The title of the film “Meghmallar” comes from a raga. There are ragas for different times of the day and also for different seasons of the year. “Meghmallar” is the name of a raga for the monsoon season, which has the power to evoke the mood of the rain. It is simultaneously exultant and ravaging. In Indian classical music ragas are like modes, made by permutations of five or six pitches selected from the sargam, that is the seven-pitch-collection – Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni.
“Meghmallar” is an apt title since rain is used as a leitmotif throughout the film, where the mood of the people and the mood of nature get interwoven. Moreover, the meghmallar raga plays in the background to create the atmosphere. And thanks to the cinematography it really felt like monsoon. But the title is too esoteric for the audience and the original title of Akhtaruzzaman Elias’ short story “Raincoat”, on which the film is based, would have been more accessible and perhaps a better choice. I like the name “Raincoat” – rain is trouble, coat is shield. Rain. Coat. Shield from trouble.
“Meghmallar” is the story of a coward and his family- wife, little daughter and there is also a brother-in-law. The brother-in-law is the brave-man who later becomes the sole inspiration for the coward’s transformation. It is a folktale like “The Happy Man’s Shirt”. However, in that tale it turned out that the happy man did not have any shirt. Here, the brave-man has a ‘shirt’, but it becomes both a curse and a blessing: it becomes the cause of the fall and the eventual rise of the coward.
The setting is a village in the backdrop of the Liberation War, in the month of August. There is heavy rainfall. The coward is a college teacher struggling to stay away from trouble at all cost, particularly from his brother-in-law, who has joined the freedom fighters. As destiny would have it, one rainy day he goes to work wearing his brother-in-law’s raincoat and gets captured by the army, who mistakes him for his brother-in-law. Shahiduzzaman Selim is good as the coward, but I felt the brother-in-law, being such a pivotal character, was a miscast.
Just when the film was becoming interesting, it ended abruptly, as if the budget ran out. We may have mixed feelings about government-funded patriotic films, but we do not expect them to be insufficiently funded. “Meghmallar” is among the better ones of the lot and I felt at least half-hour more was needed for the denouement. The coward’s metamorphosis was too quick to be fully effective and undermined the overall impact of this otherwise well-made film.
In spite of that “Meghmallar” was successful in creating an ambiance of the wet monsoon and that is quite commendable. This film actually reminded me of Giasuddin Selim’s teleplay “Bhoy” (where Fazlur Rahman Babu played the coward) which dealt with a similar theme.
There is no doubt that we have talented filmmakers doing good work. But perhaps for certain kind of stories it is important to forget filmmaking altogether and be completely free from its burden.
In order to honor those who are no more, we must hold the hands of the ones who are in pain today and stand beside them, and that should be the source of our inspiration, not filmmaking.