CHITTAGONG (2012)

‘Saans andar saans bahar

Bandook andar goli bahar’

This is the history of unwavering courage and mutiny of a group of young rebels to free Chittagong from British rule in 1930s. Thanks to NDTV and AKFPL, this long awaited Bedabrata Pain’s film seen it’s release finally and it brought to screen the glorious episodic tale with as honesty and as conviction as possible. Imagine the spirit of just fifty or so young boys without any training and with just handful of arms made a blow to British rule. They made successful raid on Police Line, Telephone Exchange, Armoury & European Club house without a single fire of their gun. Their leader a school teacher Surya Sen aka Masterda who told them not to shed blood of innocents irrespective of their Indian or British identity. Their amateur guerrilla army successfully retreat the huge army. And amid all this. the film focuses on a personal story of a young teenage boy of mere fourteen years old who dreamed about Oxford education just like his father who's working as civil servant under Brtitish patronage. But Masterda’s revolutionary flame and mission pushed his soul and spirit to join voluntarily the movement. How he led the movement from there onwards to 1945’s peasant revolution is yet another history to share and Pain tried to represent both within one and half hours duration.  

The film once again brought three terrific actors together who also made their dent in Kashyap’s ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’- Manoj Bajpayee, Nawajuddin Siddiqui & Jaideep Ahlawat (remember Shahid Khan!). Though nobody share much screen time as Pain treated the subject and characters with an equal justice and most actors performed their roles quite convincingly irrespective of short or long space. Shankar-Ehsan-Loy’s music is appropriate to the time and songs don’t create much hindrance as long they stays in narrative. But worthy to mention is the act of youngest actor Delnaz  Hiwale as Jhunku (Subodh Roy); he’s promising boy to look forward. The drama in the later half let loose the grip on narration and editing but not the spirit. After long time Indian screen get back to the glorious chapter of history and this one is surely worthy to watch.  

Ratings-7.5/10