Friday 10 January 2014

Chander Pahar (2013 - Bengali) Flim Review



CHANDER PAHAR

Directed by   : Kamaleshwar Mukherjee
Produced by : Mahendra Soni
Shrikant Mohta
Written by   :  Bibhutibushan Bandyopadhyay
Starring       :   Dev
GĂ©rard Rudolf
 
                        Martin Cito Otto
Music by      : Indraadip Das Gupta 
Debojyoti Mishra
Cinematography: Soumik Haldar
Editing by     : Raviranjan Maitra
Distributed by: Shree Venkatesh  Films
 
Dev’s first so called ‘art’  film ‘Chander Pahar’ is considered to be one of the most important and famous adventure tales based on the exploits of a 20 yr old boy called Shankar Roychoudhury in Africa. The Novel is written By Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay Dev plays Shankar in complete transformation of the Dev we know and have seen in his past films.

The film is a big time adventure film is set in the year 1909 when Shankar, a young boy from a village gets a job in a jute mill in Shymanagar, but he is an extremely adventurous man and he wants to go to explore forests and be in the wild as that kind of wild nature fascinates him and he has always thought of famous explorers to be his idols. He gets a job as a clerk with the Ugandan Railways by luck and arrives in Africa. He soon comes in to contact with various kinds of danger- lions, the black mamba, all of whom he is about to face with success and then he come across the famous explorer. Shankar sets out to locate the mine along with Alvarez who is killed by the monster . He finds the mine by accident . He carries some pebbles by mistake which are actually diamonds and after finding the remains of Gatti(another explorer), he finds instructions in Gatti’s boots which instructs anyone who finds his remains can keep the diamonds so long as the person buries Gatti. After doing so, Shankar gets lost and lands up in the Kalahari desert from where he is rescued by a survey team and he sets sail for home after recovering, but vows to come back to the cave one day.

This is the first ever Bengali adventure film made on a grand scale. The film has been shot extensively in South Africa though it has been shot in other places too and therefore the wildlife is shown in all it’s natural surroundings. as the wild animal lion, elephant, cheetahs, hyenas, zebras, giraffes, the black mamba, the scorpions or the other wildlife, they are all there. In other words for most Bengalis, this is a tour of the wild and the wildlife of Africa. It also shows quite a few tribes of Africa in their natural habitat. The other aspect of the film is our Dev. This is the rebirth of our Bengali superstar. All this while he has acted in Bengali commercial flim  where he has to just fight and dance, not act. Here he is excellent as Shankar, the small town boy who realizes his dream of becoming an adventurer and he does so by surviving in the wild terrains of Africa. He never lets his dreams let go unfulfilled. His ascension to an actor is at it’s peak when he is cut off from civilization for days and he is barely surviving . At times he survives by killing a scorpion and munching on it. This is what survival does to man. That phase literally makes Dev unrecognizable (he has long hair an unkempt beard) and he plays a man who barely manages to keep his sanity alive. A big thumps up to Dev. Giving him excellent support as his friend, philosopher and guide is the ‘Bengali’ speaking Portuguese adventurer Diego Alverez (French actor Gerard Rudolf) who is top notch. He is one of the main reasons why Shankar becomes Shankar, the adventurer and one of the famous Bengali literary heroes . The cinematography of Soumik Haldar is brilliant. The wilderness of the forests or the slow motion sequences or the close shots or the long shots, or the Kalahari desert and the wilderness of South Africa is captured beautifully by Soumik Haldar.

The film might or might not appeal to ‘traditional’ Dev fans who are used to seeing him in a different style and do not enjoy wildlife and adventure, but for the rest, it will appeal highly and this is the first time that Dev will be seen and appreciable by the class mass alike. One also expected to see Dev with the python which was missing.

There are a few things which look out of place in the film like the graphics of the volcanic eruption which look amateurish and the sequence when Sankar manages to rescue Alverez by crossing a log placed across a stream with Alvarez on his shoulders. However if one can overlook these few things, this wildlife adventure about a young Bengali adventurer will surely set the box office on fire!

Take a bow, Dev for your efforts.

Song of the flim Download here :
Full Movie Song 

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