As far as only film-making values go, AntarMahal is one of the top three films (with unishe April & bariwali) from one of contemporary India's most exciting directors. However, in trying to remain true to their artistic goals, the makers of this film have had to eschew a lot of compromises that usually make such works palatable to larger audiences. Kudos to them for that, and I just hope that the existing market is mature enough to encourage such a film by providing enough viewers for it.
Now the qualifications that one needs to be satisfy to be able to enjoy this film are a bit narrow: these include a good knowledge of idiomatic Bengali and slang, as well as enough idea of the society of feudal Bengal to understand the cultural and class stereotypes and unspoken attitudes. Apart from this, the viewer would need to be able to sit through potentially offensive incidents and dialog instead of running away crying 'help, p0rn'! To give an idea, a parallel may drawn --- only regarding the use of sexual situations and dialog --- with Clerks II ...it will offend a lot of people who can not see past the profanity into the profound that it shapes. This means that the film watching experience of such a viewer would have to be a bit wider than most people who satisfy the first criterion.
The acting performance of Roopa Ganguly is worth mentioning, for making great use of a very fulfilling role. Among the other leads, Jackie Shroff did a pretty good (though it is a long way from understated), and the castings of Abhishek and Soha work great, not least because of their looks. It's a bit funny how they both manage to evoke memories of their illustrious parents in many of the scenes...one is unlikely to forget that AB-Jr has his father's eyes after this film. And you'll want to go watch Devi again just to check if there's something in Sharmila's gestures that has not been reused by Soha here. The rest of cast does pretty well, too. The editing is taut, as with all Rituparno's works. The cinematography is good, and even though in some scenes the underlining gets a bit too vivid, the music is mostly unobtrusive, leaving the dialog room to breathe. And the dialog is what makes this film work. As mentioned before, it is very much rooted in Bengali colloquialisms and cultural references. And this is also what makes the film weak for non-Bengali-speaking viewers...generously helped by the dismal subtitling. The nuances are hard to translate to begging with, but it's even harder to worse job than is done here (see below).
**Minor spoilers through quotes**
One major gripe remains the quality of subtitles, though (which is surprising a big problem with so many Indian films). Even if you leave aside inane translations that rip out every nuance from the dialog (e.g. 'dhoNra saap dhoNra saap-i thakbe' -- 'a poison-less snake will always remain so'-- is subtitled as 'our husband is a poison-less snake...') they even manage to screw up the subtitling of the __English__ dialogs!!! Those are more jarring since often the English narration happens with little action on the screen, which makes it hard to ignore the subtitles. And the sad part is that so little of it comes from typos! Which means that this is meticulously created nonsense, not a result of carelessness. Here are a few gems: onerous --> 'honorous'??? excess --> access intent --> intend saw --> so 'i thought to see great things' --> 'i thought the secret things'
Also, who knows why they have to translate 'barbaric ritual' to a 'power-packed ritual'? Audience sensitivity? I suppose that the Bengali audiences watching without subtitles are unlikely to understand the spoken English , while you are asking for trouble once you write it out in the subtitle?
Perhaps it all comes from an underpaid frustrated subtitle-writer trying to extract revenge, or maybe to covet glory by adding an extra comical layer to what is, left to itself, just a nuanced, multi-layered, intelligent, provocative, powerful and yes, funny, film.
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