Utsab (2000) Online

Durga Puja, the most important festival of Bengali's is the worship of 'Shakti' or the divine power and Maa Shakti's four children, Ganesh, Kartikeya, Laxmi and Saraswati. Its an Utsab, festival season, a time to celebrate when families come together to worship, eat, laugh and enjoy the togetherness.

This also happens in the movie Utsab, a tale beautifully woven by Rituparno Ghosh. A director I have come to admire so much, I want to see all his movies.

The matriarch has four children, the eldest, Asit, trying to solve everyones problem is much like lord Ganesha, The second son, Nishit has work related problems that he wants to keep secret, but his wife knows -how she knows it, even he does not know The eldest daughter ,Parul, is married to a rich family, it was an arranged marriage against her wishes, for, she loved her poor cousin (Shishir - he too is a rich builder now ) her past haunts her, her husband taunts her and she thinks her grown up son, who is kind of repeating the history by being attracted to Asit's beautiful daughter, is unaware of her turbulent past. The youngest daughter, Keya, an artist by heart, loves music, married against the families wishes, to a painter and a passionate politician who unfortunately lost out in the politics game and took to drinking. They have immense love simmering for each other which the viewer sees but somehow they fail to - entangled into the web of petty quarrel, they even talk of separation and perhaps seriously so.

The play of emotions of each of these family members, who become your family members as you sit and watch the movie strike many familiar cords. Suppressed emotions hide in shadows and happy ones play with bursts of light. There is always a talk of rain clouds, it even rains, but one does not see it -just feel its aftereffects.

Amidst all this is celebrated a festival. The festival of togetherness, the festival of family bonding, the festival of lights, festival of joy and festival of victory of good over evil -Durga Pooja and Vijayadashmi. While you sit and watch the movie it unfolds like a family reunion, just like the video Joy, Parul's son shoots.

The movie is in Bengali with English subtitles. Knowledge of elementary Bengali helped, but I wish I could understand the finer nuances of the rich language to completely understand it -specially the beautiful song which Shompa, Asit's daughter sings.

'Utsab' starts off on a slow and quiet note. In a away it reminded me of 'Gosford Park' in how the characters were introduced. But soon after introduction, the story builds as the quality of the relationship between the characters, their intentions and the secrets of the mansion gradually unveil on screen. Here there's hardly a background score. What the viewer gets to hear are raw sounds within the mansion and surrounding neighborhood. It adds to creating tension within the mansion (where the entire film is set).

Rituparno Ghosh doesn't shy away from mentioning the influences of greats like Aparna Sen and Satyajit Ray. 'Utsab' does have a very Ray-like feel to it especially in its subtlety. At the same time it's very poetic and the Ranbindra Sangeets (poems by the late Rabindranath Tagore) add to the depth of the story. The cultural depiction, such as family interaction and religious ceremonies are well displayed.

The performances are solid. Madhabi Mukherjee is wonderfully restrained. Pradip Mukherjee, Bodhisattva Mazumdar, Alaknanda Roy, Anuradha Roy, Prasenjit Chatterjee and Ratul Shankar Ghosh are very good in their respective roles. However, the scene stealers are Mamata Shankar and Rituparna Sengupta. Both actresses deliver very subtle and nuanced performances and seem to have no problem owning every one of their scenes.

'Utsab' works on multiple levels. It is atmospheric, it can be viewed as a study of characters or a study of a culture. It may not be everybody's kind of cinema but it is among Ghosh's most underrated films.

The story revolves around a family get-togather, the family matriarch has called her four adult daughters , and their families to her estate . All of them are inching towards middle-age.

None of the sisters are looking forward to the family reunion as they all are more concerned about their own problems .Furthermore like any large family , every member of the family has his own personal past ,skeletons and demons to confront .The house is teeming with three generations of siblings , and the atmosphere is electric .

the movie does a great job of portraying the human relationships , with each of the characters developed with a lot of care .

A must watch .

Shot in Bengali with English subtitles, the subtitles are many times hard to read (white on white).

The first act is hard to follow because you flip back and forth between too many characters. With so many characters it is hard to care about them all. I was overwhelmed with characters. I noticed that several audience members walked out at this time. I think it would have helped establish the characters if the video shot during the first act (by one of the characters in the movie) would have been shown in the first act instead of at the end of the story. Then the audience could have come up to speed on who the characters are.

Overall the story and the acting are more on par with an American soap opera.

The film did, however, provide cultural insights: we see servants always working in the background in what appears to be an upper middle class home, the telephone service is not working for the holidays so communication is put on hold, the word "puja" I later learned means worship, "Brother's Day" is held in appreciation of your sibling, you touch another person's feet and then move your hand to your head and downwards like a slinky to bathe in their goodness (good karma), a vermilion powder is used to create the eye for the soul although in the movie a plastic one is applied in the morning by one of the characters, writing 'Durga' 73 times is part of the religious festival featured in the movie.

The music is sparse except at plot points that convey sadness.

There is a sprinkling of, but not enough, humor.

The plot follows the "all's well that ends well" ending so loose ends are very neatly tied up--ahh, how convenient!

I was told that the movie was shot in 15 days, which may explain many things.