Tolly Folly Ep 1 - Agni Pariksha

[00:00:08] So welcome one and all to our brand new limited edition podcast series with Sujoy, Beth and myself that's Amrita. This is we've just got a brand new name it's called Tolly Folly and we are going to be

[00:00:24] looking at Bengali films and this first run is all about Uttam Sushitra movies. Okay, let's just start by just talking about like how we arrived at this idea. Beth, how did we come by this idea?

[00:00:41] I believe we were in the lead up to talking about Bulbul thinking about you know how Bengali that movie is in many ways despite the language being Hindi and you and I have certainly talked

[00:00:54] over the years a lot about how there's very little in English about Bengali movies of any era except for you know Ray, Gautak, Merynalsen that kind of thing. So it's always been what we consider to be a whole that would be that we would appreciate

[00:01:12] being filled a little bit and we know Sujoy grew up watching some of these movies and we thought, aha. I think for me it was more like a passive presence in my childhood because we had like

[00:01:28] VHS tapes lying around and it would be always on TV like my parents would play so I wouldn't consider myself to be like an aficionado that I grew up with these movies but I was there.

[00:01:42] I watched all the songs and I don't think I can have any active memories of watching the movies throughout like I would have of say Amitabh Bachchan movies but Uttam Suchitra was like it was a constant presence in my childhood and I think it's fascinating for

[00:02:04] me to go back and sort of I'm not even sure if I can call it nostalgia in a way. So the weird thing about the Uttam Suchitra thing is that every Bengali you meet will

[00:02:16] talk about Uttam Suchitra but then you press them for details like nobody has anything to say and I know like Sammy like Lipstick Patrol she's talked before about like Bengali Fight Club and that you literally never talk about anything Bengali to outsiders but honestly

[00:02:35] it just feels like you know extracting teeth because you're just like tell us something like anything like if you sat us down and you were like you know what's the goss about XYZ in Hindi cinema for example then we'll like Sujoy you and I like we literally

[00:02:50] have the Khandan podcast where we just talk nonsense about the people all the time and we always have like extra info but with like Bengalis I mean Beth and I have run into this so many different times where we're just constantly trying to get Bengali people

[00:03:06] to talk about their stuff and they just will not. So guess what we're gonna do it? I think it's also time to plug your Beth and Amrita's collaborative Bongalong WordPress site which is full of memes and gifs and it's fantastic for people if you're interested

[00:03:29] to check out. So we actually wanted to call this particular podcast run Bongalong because it comes from like Bong for Bengali and then watch along because Beth and I are usually in different time zones so we end up like having to like watch along at the same time

[00:03:50] so that's where the name came from but when I was looking it up on Google just before we started recording it turns out that there's some kind of cannabis company that has bought

[00:04:01] rights to that so no we are now the Tolly Folly a big shout out to Ombarish on Twitter who gave us the name we really appreciate it. The name went through a few iterations on

[00:04:17] our emails this afternoon because we were still coming up with names. We came up with some amazing names by the way but we wanted something that would address all of Bengali cinema rather than just Uttam Suchitra just in case you know if this doesn't flop and we

[00:04:34] do get a few interested listeners then maybe we can diversify and talk about other Bengali cinema stuff that we love but for now we are talking about three episodes and we are planning on a weekly schedule but we will see how everything goes.

[00:04:51] Also to Assim's disappointment we are dissociating ourselves with keyword Bong. Okay so the first episode we are going to be talking about Agni Paricha which is a movie that Sujoy you were watching for the first time is that correct? Yes.

[00:05:09] Okay tell us a little bit about Agni Paricha Sujoy. Okay it takes us to a time that we have completely forgotten. It's the year 1954 and Uttam Suchitra I think this is their third movie together or second movie

[00:05:29] together after a big hit that was Sharetu Aptur and it takes us to a time where Zamindar's ruled there was child marriage there was a lot of females hating on females and females pushing their ideologies on each other. It's basically about how do I synopsis this evening?

[00:05:55] Beth do you have a better idea to explain this because you've written like a bunch of different things about this film right? I've written one kind of lengthy blog post but this movie haunts me a little bit. How spoilery do we want to be?

[00:06:14] Let's be spoilery this came out like more than half a century ago. I think we can be spoilery. And we'll get to this but there's a Hindi remake of it also which perhaps some of our regular listeners sorry I just claimed part of your audience.

[00:06:32] I don't think our regular listeners want to watch that movie. No but I think they may have seen it right they may have seen Jyotisi Malakat and not realized it was a remake of an older Bengali movie.

[00:06:44] So we have it has in some ways I'm just realizing it has a little bit of the flavor of certain reincarnation movies where there's a romantic couple in the past and then they re-meet later and don't they know they're drawn

[00:07:01] to each other but they're not sure why that kind of thing. It has a little bit of that flavor except thanks to child marriage they're not reincarnated they're just 12 years older. And I am not 100% sure how old they're supposed to be when they get married

[00:07:16] could we establish that she's maybe 10 or 12 I would say. In Agni Pariksha I think it is a bit more older than that because Utam Kumar's character Kiriti he is supposed to be studying at presidency college so he's at least like 18, 19 and she might be like 15 perhaps

[00:07:36] which is also interesting because I do not think that's a 15 year old. It is weird though because I think Sushitra Sen herself was married very early. But not like I don't think child early was she. Speaking of the Gotham Sea we would know.

[00:07:57] Her wiki page says she was married at the age of 15 years. Oh, okay. So I mean this reaction that we're all having is you if she's 15 and I thought that this girl was supposed to be like 10, 11, 12. Anywhere. She's young so she's a little older than Bulbul

[00:08:20] and that is why we chose this movie by the way is to kind of get to talk more about child marriage in Bengali movies because you see it fairly often and these things set in a sort of non determined past

[00:08:31] but she's young and the whole setup for the marriage is his grandfather is friends with her grandfather who's now deceased and so her grandmother is pressured by his grandfather into getting them married on his the grandfather's death bed.

[00:08:54] In front of a whole bunch of people it's very spur of the minute. It's the grandmother doesn't really seem to really think this is a great idea but she goes along with it because reasons that we can get into

[00:09:07] and then they don't have any contact for 12 years it's established. He has remembered who she is and everything and been somehow keeping track of what she's up to despite the fact that he is as the film tells us multiple times

[00:09:23] the only Bengali to have been to Europe and America did you love that? I mean I know Tagore went both those places so like that's not true but it can maybe that's a subtle thing and apparently all of Calcutta knows it.

[00:09:39] Right right and all of Missouri is where they were in the mountains like all of everybody knows this it's a big deal he's apparently a big deal so he's been somehow kind of keeping track of her career she has a master's degree she's a renowned singer

[00:09:53] of whom there are record albums again we don't see any of this but okay and they somehow cross paths again later I'm assuming because he put himself in the path of where she was going to be up in the mountains it's very lovely

[00:10:08] and then they fall in love as adults and we'll talk more about how that is resolved Right so you know as Sujoy was saying you know that this movie takes us back to a time that we have all forgotten

[00:10:25] at the moment I was like maybe it should stay forgotten because there's a whole bunch of things in here when you are like hmm we really want to remember that This story it wouldn't happen in 2020 because this is not how we communicate be cell phones and social media

[00:10:43] and child marriage but even like face to face these are just exceptionally bad communicators like these are two people who just like everybody not just the lead pair but literally everybody in this movie they just do not know how to communicate

[00:11:03] but we'll talk about that in a little bit let's talk about some specific things so as Beth was saying you know they have this incredibly dramatic wedding scene where wait what is Sujitha Tharosa's cat's name Taposhi Baby Baby Nobody puts baby in the corner except for everybody

[00:11:26] and her family puts baby in a corner I have seen this movie like 5 million times and I still can't preserve it this is the thing about Agni Puriksha right that this is such a like every time I hate

[00:11:43] like I've only watched it for the first time since yesterday and I've already watched it twice I think because I just hate watch like what the hell is going on so Taposhi basically dresses up as a young woman because there's like this whole this sort of set up

[00:12:06] by the way the set up for this movie goes on for like 40 minutes so the first 40 minutes you don't even see Uttam in Sujithra is literally this little girl like you know she's she's in this very unhappy household her mother is a shrew

[00:12:19] her father basically has no spine and she is sort of tradition inclined and her mother who sends her grandmother who holds all the purse strings and so she's going to the country with her brothers to spend some time with her grandmother while her mother is off

[00:12:38] gallivanting in high society in Masuri which is a totally real thing I assume there's also this underlying resentment about how Taposhi's father had a love marriage with his with his wife and that's why she's totally considered to be like that the relationship is totally is considered as

[00:13:02] he's hand-picked in some way which is so this whole like modernity versus traditionalism debate that's being set up especially in the beginning and then you see the motif sort of running through the rest of the film but Taposhi is like oh you know I'm going to the countryside

[00:13:22] I can't just wear all my modern frocks apparently you can't wear frocks out in the country you have to wear a saree and I thought she was 14 years old by the way so she wears a saree and for some reason she dresses up as a bride

[00:13:36] you know she's like a young girl and she's playing dress up but for some reason her grandmother is like yeah why don't we just take you all dressed up to go to this puja that's being held in our neighbor's house and that's where the grandfather first sees her

[00:13:50] and it's like oh my god that's my grandson's wife and then of course her there's like this thing about the grandfather dying of cancer and then he arranges his wedding and that wedding it's a very good like the actual filming of it

[00:14:08] I thought was like really well done because it's very clear that Taposhi is basically having an out of body experience she has no idea what is happening because she's this child and all of a sudden she's in this giant hall with like echoing corners

[00:14:24] and the grandfather is like I've never seen on film or even heard in real life of a person dying that loudly and this man is just screaming while he's not in pain he's like screaming out to his grandson and his daughter-in-law right yeah he's pretty much countdowning

[00:14:44] like the pandit to start the peras you know because darkness is descending on him oh man and just dying as amindars make the wildest demands and then Taposhi gets married and obviously I think we're supposed to be outraged at how irrational and demanding the mother is being

[00:15:11] but honestly like if I sent my 14 year old out into the country to visit her grandma and then she came back married I would have a cow at this point her father also thinks that that was a bad idea

[00:15:27] I think that's pretty important to establish that both of Taposhi's parents are against this I think her grandmother felt bullied into this too but also went ahead with it I mean she is completely culpable but nobody except for the dead now dead granddad thinks that this

[00:15:43] was a good plan because it wasn't a plan it was a spur of the moment I think the weapon that the sub-dead zamindar well Kiriti's grandfather what the weapon that he uses is basically like you will be dying soon that's what he says to the grandmother

[00:16:03] and how will you face your dead husband when you when he asks you about his last wishes not being fulfilled you know it's like oh my goodness and then he like actually gets her to he gets her to like promise

[00:16:19] to the marriage in front of God like makes it like a holy vow atop of everything else but let's just go back to like what what Beth was saying because after her parents remove her from the countryside and from the mausoleum of the dying grandfather

[00:16:35] they take her back to Calcutta and her mother is just and she's really confused I mean this is a child who's had several traumatic things happened to her including being torn away from her grandmother whom she loves very much and all of a sudden her father

[00:16:51] gets ill like he suddenly develops a heart condition and he does a complete 180 like on one hand my daughter but on the other hand sanskar you know most sanskar is happening I feel like that's not a factor you get quite as strongly in Bengali movies overall

[00:17:13] as Hindi movies overall I'm generalizing vastly here but the you know he's with his daughter they've gone outside to have a chat sitting under a tree he's clutching his chest as he says to her where Hindu you have to uphold this you have to accept it

[00:17:29] don't listen to your mother and then he's like then dies dear daughter it breaks my heart that your life is ruined but my cholesterol is so high no I have to say like you know like to bet's point about like how Bengali cinema is usually not very sanskari

[00:17:51] I feel like it makes up for it that in that when it does go the sanskari route it goes like to some pretty arcane places where you're just like I can't believe you just went there which is what it does in this movie

[00:18:07] but we will come to that in a little bit okay so he is dying but like all the mother really cares about is her position in society like is that a function of modernity like what is the movie trying to tell us like is she just

[00:18:25] a gold digger or is she just that she's very modern and therefore she wants to be in Park Street society we went to try to get the opinions of Bengalis sort of our age so I turned to Dipanjana Paul and she sent me a lot of great

[00:18:41] thoughts I asked her specifically about the mother and she said we can't forget this is a film in a newly independent Bengal that is keenly aware of it's colonial past and how it lured so many into becoming brown Sahibs being westernized is something

[00:18:55] we still have a massively conflicted relationship with and back then it was obviously a lot more so I thought that was a pretty interesting point to consider because I had first just interpreted the mother as status conscious I don't want to say

[00:19:07] gold digger I want to say status conscious because she does mention we live on Park Street which makes me laugh because when Amritha and I were in Calcutta every time we turned around we were found ourselves back in Park Street without even meaning to

[00:19:19] so it's interesting to me that Dipanjana said that about like brown Sahibs because if I remember correctly and I might be mistaken like I'm not very clear about Calcutta geography but I do remember reading an article that I think said that Indians weren't allowed

[00:19:37] to live on Park Street like that was a whites only area for a very long time so you know even if you were a very rich Indian you wouldn't live on that side of town you would actually live on like another side of town so I feel like

[00:19:55] after independence if that's when the old racial divides came down then an address on Park Street probably means something very different to a 1950s Bengali crowd than it does to us so I think that the mother has conversations with her sister about Topashi is very educated

[00:20:14] she's very accomplished she's going to have no shortage of suitors we can kind of get her anyone we want slash she wants and then the mother is if I understood correctly delighted by Kiriti making you know some attention towards her daughter because he's you know the most famous

[00:20:32] Bengali effort in accorded according to this movie yet has no friends as he himself says so I don't know in the Hindi version she's more concerned about modernity as such I think but this mother I think whatever is going to get her status

[00:20:50] is what she's going to pursue and she's also quite dismissive about men of Park Street because they're like I don't approve of them but like I also thought it was like hilarious how both the leads a position because Topashi you know she's rich she's like the sole heiress

[00:21:08] to her grandparents wealth she's beautiful she is apparently very highly educated she is apparently capable of everything including mountaineering even if she's never been on a mountain before because apparently Bengalis don't belong on mountains according to the film but also like she's a world famous singer apparently

[00:21:30] and everybody knows her she's got vinyl record and then there's Kirti and Kirti is not just super duper rich but he's also an engineer he's traveled to Europe and America he's very handsome it's like there's no like end to like people's qualities in this film

[00:21:55] like they're not just the hero and the heroine they are the hero and the heroine and the film wants you to know that but I completely believe that because when Utam Sushitra appear on screen I believe that there was no doubt in my mind

[00:22:11] that there's anybody better than them right so let's talk about the Utam Sushitra chemistry because we've broached the subject they're lovely they're not these where they are in the movie but they are not a romantic pair their chemistry is just flying off the screen and

[00:22:29] we've talked at length I'm going to tell you about how their different acting styles suit each other so well to me those styles are not quite on full display in these particular roles they're both deeply emotional but it's expressed in such different ways

[00:22:47] that they just fit together so very well in all their movies they are not always rich they are not always instantly drawn together romantically there's variety and how this pairing is put together by filmmakers this can be subjective but for me they're just mind-blowing

[00:23:03] even with me waiting through subtitles I find them 100% convincing as a romantic pair I think we will deep dive into the romantic chemistry that's shared in like probably the next episode when we discuss more of their romantic movies not that Agni Parak Shah is in romantic but

[00:23:24] to contrast this with how Uttam Kumar is in Chhoti Simulaka he's like again that movie has a lot of problems like 10 years or 12 years down the line he's playing a straight up romantic here versus in that he is just another 70s or 60s or so

[00:23:48] that kind of a guy who is stalking and they have the Takrar and yeah, complete difference between how that cinematic presence of Uttam Kumar is versus here and even that just intro scene where they are stuck on the hill in Masuri and that's our intro scene

[00:24:12] they haven't had spoken a single word in the minutes of that scene so much is established and like yeah, they are meant to be together that scene to me is like one of my favorites when they see each other for the first time and they're both so young

[00:24:28] and they're so pretty and they're so perfect together and they have such sparkling chemistry like right off the bat he is so comfortable with her and it really works within the movie itself because the characters are such that she expects him to be

[00:24:46] you know, to have like a little bit of reserve because she's a strange woman but he immediately just treats her as if he's known her for years which she doesn't know but he does because at this point in the movie he's the only one that knows

[00:25:02] that they're married basically so they have this instant ease with each other and she remarks upon it because you know, like you're very different from everybody else like you're so strange the way that you talk to me and that you behave with me

[00:25:20] and we can see that she likes it and they're just you know, like you know how we say that somebody's like meant to be and that's like a term that I think gets thrown about very cavalierly but with these two like you've seen that very first scene

[00:25:36] and then they have this beautiful song afterwards and it's absolutely meant to be oh, that song we have now established that Utam and Suchetra are meant to be and they are just the most perfect amazing epitome of human evolution you know Utam is not only like

[00:25:57] a gentleman and a scholar but he can also like fight for his beloved's honor it is the most unconvincing punch of the 19th century I think it's more of a slap fight even rather than like an actual fisticuffs but there's like a party and like somebody crashes it

[00:26:21] and Utam being like for some reason like the entire party is like like calls upon Keithy and it's like please fight off these hooligans I guess hosting duties also involve going out to the street to punch somebody who just as far as I was able to understand

[00:26:43] there's some sort of unwashed types standing on the sidewalk looking at the outdoor performance at the party because of course there's a woman singing and a woman dancing and they're watching that's all they do, right? what matters is what matters is is definitely impressed by it you know

[00:27:07] oh my hero so masculine she's turned on she's like I like a man he's a man man which then leads to her like suddenly like on the way back from the party they run into like a Bharat and for some reason like they're really really happy

[00:27:29] to see the Bharat until Utam points out that it's a child marriage which I guess was still legal in the 1950s that's what our movie is trying to tell us and then immediately she just has these flashbacks of her nightmare wedding and then begins her existential crisis

[00:27:47] we have to stop for a second because in that so he's driving her home from what I think is his house or his party anyway and he says I need to tell you something but I'm afraid and she says well you know if you're afraid

[00:28:03] to say it then maybe I'm afraid to hear it and he's like okay maybe I'll tell you later yeah and what he's gonna tell her of course is BTDubs were married and he doesn't tell her and this happens multiple times that he almost tells her

[00:28:20] and then doesn't so not only does he know and doesn't tell her he creates this build-up to something and she is so heart-eye-moji at him she's like oh whatever I don't just want to stare at him I don't even care what he says to me

[00:28:36] and then she has this traumatic PTSD break sort of thing that kind of lasts throughout the rest of the movie and this was the first time that Sujoy saw the full effect of Sujitra Sen having a mental breakdown Sujoy please describe the experience yes it was

[00:28:57] Eastman color in black and white that's what I would say like the whole range the whole spectrum of emotions distilled into her eyes her eyes her eyes oh my god not even just her not even her face her eyes yeah she's a master isn't she my longtime favorite

[00:29:22] Shashi Kapoor is also quite good at a freak out like an emotional freak out but I don't think there's anyone I would rather watch to this than Sujitra Sen she's so good at it and I was discussing with Dipanjana yesterday do we find her hammy or not

[00:29:36] and I actually don't it's just barely on this side it's a lot but for me it's never exactly too much there's something about maybe the context of what else is happening or the way that the performers are or something that whatever she does

[00:29:52] it still works so well to express turmoil of characters who are also at the same time very strong very thoughtful often independent in a way and somehow that whole package that she often gets to portray and then portrays so well just works for me

[00:30:08] I mean we've seen this emotion portrayed by numerous actresses like Asha Parikh or whatever yeah it just works for me it's cinematic and still not hammy I think what I appreciate about it is the fact that she doesn't repeat a single expression

[00:30:26] like I didn't know there were so many expressions of terror that a human face could portray but my favorite part but Amrita have you ever have you ever been faced with a woman in telephone I was about to say that's my favorite part where you know

[00:30:46] she hears the telephone ring and she knows her skirthi and she's basically freaking out at a level that nobody before or since has ever freaked out about a telephone and I love the resolution of that scene because she comes so the first time she has that freak out

[00:31:04] you know she comes and she like like she tries to ignore the phone and then like the second time her brother like comes in and looks at her like what the hell like what's wrong with you and answers the phone

[00:31:20] as if he you know he's so used to her being this drama queen and I thought that was like an excellent portrayal of a sibling relationship as well so then Sushitra basically you know she decides that she must return to her child husband and she must forget

[00:31:42] Kethi even though you know she loves no no no before that she visits Kashi to her grandma because she's like Dharamsankar I mean I'm just glossing over that part because she also has I believe before what you're talking about she also has some arguments with her mother

[00:32:04] over what she should do and her mother you don't need to pay attention to this child marriage like go for you know where is your husband by the way right he has not come back he's not acted like a husband so you can just go with Kirti

[00:32:22] I thought the grandma was really instrumental like first she can like pushes her to get married and then fucks off to Kashi and then and then this poor child like not child but having this Dharamsankar she approaches her for help and I've written down the dialogue

[00:32:42] from the subtitles people give lives for an ideal why kill an ideal for about 20 years of pleasure that's true fucking god the guilt is strong and then she takes her granddaughter back to the Haveli where they got married and she's like this is where I promised you to

[00:33:10] Bulu the childhood name of Tappushi's husband when they got married she only knows him by that name she doesn't know his actual name she just knows his nickname so she's like this is where you were promised as a bride and you became the bride of this house

[00:33:33] okay cool story and then she's like going through the Haveli and she comes across the living room which nobody has done anything nothing it's left exactly when that old man died it's left exactly like that it really is a mausoleum and she obviously has a freak out

[00:33:57] which leads to my favorite scene in this film I think you've just named three things as your favorite scene and I don't blame you because each escalating dramatic conversation with herself with somebody else the facial expressions Sucitra really builds this really well and just the angle of

[00:34:23] Uttam Kumar holding her and you don't get to see his face just her reaction to Bulu's face is it supposed to be a mystery at that point are we not supposed to know as the audience that he is Bulu I guess the original novel was written like that

[00:34:41] right so that it's supposed to be a big reveal at the end that oh if you have your son's cast you will find your true love but he shows up and he's half naked for some reason why no he's wearing a dhoti with a gancha so it's like

[00:35:03] he's a mukharji no, mukharji don't wear tops is that what you see yeah I mean, zamindars don't why do they get to walk around half naked he's probably was busy in the puja or something how much puja will he do he's got a lot to make up for

[00:35:25] listen, he's been withholding this important piece of information for like weeks he's been stalking her for a decade so do you think this whole entire thing just lasted a few weeks like from their first meet to the I think so yeah I think it's quite intense

[00:35:43] I have to say like I don't like I'm laughing at uttum kumar basically showing up half naked and I don't care what Sujoy says but I approve it is a very pleasing half naked like Bengalis get very upset when I talk about uttum kumar

[00:35:59] as like a sexual being but I'm sorry the dude is hot he actually looks really good and directors repeatedly make use of that in films granted he usually is wearing a suit but he can exude sex when he needs to and he often does and he

[00:36:21] he holds on to sujitra and sujitra is having this again the last of her meltdowns it's very classic it's a very classic film image like a very cinematic image of the woman half fainting being held by a man it evokes very strong gender role images in your brain

[00:36:43] that you just sort of automatically relate it to and then again like one of my other favorite moments afterwards like when everybody comes together but like everybody comes together and then sujitra and uttum do this we are very embarrassed because we are in love and everybody knows it

[00:37:05] and now we are also married and they're so adorable together oh my god and then her grandmother joins them yes and that's when they get shy remember i know but it's such a like oh this is so romantic oh there's grandma but i mean like that's basically

[00:37:27] the problem my biggest problem with this film is basically that it is so it is like you basically glide on this film based on the chemistry between uttum and sujitra like if it was anybody else i don't think i would have enjoyed this movie as it is but

[00:37:47] i mean this movie is basically like you know it's over correcting in the opposite direction when we talk about modernity versus traditionalism and it's basically saying that if you got married as a child then that's basically your destiny and it's really problematic i do see the

[00:38:07] the romance from uttum side like he was like we are married and i didn't want to attain you in my life based on that i wanted to win your love and that's why i didn't tell you and i was waiting for you to come back to me

[00:38:25] that is critical i think there are two kind of saving graces to this otherwise regressive trainwreck of a film of a story i should say at that point that he says like i wanted you to choose me and the other is what i think

[00:38:41] i think she's really guilty by mostly by her grandmother and maybe by her dying father's words that she remembers over a decade later but i do think she had a fair degree of agency in choosing what she does and it's super duper convenient

[00:38:55] that at all you know those are the same person of course again like hindi films are always criticized for having convenient coincidences come on now this is an extremely convenient coincidence but if it were not for those two factors it would be unbearable which is how we

[00:39:11] lead to the hindi version 13 years later but this is like part of a larger whole in my opinion because like i mean i've said this before to both of you whether it's a strong motif of child marriage in bangolai cinema and it kind of feels like bangolai cinema

[00:39:29] isn't quite sure if it's made up its mind whether it's for or against child marriage or like what it feels about underage people having relationships with older people so this parinita which is like one of the most famous bangolai novels of all time and it's been made in

[00:39:49] bangolai and in hindi maybe in other languages i don't know but i've seen the bangolai version with samitra and moshmi chatagy which i think is the most faithful version of the novel and it's also the most disturbing for that reason i know that beth finds the ashokumamina kumari

[00:40:09] version a lot more disturbing but to me like the bangolai version is more disturbing because it's you know the ages are so like it's so palpable like she really is a child you know she's so young and samitra is not like he's

[00:40:27] a young man and that's very true to the novel and it just made my skin crawl when i was watching it but beth you had the same reaction to the ashokumari and minakumari film right? yeah and again it's the age differences the key growth factor

[00:40:43] because to me ashokumar is a lot older than minakumari than samitra is to moshmi but he looks it too like he looks like her father is much much much much older brother like almost her grandfather aww my poor ashokumar like i won't listen to this ashokumar slander

[00:41:03] i was trying not to interrupt you but like you grew up with that movie right? i do think there's something about things that we saw as romantic when we were certain ages are hard to unfeel but i think like there's a movie out there

[00:41:19] a satyajit rey movie that i think has done like a really good job of talking about like what marriage does to a woman but especially to a child and that's the samapthi chapter of his teen kanya which is the strip-tick that he directed

[00:41:37] sujoy you watched it for the first time right and we haven't discussed it yet so what do you think of it oh i i really lost my attention watching that because i watched it after watching at nipari chah i was completely blown away by the on-screen

[00:41:55] chemistry of uttamsu chitra and i was trying to get into what so mitru and aparnasen do in this movie and it just yeah it wasn't engaging enough for me to pay complete attention to it but i did realize what they were trying to do

[00:42:13] but again it's sort of it's not depicting but it all it's like commenting on the prevalent classes society of then bengal and you know the class divide and the child marriage it tries to not portray it as a drama but more like i think a commentary on the

[00:42:37] presence of that child marriage rather than how it is shown in say for example balikapadu or at nipari chah beth so i've seen this movie i think now four times i love it because it is so it is especially tonally it's so different than huckney brick chubblett

[00:42:59] as with all of ray's films it's fairly there's so much quietness in it but there's actually so much going on and just these sort of expressions without a ton of dialogue and all this kind of stuff and it's i find it deeply sad

[00:43:13] at the end and i've been told that there are people who find this to be a good happy ending film and i don't understand how that can be there's it's complicated but i don't think it's happy but there are moments of real lightness

[00:43:29] and happiness in this film before the sort of realities of marriage kick in i just want to say that i think that this is aparnasens best role as an actor and it's her first role as an actor but ray is so good at getting

[00:43:47] these amazing performances out of first time actors so right so her xia metro in in a person sir in that movie i think the little girl in the first the postmaster segment of teen kanya is also a debut actor like he's really good

[00:44:05] with first timers but aparnasen has to do this again as she's like 15 or something like that this role of someone who's a child someone who is put in a position of being something more adult and then being left to try to

[00:44:20] figure it out on her own because her husband buggers off back to kakata to work on his law degree or whatever and she's left in his mother's house her family is still around in the village or whatever but it it's horrible

[00:44:34] it's horrible and there are these shots of her in her wedding finery and her makeup is all smudged and running off her face and everything and she just looks like she's been through a battle and she is and it's heartbreaking so this was actually the first ray

[00:44:49] anything that i had seen and i saw it entirely by accident like back in the day on doodh darshan when we were little every sunday they would show these movies from different parts of india and on one such sunday afternoon entirely by accident i don't even like watch

[00:45:07] i don't think that was a regular feature in my household but entirely by accident i came across this particular film that was playing and it was this apathy that was playing and i couldn't take my eyes off this film like i was a very impressionable

[00:45:24] age i must have been like 12 or 13 or something when i saw it and i immediately clicked with this character of this young woman who doesn't want to get married because she's like literally like 14-15 years old and is forced to get married

[00:45:40] because that's what girls do and it's too good a relationship for her family to pass up and you see this little tomboy character being forced into these grown-up girl clothes just because this older man, somitro comes to the village and then sees her

[00:46:00] is attracted to her and then is immediately angry at her after their wedding because she isn't this you know she doesn't automatically turn into his idea of what an ideal bride should be and basically takes it out on her, you know he just goes off to pout and

[00:46:16] the way Ray shows her becoming like her transition into womanhood from being a girl is through the death of her pet her pet squirrel that she keeps in a tree and it is like that image is just burned into my brain and just to go back to what

[00:46:38] sujoy said, you know, like he saw this after with them sujjitra and he was like couldn't like compare to their chemistry I think that's the whole point they have no chemistry because she's a grown-ass man and she's a child and it is just gross

[00:46:56] one of the interesting things about samupti is that he comes home originally to marry someone else who's also a young girl I think maybe even younger it's hard to say, I'm sorry I'm shouting this movie upsets me and he so put off by I'm not sure what exactly

[00:47:18] honestly like her family the staging of her and the interaction and at that meeting where he goes by himself to this house to meet this other perspective woman girl ten years younger than he is a partner's character is outside and wants to play with

[00:47:36] the mother of this bride to be and she's like interrupting through the window like come on you'll come outside and play whatever her squirrel runs into the house she bursts in after and he's so taken by this contrast in these two like from that family to her

[00:47:52] that he acts very rashly to decide he's just gonna spite his mother and marry the child that everyone calls Pugly right it's a spite marriage seem at first like someone who's gonna act rashly but he really really does and she is the biggest victim of it

[00:48:10] which is such a good description of what marriage apparently was in the 1950s a lot of Indian women but especially Bengali women from the from their cinema sets so talking about this kind of gross behavior I mean let's talk about Choti Simul Haqqat which was made

[00:48:32] after Agni Pariksha and somehow manages to be even more regressive and horrible than even Agni Pariksha or Teen Kanya or anything Sujoy you watch Choti Simul Haqqat as well yes like I skimmed through it because I had already seen Agni Pariksha I just skimmed through parts of it

[00:48:52] I tried to find contrasting messages contrasting ways that they tried to depict the events and I found it even more regressive as you said like I do understand why it didn't work like I have a theory in a way so one interesting thing

[00:49:14] that I found out about Agni Pariksha is the director is credited as Ogrodut and I went to the Wikipedia page and like this is unprecedented so Ogrodut was a group of Indian film technicians signing collectively as director a phenomena unique to Bengali cinema and it was formed in 1946

[00:49:36] and was active until the 1980s and it consisted of Bibhuti Laha, Jatin Dutta, Silen Ghoshal, Nithai Bhattacharji and Bimal Ghosh it's fascinating that all these five people came together to direct one movie and they have made like Agni Pariksha and like couple of movies before that

[00:49:56] and they have made other movies as well like Chhattaveshi in 1971 and then Chhoti Simulaka is made by somebody who Utam Kumar has known as a friend Aalosh Sarkar which I think he tried to pretty much emulate what was prevalent back then like put in elements from everywhere

[00:50:18] from Shamikapur to Joy Mukherjee and shoot in like really extravagant locations and you know, in by Beetlemania as well into it Anand Burk This film by its own admission is more regressive and instead of taking the original's approach of Kirti saying I wanted you to love me

[00:50:39] as you are now as we are now and to choose it this one says I wanted you to remember and act on the vows that you were forced to make as a child so the Bengali version in the 50s wants the heroine

[00:50:53] forward thinking the Hindi version in the 60s wants her to be more traditional and it's just it's gross it is gross there are things I like about this movie just sort of as a movie like I think some of the songs are fun, I like Vijayantamala

[00:51:09] I like the crazy dance number where Utam Kumar dances like you've never seen like I've never seen him dance in Bengali movies at all and you're like is he an expert at it? No. Does he give it his all? Absolutely and I salute him for trying

[00:51:23] because he's like you know what they do in Hindi movies they dance. Ok cool, I'm going to do that too No, it's even the thing that leads to it like Rajendra Nath is like pointing and laughing at him you can't be a modern

[00:51:37] you are not included in our high society and then he starts playing the trumpet it's like Shahrukh Khan like 40-50 years ago you know with the Rukh Ja Jhaan from DDLJ he's doing that same shtik and then like I'm going to show you how to dance

[00:51:53] and he boogies I think it's fascinating to look at the Bengali originals in Hindi remakes because there are many of them there are some scenes that are replicated I think really interestingly and my favorite is the nightmare sequence which we didn't talk about the female lead

[00:52:11] after she's had her first kind of PTSD episode has this nightmare where she's with her love interest in the current day and then she has this traumatic sort of flashbacky dream and there's some kind of unknown in the Hindi version an unknown man chasing her across

[00:52:29] the beach and she's running away and asking for help and he says things like according to the subtitles I had like you can fight anything but your destiny as she's like lying on the ground at his feet and it's very effectively upsetting

[00:52:43] and I thought they both take that idea and express it a little bit differently in ways that really suit the cinema culture that they are a part of I think both those movies do that pretty well with certain elements one of the things that I really enjoy

[00:52:57] about Chhoti Simulakat is watching Uttam Kumar act against Rajyantimala in Hindi like that is one of my favorite things because the thing with Uttam is that he is I joked that he invented Mumblecore before Mumblecore was a thing but he like you can like

[00:53:21] so the most Bengali movies that I've watched are either Somethra or Uttam and Somethra speaks is very polished Bengali even if I'm not a Bengali speaker I can hear it and I can feel the difference whereas Uttam is this very natural very like it doesn't even feel like

[00:53:37] he's acting you know he's just being on screen and he just inhabits his characters and I adore it he's a fantastic actor and performer and I enjoy him on screen all the time but what happens is that he's come to Hindi and he's playing these very

[00:53:59] like Sujaya and Beth said he's doing these very these very entrenched cultural characteristics like that's what he's performing on screen like he's channeling Shammi and Joy and all these people and Hindi cinema at that point especially is not conducive to that sort of naturalistic acting

[00:54:23] it's a lot different now I think with like all the different actors that have come up and have changed a lot of the stylistic nuances of Hindi cinema but back in the day you had these very studied actors and that's who Vajanthi Malayas

[00:54:37] she's very used to working against people like Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor and she's this very studied actress and let's be honest like on her best day she's not like the best actress but she's trying her best and there are scenes in like all the important beats

[00:54:59] in this film are modeled almost exactly on how Suchitra Sen performed it in the Kali it's almost beat for beat Vajanthi Malayas basically just doing everything that Suchitra did and she's doing it at like you know at dialed up to 11 you know the camera pants

[00:55:18] to Uttam and Uttam is just under playing it because he's so used to he and Suchitra have this automatic leveling going on where you know she's just that level higher and he's just under playing it exactly right and he doesn't have that with Vajanthi Malayas

[00:55:37] so it just sounds like he's completely checked out and she is like acting for her life and like trying her best to get some kind of response out of him and it's especially visible in the climax of the movie where he does the big reveal and it's almost

[00:55:57] short for short for Suchitra's reaction in Bengali and she's Vajanthi Malayas entire face is quivering and she's just like what why didn't you tell me and then they turn to like Uttam and Uttam's just like yeah you want me to call my mom

[00:56:15] like I can call my mom if you want and it is hilarious like I can't stop laughing every time I see that that particular scene I love in the Hindi version I think the heroine is kind of a different type of person she's more bubbly the girlishness

[00:56:37] of this woman comes through in a sort of sparkling feisty Hindi heroine of that era and I like that but I agree it doesn't work with what Uttam Kumar is trying to do as well the hilltop scene that we so much love in our forexia

[00:56:55] and that turns into the Shimla skiing scene where they hit each other and then they have to have this conflict of two and four dialogue and Uttam is speaking Urdu and it's like all flat you know it's not working you're not Shahrukh but also like in Agni Pariksha

[00:57:16] I think the reason why I really liked Taposhi as a character is because Suchitra Sen has this element of danger to her you don't know exactly like nobody in the film knows what Taposhi will do next and Taposhi herself doesn't know what she's going to do next

[00:57:42] she's absolutely unpredictable and there's a sense of danger to that kind of a character where you're just like she's like a ticking time bomb she could explode at any moment like what's going to happen through her eyes and that to me is like very attractive it really

[00:58:04] lives and breathes on two things one is Uttam's attractiveness and Suchitra's unpredictability I think those are the two key elements that make Agni Pariksha a lot better as a film even though it's doing the same sort of problematic regressive nonsense I feel like it works much better

[00:58:22] and also it's shorter even at 2 hours plus it's somehow shorter than Jyotisi Mulakath which just goes on forever Jyotisi Mulakath has longer songs and it has Rajendra Nath and Chashikala those are two people I really like and Rajendra Nath is my favorite comedy uncle hands down

[00:58:44] said no one ever I enjoy him not only do I think he's less annoying I actively enjoy him almost always not in this movie his character adds nothing Chashikala's character adds nothing like this really needed a hearty edit and rewrite but nevermind

[00:59:04] okay does anybody have any final thoughts I have a question which is that let's say for some reason there was a clamoring to remake Agni Pariksha in Hindi in 1967 who would you have cast in the leads instead of these two? like Shamikapur is a little too old

[00:59:21] at this point right even though that's the direction they were going part of the reason it doesn't work is because as you were saying Amrita the two styles here don't don't mesh and energize each other I'm going to say Wahidah Rehman and Dev Anand

[00:59:36] even though they were too old for it ooh I mean Dev Anand is still in the jewellty era of his career so that could have worked yeah interesting we have loved Dharmendra many times in the as you know the Hindi counterpart oh yeah

[00:59:57] there's at least two other films I think more than that so I would be tempted to put him in there because we know he can he can do it but I'm not sure who I would have cast Sharmila they did Anupama together I don't think she'd have like

[01:00:13] she'd be able to pull off like the Sushitra like I don't think no would have had to have been just different somehow right she can't do the crazy pants like she can't do the angst she can't have a meltdown the way Sushitra can

[01:00:29] like I think Vajantimala actually tried to do the meltdown and she succeeded to some extent although she went full ham mm-hmm but I think like Wahidah could have done the meltdowns which is why I chose her I think it's really tough because Uttam and Sushitra like that chemistry

[01:00:49] it's lightning in a bottle it's once in a generation event yeah I did ask on Twitter but nobody really answered to me like is there any parallel to the Uttam Sushitra chemistry that we have in Bollywood and I think like era appropriate no no

[01:01:09] and partly it's because you do see them in these different directors and writers and I'll put them in different what like settings types whatever so you their chemistry works in so many different contexts whereas somehow what they can do together is consistent yet versatile

[01:01:29] and that I think we don't currently have anyone maybe really doing or maybe have not been given the chance to do but Sushitra's ended 61 movies in her career and 30 of them are with Uttam Kumar wow wow I guess when something works if it ain't broke don't fix it

[01:01:49] okay and on that note thank you all for joining us for our very first episode of Tolly Folly if you have any thoughts any rants let us know if you have any hate please keep it to yourself and join us next week for

[01:02:05] what are we doing next week guys Shaptapudi and Chawa Power whoo hahahahah okay so this is Beth Sujoy and Amrita Beth where can people find you I'm at Beth Love's Bali on Twitter and Sujoy where can people find you I'm on Twitter and Instagram at the rate

[01:02:27] 9E3K and this is Amrita and you can find me on YouTube as Amrita by the book or you can find me on Twitter at Amrita IT thank you for listening