The making of a don, the mafia in Kolkata, cops, gunfire and revenge — Rajesh Ganguly’s Bengali language period thriller Chengiz wanted to make waves not just in West Bengal but across India. And it wasn’t the only ‘big’ Bengali film released this year with similar ambitions. Aritra Mukherjee’s Fatafati on a plus-sized influencer and the detective drama The Eken: Ruddhaswas Rajasthan were also declared hits.
But they made no ripples in mainstream popular culture outside of West Bengal, and could not compete with South Indian films that have the Hindi belt hooked. None of the films could capture the Bengali aesthetic of angst, longing for a lost world, dysfunctional relationships, family dynamics or the relationship with the city of Kolkata in a powerful way.
Bengali cinema, one defined by Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, and later Rituparno Ghosh, seems to have lost its way.
“Bengali directors do not have a signature style any more, the way it was with Rituparno or even Ghatak. It is often being sacrificed for commercial success,” said Aniruddha Dhar, a senior film critic. And those that are declared hits or commercial successes are poor imitations of Bollywood.
The quintessential Bengali protagonist was a cultured but torn and tortured soul on a quest of self-discovery. Now, they are merely confused young men caught between traditions and modernity — a mere shadow of their predecessors. It seems as if the old familiar trope has disappeared with Rituparno Ghosh’s demise. And the Bengali film industry has since then looked for box office success over anything else while catering to the Instagram generation.
As many as a hundred Bengali language films have been released since January 2022, but not a single one stood out for film critic Shantanu Ray Chaudhari.
“The state of the industry can be gauged from the fact that I found it difficult to conjure a list of even five good films that made the cut and that could hold a candle to some of the fascinating ones from the south,” wrote Ray Chaudhari.
Bengali cinema is facing a crisis: Nobody talks about it anymore.
The state of the industry can be gauged from the fact that I found it difficult to conjure a list of even five good films that made the cut and that could hold a candle to some of the fascinating ones from the south
— Shantanu Ray Chaudhari, film critic
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Of flying cars and heroes
It’s not as if the films have been raking in profit at the box office either. The period action movie, Chengiz, which was one of the highest grossing Bengali films released this year, earned around Rs 6.25 core at the box office—and cost as much as Rs 10 crore to make.
Fatafati’s lead character Fullora (Ritabhari Chakraborty), a plus-size small-town tailor with influencer dreams, won the hearts of the audience and critics, but it did not push the envelope to explore the impact of body shaming and how women face this all the time.
“Fashion is not about how chubby or slim you are. It is about celebrating yourself,” said Fullora, who has a gift for designing clothes, but is ridiculed for being overweight. There were claps and whoops in the theatre towards the end of the film. The movie completed 75 days on screen, a feat that has made Sony Liv acquire it for an OTT release in August 2023. But it earned only about Rs 1.5 crore at the box office, according to IMDB.
It’s no surprise that Bollywood produced some of the highest grossing films with Jawan (Rs 1,160 cr) and Pathaan (Rs 1,050.30 cr). But almost all the other film industries from Mollywood to Sandalwood have outperformed West Bengal. Top Gujarati, Marathi and Punjabi films had an earning range of Rs 34-102 crore, compared to Chengiz (Rs 6.25 crore).
Theatres in West Bengal—both single screens and multiplexes—are still relying on the likes of Pathaan or an RRR to rake in profit.
“The Bengali film industry is bankrupt,” filmmaker Goutam Ghose declared in a 2022 interview with The Week. He went on to describe how his friends in the international film fraternity ask him why they are unable to see a good Bengali film. “It makes me speechless,” he added.
When movies do dive deep into Bengali essentialism, they tend to be unrelatable to a large audience. They often are inside-baseball plots.
“Bengali films also tend to be very hyperlocal in the sense that if you are not one, you might not understand some of the references. It has happened to me,” said Paroma Neotia, a 27-year-old film director and producer, whose debut directorial venture, Mithye Premer Gaan was released in January this year. Aimed at a younger generation, the film is about a shy, introverted musician played by Anirban Bhattacharya, who falls in love with a young, ambitious working woman Anwesha (Ishaa Saha). But it did not have a successful run at the box office, and earned only Rs 0.33 crore, while its budget was Rs 5 crore.
Theatres in West Bengal—both single screens and multiplexes—are still relying on the likes of Pathaan or an RRR to rake in profit.
“Even if someone said [that a film has been running for 30 days or 70 days], what it might simply mean is that a film is running on one or two screens somewhere. It does not necessarily mean big money,” said Arijit Dutta, MD of Priya Entertainments Pvt Ltd (PEPL), and owner of the iconic PRIYA Cinema in Kolkata.
Single screens in Bengal have been regularly shutting down since 2012. Despite Shree Venkatesh Films’ initiative to open halls beyond Kolkata, the movie-going audience in the state is mostly restricted to Kolkata and neighbouring urban spaces like Barrackpore, Asansol and Durgapur.
For Bengali directors — from new entrants like Neotia to even seasoned filmmakers like Arindam Sil, making a movie at this point is no short of a gamble. “We are yet to understand what sells,” said Neotia. Directors want the attention of the young and the restless, but they have moved on to OTT series like Noshtoneer and Indubala Bhater Hotel.
Bengali intellectualism, or bangaliyana, understood in terms of acute knowledge of culture, and investment in it, have been a staple of the state’s films. There is also the idea of ‘Bongness’, a reference to probashi or NRI Bengalis, and often used to define the younger generation, who are more ‘modern’ in their outlook.
“Ultimately it is the upper caste and class who are the directors, actors and screenwriters in Bengal,” said Madhuja Mukherjee, associate professor of Film Studies at Jadavpur University. It’s a tight circle that doesn’t welcome people who don’t conform.
Director Quashiq Mukherjee, better known as Q, said he has never been allowed to be a part of the industry. The indie film director, known for his controversial film Gandu, has been shunned.
“It’s a very close-knit space, belonging to a certain class and caste, and they won’t let you in,” he said. Even actors who worked with him on his films struggled to find work elsewhere. “They had to violently disengage from me, to get work,” he alleged.
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Of flying cars and heroes
Many critics trace the beginning of the decline to the late 1990s when Bengali commercial films started drawing heavily from their counterparts in the south, be it Tamil, Kannada or Telugu films. Suddenly cars flying and unbelievable action scenes were transplanted into Bengali films. For a while it worked at the box office. It was such a hit formula, that the trend continued well into the 2000s, with films like Devddot (2005), Challenge (2009), Chirodini Tumi Je Amar (2008).
“Our films became mindless adaptations of Tamil and Telugu films, without any creativity. It gave short-term gains, with profits from the rural belt,” Goutam Ghose had said in the 2022 interview.
With OTT and streaming platforms yet to establish a strong presence, disenchanted viewers turned elsewhere. “Bengali telefilms became a phenomenon and created a new audience who were disgusted by the kind of films being made in the 1990s and 2000s,” said national-award winning director Atanu Ghosh.
But even post the 2000s, commercial cinema never really revived itself, except for a stray film here and there, like Chenghiz. “The entire territory of commercial films has now shifted to urban Bengali films,” said actor-director Anirban Bhattacharya in an interview.
Giving example of the Allu-Arjun starrer Pushpa, one of the biggest hits of 2021, whose album also was a massive hit, Anirban also pointed out that the music production in Bengali films have slipped.
Our films became mindless adaptations of Tamil and Telugu films, without any creativity. It gave short-term gains, with profits from the rural belt
–Goutam Ghose, filmmaker
“There has to be a supply of cinema too, to complement the songs,” he said. With fewer commercial hits, movie songs too have dwindled, in both quality and quantity.
Bengali commercial hits of the 80s and 90s, films like Shatru (1984), LaaL paan Bibi (1988) or the 90s phase ruled mostly by Prosenjit Chatterjee’s films like Rakte Lekha (1992) and Nag Panchami (1994) relied heavily on their songs becoming massive hits, and those blaring in Pujo pandals or weddings meant that the film too, would achieve commercial success. In the absence of this wonder recipe, a lot of revenue of the industry is lost.
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Where are the women storytellers?
Bengali films are almost always dominated by strong female characters who are still the flag bearers of women’s rights. It’s given us role models like Arati Mazumder in Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (1963) who fights her conservative middle-class family to take up a job as a saleswoman. More than 40 years later, Konkana Sen Sharma’s Kaberi in Rituparno Ghosh’s Dosar (2006) divided viewers as she’s caught between caring for her ill husband and leaving him after she learns of his extra-marital affair. But for all this, there are still very few women storytellers and directors.
The irony is not lost on filmmakers, writers, critics and viewers. One of the few women stalwarts is Aparna Sen whose gaze from behind the camera is as powerful as her acting. Many of her films like 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Paroma (1985), Paromitar Ek Din (2000) and Iti Mrinalini (2012) have strong female leads who explore their sexuality, morality and autonomy, often outshining their male counterparts. But even Sen, whose last Bengali film was an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Ghare Baire, delivered her best directorial outputs in Bengali in the early 2000s.
“It is not just directors, it is the same in other aspects too, be it editing or other aspects of filmmaking,” said director Anirban Sil. While that may be true of most industries, in Bengal, the lack seems glaring and in contrast to its otherwise, supposedly intellectual and forward-thinking content.
The other woman making waves in Bengali cinema is Nandita Roy, who only collaborates with actor and director Shiboprasad Mukherjee. She made her directorial debut with the hugely popular Icche (2011). Based on Suchitra Bhattacharya’s novel, it explores the relationship of an obsessive mother’s ambitions for her only son who has an easy-going approach to life like his father. Since then, Roy and Mukherjee have delivered multiple hits like Bela Seshe (2015) Posto (2017), and Praktan (2016), which was remade by Pushpdeep Bharadwaj in Hindi as Jalebi (2018).
Through their films, Roy and Mukherjee explore fraught family relationships with tact and just the right amount of drama. In Bela Seshe, for instance, they look at what happens when an elderly couple seek to end their marriage after five decades. The film, starring Soumitro Chatterjee and Swatilekha Sengupta, ran for more than 200 days, and set a record in the Bengali box office.
Posto is about a grandfather (Soumitra Chatterjee) who fights his son and daughter-in-law for the custody of his grandson. It earned over Rs 7 crore at the West Bengal box office, and became one of the highest-grossing Bengali films that year.
“We merely try to touch the audience’s heart. When the audience relates to the subject, it immediately becomes a commercial success,” said Roy in an interview with Filmfare.
The Roy-Mukherjee collaboration has managed to pull out the industry from its financial crisis, but their success is limited to West Bengal. Melodrama tends to be a quintessential feature of their films, and overshadows the genius of storytelling.
While their films have definitely found its audience in the state, they are yet to find a voice that resonates with the rest of the country, without being remade.
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Tributes and detectives
In the absence of new content, audiences are sought to be wooed with a dose of nostalgia, in the form of new tributes to Bengali movie maestros, be it Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak or even Uttam Kumar.
Films that hope to ride on the coattails of these cinematic geniuses end up working at the box office. In 2014, Srijit Mukherjee’s Autograph (2010), a tribute to Satyajit Ray’s 1966 film Nayak was a smash hit. One of the highest grossers in 2022, Anik Dutta’s Aparajito is a tribute to Ray and chronicles the making of his path-breaking film, Pather Panchali (1955).
Even Satyajit ray made commercially successful detective films. But they were made without sacrificing his sensibility, and yet were also easily understood by the masses. Now, filmmakers in Bengal lack that
— Subhrajit Mitra, maker of Avijatrik
And when all else fails, detective films are the way to a viewer’s heart. Ray’s Feluda and Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi are evergreen heroes. This year, The Eken: Ruddhaswas Rajasthan, was the most popular offering in the genre, while in 2022 Karnasubarner Guptodhon (2022), a film about finding a treasure related to King Shashanka of the Gauda kingdom, and starring Abir Chatterjee earned Rs 9.2 crore.
“Even Satyajit ray made commercially successful detective films. But they were made without sacrificing his sensibility, and yet were also easily understood by the masses. Now, filmmakers in Bengal lack that,” said Subhrajit Mitra, whose film Avijatrik won the National award for best Bengali film last year.
While the original stories have been adapted to new sensibilities, or even timelines, there has been a complacency toward trying anything new, beyond detective films. “Everyone has gotten comfortable, instead of challenging themselves,” added Mitra.
There is also the case of financing. Most films in Bengal are being made, pre-sold to some OTT or TV channel. This results in filmmaking that is cautious of the predetermined profit margins, which limits the scope of the content and storytelling. Ironical enough, the profits are elusive.
“We are all busy trying to figure out what it will take for people to opt for cinematic experience, and no one has any answer,” said Neotia.
There is unanimous consensus that content is king. But everyone is scratching their heads to figure out a formula to find which content will rake in money and praise.
But Dhar has an answer—language and literature.
“Creating a character needs a writer, but filmmakers are writing their own stories. There is no literature in their thoughts,” said Dhar.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)