felt this immersed in a world that already exists geographically, a few thousand kilometers away and is a day’s journey away from me at any time. The Calcutta in the film is there and yet, beyond my reach and its reality is a fever dream for me, not in a hackneyed moment of weakness and general affinity for sob stories of destitute, but rather in a profound sense of existence that is beyond labels, constructs, boundaries. That evocation for me is pure impulse, pure craft and that alone makes a film stand the test of time. The editing is superlative with languid static shots and juxtaposition of the images, of the animate and the inanimate, The sound design is impeccable that amply uses the festive soundscape and takes you there. Over the course of the film, the young protagonist and his friend single-handedly become team Atlas and carry the immense weight of this and share their dreams and plans with moderate ambition and a certain reverence that touches you. In some way. Any way. And lastly, for the sheer heroism and relentless effort of the writer-director of the film. My heart goes to him and a stranger from early this evening has now acquired a new status in my fragile world peopled with renegades and artists.
I am no film theorist nor am I a cinephile. I don’t make any claims or assumptions as the film has faded away from my immediate peripheral awareness which gives me a certain objectivity now.
And with that, I can safely say one thing: it should be watched.
By the old world Bengaii families, displaced, living elsewhere.
By the second generation of all such families. And the third. And the latest.
By non-Bengalis who identify a culture by its poster boys and one dimensional history lessons.
By people who drug themselves post siestas on lazy days with nostalgia.
By pheromone-driven teenagers who want a tryst with Eros, Satyr and Pan in seedy windowless rooms in a world that has not cosmetically evolved much over the years.
By people who are aware of life. And what it comes with.
By people. In general. To experience, to gain access and a certain perspective.
Thank you Anshuman Chakraborty and team. For this wonderful effort. For making me understand my space in this world better. And in that world too.
Thank you Srijit Basu for showing the way. I am deeply honoured and immensely rejuvenated. That's what spirit-mates do.
Take a bow.

her version :
" Another character of final preview copy is the delightful depiction for cine lovers. The very title justifies the narrative which has been presented in a very effective way, it evokes the inquisitiveness of the audience. The presence of another character has been convincingly portrayed by the brilliant sound track (voice over) of the unseen character. The entire mystery is nicely created by the skillful handling of the camera, sound,editing & acting. Varing shades of mystery is the striking factor of this short film & the climax hits the bull's eye. It is a mature work of Director Anshuman Chakraborty"

IMDB ID: tt9199604