Despite
being part of one of the oldest film industries in the country, Bengali movies
somehow missed the limelight. Fortunately, the trend has changed, and people
featuring in Tollywood Celeb gallery are given the same acclamation, just like
any other national mega stars.
Bengali
film industry is getting its momentum back and perhaps the lost glory as well.
Riding on experimental movie treatments, anything that involves offbeat
storyline, cinematography, character highlighting, and music compositions and
so on, it’s a welcome change that was desperately needed. When you see such a
craze for tollywood celeb
gallery these days, consider films some 10-15 years back. The same
revenge centric and melodramatic cock and bull stories were served again and
again. Some of the directors even used
to shoot two different films on the same set with same outfits and actors, with
a motive of cost cutting. Substandard was still an understatement to define
movies those days.
Such a
void in quality creativity was expected, especially when the earlier generation
saw a team of geniuses was available in segments of film making. Think about
the time period from 50’s to late 70’s,which saw some of the masterpieces like Sapatapadi to Saat Pake Bandha to Indrani,
and you are still glued to the television set whenever such classics are
telecast. Bollywood film directors and producers had no hesitations to get inspiration from such quality works; Nishi Padma - Amar parem, Golpo Holeo Sotti-
Bawarchi, Chhadmabeshi - Chupke Chupke the list will be unending. When you see a filmy environment that accommodates matinee idols like Uttam Kumar and Soumitra Chatterjee, golden voices like Hemanta Mukhopadhya and Manna Dey with Shyamol Mitra and Manabendra
Mukherjee, Composition maestros like Sudhin
Dasgupta with Nachiketa Ghosh, living
institutions for acting like Chhabi Biswas
and Kamal Mitra with Bhanu
Bandyophdhyaya with Rabi Ghosh, you
can imagine its richness. When you are amazed with the Tollywood Celebrity list studded with modern day silver screen
scorchers, right from Rituparna Sengupta to
Koel Mallick, imagine what ripples
had Suchitra Sen, Supriya Devi, Sabitri
Chatterjee and Company created in those days.
Intelligent treatment with a strong cultural
flavor was always the signature stamp of Bengali movie directors. From Ajay Kar to Tarun Majumdar, this trend remained the same for commercial flicks,
while Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik
Ghatak, Tapan Sinha, Buddhadeb Dasgupta redefined the concept of
alternative movies. In the modern times, directors whom you see in Bengali
movie fraternity regularly, right
from Rituporno Ghosh to Raj Chakrabarty
to Srijit Mukhrejee, have actually blended these two different styles. And
their efforts are, so far, really incredible and impressive. Especially when
you see the quality difference between any movies from 90’s with Autograph, for example.