Iti Mrinalini - An Unfinished Disaster

Watched Iti Mrinalini yesterday. I went to watch the movie with lots of expectations, which at the end of the show remained unfulfilled. I mean, when you go to watch an Aparna Sen flick, you have a mind set that the movie would be different. Iti Mrinalini was as stale as you could expect any other Tollywood movie to be.

The story, to begin with, was like an old wine in a new bottle. Its about a woman and her affairs when she was coming out of age. Do we always need to portray woman as the victim? Is it really that necessary! Does blemishing a man's character guarantees a Cannes? We do have a Chowringhee by Shankar, don't we.

Then there was bad direction and cinematography. Since when did we start having an Apollo Hospital in Canada! When Konkona Sen Sharma was in the hospital after childbirth, her gurney had an Apollo Hospitals' logo on it. We don't expect this from someone like Aparna Sen, do we? Then the director failed miserably trying to create a Calcutta of the 70s. If you might remember, we only had Ship matchboxes then but when the duo was walking at College Street and h lighted a fag, the matchbox he used is a brand available only in recent times.

The stories and the cut-scenes were haphazardly placed. And we missed seeing Konkona's reactions after almost all her relationships ending in a tragedy or a loss, except after her daughter's demise. And even then her reactions were frozen, not expected out of an actor of her caliber. Don't you think it was necessary to show her face in the close-up after her first love Abhi was killed, especially after that "intimate" love making scene, which was utterly unnecessary. Then the lip-lock between Konkona and Rajat, it was horrible and there was absolutely zero emotion in it!

There were lots of similar shortfalls which made the movie a complete disaster. I wish Aparna Sen knew better when not to release a half-baked movie like Iti Mrinalini.

P.S. Something good about the movie: During the titles at the beginning of the movie, the name of Rabindranath Tagore appearing as the lyricist along with all the other mere mortals. Made him feel like more of a man he is rather than a God the way pseudo-Rabindriks tends to portray him as.