Mahanagar@Kolkata..

Aangshik Chandragrahan (Partial Lunar Eclipse..!)

Director Suman Mukhopadhyay's Mahanagar@Kolkata is based on three short stories by Nabarun Bhattacharjee that deals with the real and surreal textures of the lives of people living in a metropolitan city! One special aspect of the film which intrigued me a lot is the marvelous depiction of a surrealistic dream sequence in the third part of the story Aangshik Chandragrahan ( Partial Lunar Eclipse)

The self obsessed almost-crazy Rohit (Chandan Roy Sanyal) watches in a hallucinatory trance on the night of a partial lunar eclipse, Rongili (his wife,played by Rituparna Sengupta) consigned to the flames after a series of detailed and cruel rituals in preparation of Sati,the other women's faces are painted in silver to heighten the illusion.Her red sari floats across the funeral pyre, across the burning ghat, to try and find a landing somewhere in the multi-storied block of flats where she began her loveless life with Rohit.

The Sati scene is visually stunning and beautiful but does not relate to Rohit's character, a modern-day, upstart US returned MBA who has hardly had any experience of Sati except from books and hearsay..an insight into the life of a confused young man on-the-go depressed and suicidal because his love life, within marriage and out of it, has gone haywire!!

Which somewhere throws a flash light into the inner psyche of the people living in a urbane world filled with fear,phobia,striving to make it hard,depression,boredom,loveless marital lives,sleeping pills,abortions,childless ness,extra marital affairs etc..