'Bondhu' meaning friend, is the current flavour of Bengali masala film-makers of B- and C-grade for their film titles. Who decides this grading? The audience and the critics, of course. If there is little or no audience in the theatre screening a certain film, then there are no guessing games to play about the quality of the film.
Partho Sarathi Joardar’s Bondhu Esho Tumi produced under the banner of MCP Films uses the bondhu in the title quite liberally to include a ‘will-love-you-till-I-die’ relationship between Rahul (Sujoy), the hero and Raima (Tanya) the heroine that happens before you can click your computer mouse. The ‘friendship’ angle does not exist.
Raima is the only sister of a mafia don (Rajesh Sharma) who guards his sister, her movements and her social relationships with the help of his henchmen. Yet, he has no qualms about her western way of dressing in short skirts and hot pants.
When Tanya falls in love with Rahul, he goes crazy with anger and lets his goons out to go get him.
Who is Rahul? He is a good-for-nothing young man who paints in the opening frame of the film but is not a painter. He strums the guitar for a song but is not into music. He attempts to save a man injured in an accident but scuttles off the minute he sees Raima’s car speeding by. His father (Victor Banerjee) is a pigtailed filmmaker stalled from work because no producer will back him. The walls of his living room have a terribly executed sketch of Satyajit Ray and a framed still of the great filmmaker behind the camera. His wife (Tanima Sen) screams high decibels but cannot make a point. How the family kitchen is kept alive would need a detective to find out.
The film is structured to help the editor. The narrative is crowded with three clear slots. The first deals with the love story; the second is about three bumbling friends of Rahul to provide comic relief. The third comprises some botched up song-and-dance sequences flitting between and among Bangkok, Pattaya and Digha.
The narrative cuts between and among these three segments from time to time without either logic or cohesion or symbiosis.
Sometimes, when the director wishes, the script and the camera step into Rahul or Raima’s home to add some more absurdity to the non-existing drama. The end is a happy one for the story, but a very unhappy one for the viewer.
Sujoy, who has fared well in his earlier two films, is a disaster in this one. Tanya also has not been given either make-up or a build-up perhaps to make her look more glamorous than she actually is. She is always all dressed up and ready to go like her sister-in-law (Pulakita) who has little else to do but be badgered by her terrible husband and give simpering looks to express her vulnerability. The three friends give terrible performances right through and could have been dispensed with totally. Tanya talks to her giant-sized teddy like a retard and wears terrible wigs for the song sequences.
Sanchayita’s debut as music director is no great shakes complemented by Priyo Chatterjee’s lyrics.
The moral of the story is – keep away from this film if it is still running in theatres.
Critic: Shoma A. Chatterji
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