It’s sleuth versus sleuth at Bengali box-office as actors and filmmakers ride the upsurge in the interest in fictional detectives. Satyajit Ray’s teen favourite Feluda remains evergreen, channelled through a number of actors over the years. But it’s Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s very noir Byomkesh Bakshi who’s in the limelight.
Filmmaker-musician Anjan Dutt’s fourth instalment in the Byomkesh series, Kahen Kobi Kalidas, was released last Friday and it has plenty of expectations to meet. Later this year, actor-turned filmmaker Arindam Sil will release his Byomkesh film Har Har Byomkesh, featuring Kahani actor Abir Chatterjee as the detective.
The edgy world of Byomkesh Bakshi has been a superb canvas for filmmakers from diverse milieus to experiment with. While Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! with its graphic novel-inspired setting and incredible production design scored high on style, Anjan Dutt is likely to offer a far more stark and serious take on Kahen Kobi Kalidas.
The story deals with the coal mafia in Dhanbad in 1969 and boasts of a stellar cast, including some faces familiar to Hindi film audiences as well. Actor Jisshu Sengupta (Piku’s quietly assuring friend and boss) plays the satyanweshi while Saswata Chatterjee, best known as Bob Biswas, the puppy-faced hitman in Kahani, plays his Watson, Ajit.
Har Har Byomkesh, as the title and promos suggest, is based in Varanasi. Going by the response to Sil’s other thriller that released earlier in 2015 – Ebar Sabor – featuring the police detective Sabor Dasgupta, he seems to know his crime film.
The Byomkesh stories, with their share of blood, gore, seduction, poison, drugs, personal drama and politics, are almost made for cinema, with the result that the dhoti-clad sleuth seems to enjoy an edge on the big screen over Feluda, who is younger and occupies a special place in the Bengali heart.
This may in part be because all the screen and TV adaptations of Feluda since Ray’s death were helmed by his Sandip Ray, who has not exactly been a popular choice with audiences and fans of the sleuth. However, renewed audience interest in thrillers did lead to a reasonably successful run at the box-office for the last Feluda film, Badshahi Angti. A buoyant Sandip Ray has already announced his next Feluda film.
Abir Chatterjee, incidentally, was credited to have given Feluda a fresh lease of life Badshahi Angti. ironically, he had shot to fame as Byomkesh in Dutt’s first three films about the detective. But despite the change, Chatterjee appeared happier as the dhoti-boot-clad, chain-smoking, conflicted and brooding hero than as the YA demigod.