Mister Bhaduri pays tribute to Hitchcock and Chaplin

Subrata Sen is back with his latest, after a gap of two years. Mister Bhaduri, a psychological thriller, stars Rahul, Malobika and Srabanti Banerjee. We caught up with the director who talked about his love for thriller and his inspiration, Hitchcock.
Mister Bhaduri is a thriller. How did you come up with the idea?
It���s a slow thriller, harking back to the Hitchcockian genre.At the beginning, the film pays tribute to Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin���s Monsieur Verdoux is about this guy, Verdoux, who loves roses and children, but is also a killer. It is from there that I got the idea for Mister Bhaduri, and named it such that it sounds phonetically similar to the Chaplin film.
So, Chaplin���s Monsieur Verdoux is your inspiration for the film.
I got the core idea of the movie from it. But the story is not the same. I just developed the concept from that idea.
Is this film in keeping with the current trend of making thrillers?
My first film, Ek Je Achhe Kanya, was also a slow thriller. Since there is a current trend of thrillers and detective stories, I thought it was a good time to revisit the genre. But, most films these days are detective stories and not actual thrillers. There���s Feluda, Byomkesh, Kiriti��� My film is not a detective story. It���s a psychological thriller, and they are not the same.
Are thrillers your poison?
I grew up watching Hitchcock. I think, in modern filmmaking, we use many techniques, knowingly or unknowingly, which were first introduced by Hitchcock. In fact, the format of our filmmaking is majorly inspired by him. For example, suppose in a shot, one character says, ���Let���s go to Darjeeling.��� The next shot is that of a train. The third is of the character in Darjeeling. The journey is chucked out. Or say the use of a theme score for a film, that���s used over and over, to establish a certain plot ��� like in the Man Who Knew Too Much. Thus, going back to Hitchcock is always wonderful.
Does Rahul���s character in the film bear any resemblance to Dr Death, the serial killer from Maharashtra who was nabbed recently after killing six people?
No, I read about that report only recently. But yes, there is a similarity with another gruesome case from Kolkata ��� that of people living with dead bodies. But even that is just a coincidence and the storyline has nothing to do with that case. It just goes on to show that there are people like them around us, whose sensibilities are skewed.
What next?
My documentary on Kali is almost ready. Once I am done with Mister Bhaduri, I will put the finishing touches to that. I am in no hurry to make films. I have already made 10, in 15 years. I am sure, some more will come through.