Last Lear) films in a consistently exceptional and prolific career of 20 films in two
decades.
Back home, on the sets in Kolkata, Ghosh had just wrapped a thriller, a genre he
was returning to after a long gap since that ‘sweet surprise‛ of Shubho Mahurat.
He had adapted another adventure of the fictional Bengali detective Byomkesh
Bakshi to the screen with Satyanweshi. In an unusual casting of sorts, the film had
Bollywood director Sujoy Ghosh (of Kahaani fame), play the lead.
Ghosh next wanted to adapt more tales by Rabindranath (starting with
Kabuliwallah), in spite of the criticism at home for his ‘sexually charged‛
adaptations of Tagore‛s Chokher Bali and Noukadubi.
Rude fate interruptions in moments like this that bring an abrupt end to many a
fan and industry dream, make one indulgently reflect on a raconteur‛s bequest.
The problem in evaluating the oeuvre of a talented filmmaker of so many tales,
genres and reputations like Rituparno Ghosh is about what exactly would be his
most definitive signature for posterity.
Is the greatest mark of his auteurship his iconic rise through the turn of the
millennium in the nineties and subsequent defining of the narrative space in Bengali
Art Cinema for its 21st century movie makers? Credit goes to Ghosh for skewing
his exploration of Kolkata from the socio-political and/or correctional concerns of
the most influential generation of Bengali auteurs led by Satyajit Ray and Mrinal
Sen to a more intimate celebration of the personal.
Ghosh‛s first films, his initial explorative odes to
and around the Kolkata film industry, with the
exception of Dahan (1997), had always fashioned
themselves around a familiar professional backdrop,
the performing arts – cinema, theatre and their
points of their intersection. These were generally
seen through their shaping the life or personality of
a ‘survivor‛ player – Unishe April (1994), Bariwali and
Asukh (1999), Shubho Mahurat (2003), The Last
Lear (2007), Sab Charitro Kalponik (2008),
Abohoman (2010). Are these ‘revealing‛ movies on
movie making, along with their intimate and
uncomfortable perspectives, his greatest legacy to a
genre woefully deficient in Indian cinema (with few
and far between exceptions like Kaagaz Ke Phool,
Harishchandrachi Factory or Celluloid)?
Or is Ghosh‛s lasting signature his uninhibited and incisive exploration of the
36