March 29, 2024 20:37 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
PM Modi to kickstart BJP's Lok Sabha poll campaign from Meerut | Kangana Ranaut in Mandi: 'Don't think I am a heroine, consider me as your sister and daughter' | Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav demand high-level probe into Mukhtar Ansari's death | PM Modi has mastered art of manipulating democracy, hurting Constitution: Mallikarjun Kharge | Mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari dies of cardiac arrest at 63
KIFF inaugural film Benche Thakar Gaan addresses reality of senior citizens

KIFF inaugural film Benche Thakar Gaan addresses reality of senior citizens

India Blooms News Service | | 12 Nov 2016, 02:44 pm
Kolkata, Nov 12 (IBNS): No one was more surprised than directors Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha whose new film Benche Thakar Gaan (Song of Life) was chosen to be the inaugural film at the 22nd Kolkata International Film Festival this year.

“This is a universal issue and is not culture-specific or socially specific to India. This is what drew us to make this film,” says Sudeshna who along with her directorial partner Abhijit, have firmly established themselves within contemporary Bengali cinema focussing mainly on relationship films.

The celluloid portrayal of ageing does not sound much of a commercial prospect or as having appeal for the mass audience because the term ‘entertainment’ relates immediately to youth, romance, and an electric energy flowing through a film and lots of sound, action, dance and music.

Benche Thakar Gaan has all of these but the biggest triumph the directors have pulled is the assemblage of some of the best veteran actors of the Bengali stage and screen brought together in the same frame in the same film, minus any ego hang-ups which at least do not come across in the film.

Some of these actors are almost forgotten by contemporary Bengali filmmakers. Acting their real age with characteristic permutations and combinations, they come across differently, spontaneously and naturally in the film. Among them are – Paran Bandopadhyay, Anamika Saha, Sohag Sen, Shankar Mukhopadhyay, Alakananda Roy, Dwijen Banerjee, Ardhendu Banerjee, Indrani Bhattacharya and others.

This film is set within an old age home and its members, each living with their distinct idiosyncrasies that have either grown with age or has been created by age. Their world, a bit out-of-sync because of the strict, autocratic director-founder of the home is turned topsy turvy with the sudden entry of Paromita Sen, a young psychiatrist who has taken up a job at this home to counsel the members who are burdened by a sense of isolation and yet cannot live together in harmony.

“The social system is changing. There are times in our lives when even children with good intentions cannot look after their aging parents and live away from them. What will these parents now do? Will they make the best of their present situation and learn to live Life this time, only for themselves?" asks the director.

"This is what we have tried to address through this film. We are not looking at a hapless group of elderly men and women who have been dumped by their children but the film is also about financially independent senior citizens making a choice to stay away from the younger generation through personal choice,” she sums up.


(Reporting by Shoma A. Chatterji)

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.