Film: Teenkahon

Directed by:  Bauddhayan Mukherji

Produced by: Monalisa Mukherji

Rating: 

Screenplay by: Abhinandan Banerjee, Bauddhayan Mukherji

Story by: Bhibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyay, Syed Mustafa Siraj

Starring: Suman Mukhopadhyay, Kharaj Mukherji, Rituparna Sengupta, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Manasi Sinha

Music by: Arnab Chakraborty

Cinematography: Abhik Mukhopadhyay

Edited by: Arghyakamal Mitra

Production Company: Little Lamb Films

Genre: Mystery – drama 

Story: Teenkahon is a ‘Triptych’ document flavoured with social bends and turns that has humbly made an attempt in portraying the alternating faces of mortality, degeneration of values and changing social structure through three independent stories- Nabalok, Post Mortem and Telephone. ‘Nabalok’, which is the first section of the three-part anthology, is the story that revolves around a ‘boy’ with its narrative technique as that of the classical pattern of filmmaking back during the late ‘40s and ‘50s. Shifting to the next section, ‘Post Mortem’ is the claustrophobic single-room drama that made the viewers visualize the estranged conversation in between two men on the day of devastating 1978 Calcutta floods. The third segment ‘Telephone’, wraps up the choppy emotional yanks of 2013 Calcutta in the light of technological evolution and its progress. A concoction of the stories composed by Bhibhutibhushan Mukhopadhyay and Syed Mustafa Siraj, ‘Teenkahon’ is a subtle execution of human relationships.

Review: ‘Nabalok’ has invoked the memories of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ (1955) sketching its tale in the backdrop of then society. The setting has been beautifully crafted in the ‘50s rural Bengal, the barren Bengal, that was deprived from electricity and cursed with rough roads. The background sitar score has added on to the taste more. This is the segment which has offered a balmy salute on behalf of the director to one of the greatest directors of all time, ‘Satyajit Ray’.The ride from ‘Nabalok’ to ‘Post Mortem’ will take the viewers into a completely different landscape of ‘70s radical, shaky Calcutta. The plot shapes into a different shade when the tense encounter in between the lover and the husband lands up into an emotional catharsis on the next day of the wife’s death. The tormented husband demands the shattered lover assume his responsibility for the suicide of the woman they both loved. This segment is indeed repulsive in its approach keeping afloat with a dark subdued humour. The third segment, ‘Telephone’, has got its modernistic savour with a pinch of technological advancements and adversities.

Basically, the three stories have been painted on the canvas of three distinct time periods and have brought up the complexity of human relationships in every period; to be more specific, how the complexities kept magnifying and growing crumpled as far as human relationships are concerned, over time. ‘Teenkahon’ has projected three grounds of obsessions in three  independent acts(stories). In the first one, it has shown the obsession of a boy who has developed socially unacceptable feelings for a woman elder to him and how he succumbs to the delicious pangs of unrequited love which will leave permanent scars in his growth. The second one, has shown the obsession in the lover and the husband regarding the woman they love and the third story has dealt with obsession to connect underlined by an increasing dependence on technology, and of course how it hampers the flow of human behaviour .

A debonair conduct, with smart screenplay and a musty scripting has made ‘Teenkahon’ a sure success and a challenging attempt. Nevertheless, the risky venture has returned the debut director with loads of appreciation and wishes. The music is pretty complementary with the frames and finally, needless to say, powerful, skilled delivery by the actors has elevated the film into a much higher altitude of sophistication.

Content Writing : Manjima Sarkar 
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