At the 1956 Cannes Film Festival some people walked out from the screening of “Pather Panchali,” they were shocked, they could not watch people eating with their bare hands. Such is the gap between the East and the West. We are fascinated by them, we want to be like them, but do they have any interest in us? There was one European who abandoned all western ties to become one of us, to become a Bangalee. He is known to us as Anthony Firingee, our epithet for the Portuguese-Bengali Anthony Hensman, the beloved poet of Bangla folk songs. In “Jaatishmar” Prosenjit Chatterjee reprises the role made famous by Uttam Kumar in the 1967 film “Anthony Firingee.” Unfortunately, this one is not a biopic like the brilliant Lalon Shah film “Moner Manush,” and it devotes little screen time to the story of the poet, all we get are snippets of flashbacks. The title of the film “Jaatishmar” - someone who can remember about their previous birth - comes from a famous love song by Suman Chattopadhyay. All the songs of the film are composed by Kabir Suman. Who is Kabir Suman? Just as Yusuf Islam is Cat Stevens, Kabir Sumon is Suman Chattopadhyay. The film is produced by Reliance Entertainment, part of the $30bn corporation, so this is not going to be a piece of personal filmmaking, unless you are Steven Spielberg (both “War Horse” and “Lincoln” were coproduced by Reliance) they are going to put a pretty tight grip around your neck. But surprisingly, Kabir Suman emerges unscathed, with a lot of integrity, and we get an uncompromising music album. This film will be remembered for his music.
“Jaatishmar” sandwiches Anthony Firingee’s story in a light hearted romantic comedy where silly titles are used to introduce characters most of whom talk in bad one-liners. This is the main story line: An innocent guy (played wonderfully by Jishu Sengupta) gets rejected by a rude sarcastic girl (Swastika Mukherjee) just because he is not from Bengal and does not speak fluent Bangla. She is a purist. Moreover, she gives him the task to write, compose and sing a Bangla song dedicated to her. We have to wait till the end to listen to that song: “E Tumi Kemon Tumi.” Of course there is a music competition at the climax; and guess who wins that competition? But the film is not as silly as it sounds because there is another more serious story line.
Next our hero starts to look up on Anthony Firinge, partly due to the if-he-can-do-it-so-can-I syndrome, and partly due to his M Phil dissertation (and here we need to suspend some disbelief) which just happens to be on Portuguese Studies. Enter Jaatishmar. He meets a librarian (also played by Prosenjit Chatterjee) who claims to be the reincarnation of Anthony Firingee. The scenes that follow are quite interesting- Jishu Sengupta and Prosenjit Chatterjee have pretty good chemistry and in a strange way they are quite similar in the film.
“Jaatishmar” set out to be a steak but ended up becoming a club-sandwich. It is over two-and-a-half hours long and it still felt two-third of the film was missing- as if the meat was missing. Every time the film changed track from the rebirth story and returned to the romantic comedy, I felt disoriented. I wish Reliance Entertainment would release an extended director’s cut DVD with all the songs put back.
Even if you do not find the film entirely satisfactory, as I did not, you can still go watch it for the songs, then you can buy the album, like I did, and listen to it. My favorites are the kobigaan (a traditional performing arts featuring the battle of the poets) sung by Srikanto Acharya (as Anthony Firingee) and Kharaj Mukherjee (as the opponent). Strangely, we are always rooting for the “foreigner” instead of our Bengali poets.
