Present
times are hard times for Assamese Cinema. The continuous closing down of Cinema
Halls one after another, the garbage of VCD culture, piracy, etc. and various
other factors contributing to the present saddening situation of a moribund
Assamese Film Industry, have put a heavy burden of responsibility on the
shoulders of the upcoming new age Assamese filmmakers.
Amidst these dire
situations, though many Assamese films have seen light of the day in form of
film releases, yet Assamese Cinema, which by the way is one of the oldest film
industries of the country, is yet to witness a significant change of course.
Amongst such films, was a much discussed film, “Shinyor”. Much discussed in the
sense that, the publicity of the film was done vigorously and in a grand way
through modern day boons and blessings of social media like Facebook, Twitter,
Youtube, etc. and with the aid of electronic media.
Kangkan Rajkhowa, the man
in the director’s chair, is already a known short-filmmaker. Since, I myself
had seen promise in the works of Kangkan Rajkhowa, I was anticipating the
release of his debut full-length feature film “Shinyor”, with much vigour and
enthusiasm. Finally, after much gossip and intellectual hullaballoo, the film
saw light of the day on the 17th of January of the running year in
various movie theatres in different parts of Assam including Guwahati.
To
be brutally frank, there’s not an ounce of freshness in the story of the film.
Films with similar concepts and stories – even better – are found very commonly
in other parts of the country (let alone other countries). But it definitely
draws a fresh breathe of air amidst the present monotonous, cliché, romantic and bihu-biased Assamese films. The
plot revolves around the dreadful experiences of a lady journalist. The lady
journalist, Priya (Priyashree Kashyap), lives alongwith her mother (Jharna
Bisoya), father (Amitabh Rajkhowa) and younger sister (Vaishali Saikia) in
Guwahati. Priya’s father is a police inspector. After completing her studies in
Journalism, Priya joins a local channel as a journalist and is offered with an
assignment to cover crimes stories related women rights and women molestation.
While collecting news for her assignments, Priya slowly is dragged into a dark
world of which she hadn’t the slightest idea before.
During the course of her
investigations and research Priya develops a bond with a sex-worker (Pranami
Bora) and decides to spend one night in their rooms in hope of collecting
valuable news materials for her assignment. By sheer co-incidence, that very
night, during a police raid, Priya’s father, to his utter astonishment,
discovers her and decides to leave her there without even trying to pay any
heed to Priya’s plea and explanations. On the other hand, allegedly suspecting
Priya’s involvement in the police raid, she is driven away from there. But she
hardly gets unnoticed, as broker of the dark world Nana (Gyanendra Pallab)
takes advantage of the situation, resulting in Priya becoming a victim herself
n losing everything. How Priya finally manages to escape from there and
reunites with her family is the basic plot of the film.
The film may not be of very high standards but
one cannot help but appreciate Kangkan Rajkhowa’s slightly off-tack (though not
totally “out of the box”) thinking and bold effort. Every artiste and member of
his team has helped Rajkhowa in this case. The strongest and the most
significant part of the film is its music. Music director Anurag Saikia’s
expertise has given a totally new dimension to the film and elevated the
importance of every single sequence to a different level. The huge popularity
of the soundtracks of the film has only proven the same. Other than that, the
cinematography, especially the city’s night life part is praiseworthy. All
credit goes to the cinematographer, Pradip Daimari.
The skillful editing of
Kangkan Rajkhowa makes the film worth watching. I’d even take the privilege to
state that I don’t precisely remember witnessing similar editing style in an
Assamese film of late. Though the overall acting is mostly consistent, yet it
is weak in some parts. Compared to the story, the screenplay could have been
stronger. Too many co-incidences, overuse of slang words (unnecessary use of
the same could have been avoided in some scenes), inclusion of one or two
unnecessary scenes (for example, the scene in which Nana and Muktab sits
together and have drinks, does not in any way help the story of the film. As if
used only to introduce humour to the film) and weak Art Direction adversely
affects the cinematic flavours to be enjoyed with full content.
As a
consequence, though “Shinyor” promises a lot, yet it is unable to free itself
from the stigma of peculiarly weak Assamese Cinema. The way the director of the
film establishes the situation of Priya in order to drag the issue of AIDS into
the story, clearly shows his lack of detailed knowledge on AIDS. Female are a
“carrier” of HIV virus and not a victim of the same, which is the reason why
female AIDS patients can survive for days and even years without much
complication. But towards the end of the film, Priya is established in mortal
condition; maybe to gain the sympathy of the audience such a condition of Priya
was shown, but this has put forward a totally wrong picture infront of the
society.
For the same reasons, the director and the script-writer should have
been more careful in their approach and done their homework properly for the film.
Moreover, a deep knowledge on the treatment of a film is a necessity for the
director, else there arises the huge possibility of a film transforming into a
TV serial, which, by the way, is a fundamental problem of today’s Assamese
films. “Shinyor” too proves not to be exception in this very regard in many sequences.
If we ignore all the weak links of the film,
“Shinyor” definitely manages itself not to take the general course of path and
proves to be an enjoyable film, which maybe a reason why “Shinyor” has
successfully seen through two weeks of business everywhere (more than four
weeks in Gold Cinema) and manages to shine amongst other simultaneously
released Assamese films, thus, becoming the highest grosser of the year at the
box office till date.
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