15 Park Avenue

I have been a cursory follower of Aparna Sen's works. The ones that I have seen are Parama, Paramitar Ekdin and 15 Park Avenue. I have seen neither 36 Chowrangee Lane nor Mr and Mrs Iyer - the two most acclaimed movies of Aparna. I haven't seen Sati or Yugant either. And though I watched the telefilm Picnic, I don't remember anything from that movie except a shot where (I think) Farida Jalal singing 'mera laal duptta malmalka'.

For me Parama was a disaster. But I liked Paramitar Ekdin quite a bit. Aprna's narrative style and treatment of the subject went well. And the acting from Rituparna and Sohini stood out.

I can say almost similar things about 15 Park Avenue. The narrative style went well with the subject. Acting was quite well all around. But I have some peeves about the character development. Take the case of Anjali, done by Shaban Azmi. It's the weakest among the major characters of the film. It's too white with almost no grey except some patchy outbursts here and there. It takes an actress of Shabana's caliber to impart convinciblity to the character. The mother character played by Waheeda Rahman didn't get enough screen time to develop. Though Aparna is one of the very few directors who can create a believable female character with only a few strokes. That happened here too. Aparna's handling of human interaction between two females is also something that stands out from most of his contemporaries.

Konkana Sensharma excelled in her character. True it was the proverbial 'author-backed' character - but still it was not at all easy to play a psychological patient and a complex character. She seems to have an array of acting capabilities in her. Her face speaks with the same rich diction as does her round voice.

In the storyline, I thought, the coincidence of Joydeep (played by Rahul Bose) seeing Mithi (KS) was a spoiler. It could have been somebody else. But bringing Joydeep back, the director was forced to spin a subplot of Joydeep's present relationship with his wife - which, to me, didn't add anything to the main plotline other than some distractions.

Another aspect that Aparna disappoints me frequently: it's the cheap attempt of showing some universal message/philosphy. Take the scene where Mithi is forced to go through a Ojha-session. With all the onscreen hocus-pocus, the superimposed audio track plays Anjali's class lecture on quantum physic or some hifi physics topic. Where is the subtely, Aparna? Again near the end of the film, Kunal says "She is looking for something" when Anjali reply "Aren't we all?". Jumpcut. C'mon. It's too cheesy to come from a director like Aparna.

Dhritiman was ok too, but just Ok. And this is first time when Dhritiman (as Kunal) as an actor failed to impress me.

The screenplay was good, and the film is paced well - barring a patch of 15 minutes before the movie picks up the pace again at the end. Audio (including music) design was adequate for the situations. Deep strings worked really well. The outdoor shots are convincing. Dubbing was quite well done. Though I thought there were places where the mood of the scene could have manipulated with some more innovative light designs.

All in all, the film is a worthy one to watch and Aparna scores again as a very competent director. I will be looking forward to her to get a great film, someday.

[An old post - recycled. I wrote it in February 2006]