Swabhumi Bengali Movie
Frustrations, political upheavals and the severities of the social issues have been haunting Bengal for a very long time. Director Ujjal Chatterjee in Swabhoomi brings the unrest into the Centre stage and welcomes one to witness a piece of Nandigram. Based on Mahasweta Devi's novel, 'Adhoba' Swabhoomi tells the story of Shyamali Pramanik, who lost her husband during the violent political disturbances in Nandigram. When her husband's body was recovered after this gruesome struggle, two other women also claimed him as their husband. With this turn of events, Shyamali remained neither a married woman, nor even a widow, but somebody caught in between - an 'adhoba'.
The film caught the struggle of a woman and her tryst with the society. At several instances the film reminded me of the story of Dakhal. The brilliant insights that Ghosh brought in that film were truly disturbing and brought out the severity of a woman's suffering too well. Swabhoomi fails to impress with such clarity and precision and is definitely filled with too much of everything. Of course an item number, in a film dealing with such a serious topic was truly misleading and difficult to digest.
Director Ujjal Chatterjee fails to capture the importance and urgency of such a serious and bizarre event and finally leads us to something truly colourful, with all the wrong colours. Debosree Roy, as the protagonist Saraswati, tries hard to depict the torment of the woman trying to claim her husband's body. Background music and sudden popping of songs is truly annoying and leaves one feeling confused. Is it a film based on devastating insights of land acquisition or an ordinary story? Wish we could actually question director Ujjal Chatterjee the same in person.
Apart from the terrible direction and inability of the director to establish the story, editing is also poor and a botheration. Chatterjee took the refuge of a league of exceptionally talented actors, maybe he wanted a cover up for all the flaws. Unfortunately everything fails miserably. Except for Debesh as Saraswati's husband and Barun Chanda as the CM, nobody stands out. Jackie Shroff, as an encounter specialist, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Satabdi Roy are no better and adds to this floating ship in their own good way.
There is nothing to conclude for a film like Swabhoomi. The only point that Director Ujjal Chatterjee deserves is for a research that he carried out over the years and also the choice of such a powerful novel. It's better to read the novel 'Adhoba', rather than watching Director Ujjal Chatterjee's Swabhoomi
