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Nayanchampar Dinratri (Bengali) / Incredible performance

Nayanchampar Dinratri is, perhaps, Sekhar Das’ best film till date

Roopa Ganguly in Nayanchampar Dinratri Roopa Ganguly in Nayanchampar Dinratri

Producer: Kingshuk and Kaushik Goon

Story, Screenplay and Direction: Sekhar Das

Banner: King’s Entertainment

Cast: Rupa Ganguly, Chandreyi Ghosh, Damini, Barun Chanda, Alakananda Banerjee, Manoshi Sinha, Debdoot Ghosh, Biswajit Chakraborty, Debranjan Nag and others.

By Shoma A. Chatterji

Nayanchampar Dinratri is, perhaps, Sekhar Das’ best film till date. Here he explores and peeps into the lives of daily part-time domestic maids who commute to Kolkata to work in the homes of the upper-middle-class families. The story spans a single day and night in the life of Nayanchampa (Rupa Ganguly) who does the washing, cooking, cleaning, the works in three or four houses in different housing complexes. She carries her youngest child with her to work.
Alongside Nayanchampa, Sekhar also tries to get into the lives of two other maids, played by Chandreyi Ghosh and Damini who commute with her to work. The youngest among the three, Damini wants to leave her husband and elope with her lover who has dreams of making it big in films. Does she finally run away with him on his two-wheeler? The contrast between the low class working women and the upper middle class and affluent Kolkata Bengali families is brought across without raising slogans or holding flags. In one flat, an aging, disabled couple help her and her child, while they suffer the loss of one of their two sons who has taken to political extremism. There is a touching scene where the husband, whimsical and irritable, throws away his breakfast of boiled eggs, bread and apple and Nayanchampa clandestinely guzzles in the egg and stuffs the apple pieces into her kid’s mouth, shards of glass notwithstanding.
In another home, a middle-aged man (Biswajit Chakraborty) tries to take sexual advantage of Nayanchampa. She tries to bear with it for a while and then quits the job. Nayanchampa has a drunkard husband who alternately bashes her up and forces himself on her for sex. She gives a family a dose of her fiery vocabulary, collects her wages from the arrogant teenaged daughter and walks out when she shockingly discovers that she has been replaced by Chandreyi.
Rupa Ganguly, who portrayed the beautiful, regal and dignified Draupadi in Mahabharat on television, miraculously transforms herself to fit into Nayanchampa, in looks, in body language, in speech and in acting. There is one shot of Nayanchampa dozing off on her way back from work with her child on her lap, weary after a hard day’s work. Never before has one seen Rupa in this kind of role done with such great commitment and conviction. Chandreyi and Damini are brilliant too as is the supporting cast with a special mention for Debdoot Ghosh.
Pandit Debjyoti Bose’s beautiful musical score is lilting and hummable with a medley of songs from across the Bengali universe such as a Baul number from Lalon’s repertoire, two Tagore numbers, and a khamaj thumri, all mood-triggered numbers on the soundtrack. Joydeep Bose’s cinematography is fitting for a film of this dark nature that engages in the raw reality called life while Gautam Bose’s art direction is unimaginably real. So, what gives? Nothing save the segments that feature the Leftist son of the disabled aged couple that not only fail to blend into the narrative but also appear jarring at places.
Nayanchampar Dinratri has featured at the Hyderabad Film Festival and also at the 19th IFFK at Thiruvananthapuram. Well done, Sekhar and congratulations Rupa Ganguly and her friends in the film! The film is a tribute to the innate power of marginal, poor and oppressed women we do not even take a second look at.

 

First uploaded on: 12-12-2014 at 01:00 IST
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