FilmIndia (1948)

OUR REVIEW Chandrashekhar" Becomes A Boring Hotchpotch Debaki Bose*s Criminal Waste Of Celluloid ! Film art in Bengal seems to have reached its lowest point of degeneration these days and "Chandrasheuiar . a much-boosted product, seems to be merely one more symptom of this state of deterioration. Gone is Jiat golden age in Indian movies, when millions looked to the art-conscious Bengalis for pictures like "Devdas", "Chandidas". "Vidyapati". etc.. which gave them lvrical music sprinkled with human emotions, framed in soul-stirring themes Mid presented with the best in techni:al art. Debaki Bose. Barua. Nit i n Jose. Bimal Roy and others — giants >f old — seem to have shrunk in staHre these days and become just K> many money-grabbing pygmies whose insatiable greed for money seems to have been responsible for many a sinful abortion of art recently. "Chandrashekhar" is just one more from this series, premature in concept, development and presentaion. With Bombay never in the labour )f art or the artistic and Madras born barren in this field and Bengal now aborting in her glorious puberty, (notion picture art in India seems to have touched the dregs of despair at the present moment. Lnless someone kicks our Boses. Baruas and Roys in the pants or kindly Fate provides them once again with a half-starving struggle to live, we won't see another revival of art and the artistic. And from no other direction will this dawn appear but from Bengal, the original home of art and emotion. It is the East of our nation and the East of our motion picture art. DEFAMATION OF THE DEAD "'Chandrashekhar . the picture which Debaki Bose has given us defames the dead author. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Babu Bankim Chandra was a great story-teller and he told his stories with a surfeit of emotions characteristic of the Bengalis. Debaki Bose has squeezed all emotion from the original subject and given us a dry duck. Debaki Babu's "Chandrashekhar" is a puerile romance with stunts and a seeming political background continuallv out of focus. The main storv is too simple for a motion picture. Pratap and Saibalini play together as children and with vears CHANDRASHEKHAR Produced By: Pioneer Pictures Language: Hindustani Original Subject Bankim Chandra Scenario: Debaki Bose Music: Kamal Das Gupta Cast: Ashok Kumar, Kanan Devi, Biman Bannerjee etc. Released At: Capitol, Bombay. Date of Release: 27th August 1948 Directed by DEBAKI KUMAR BOSE 'Gajre" >rems to have been well "Sprinkled". This social story of Allied Art Production!) is fast nearing completion. learn to love each other. But thev can "t get married because thev belong to the same kin (gotra). They are, therefore, torn apart and Saibalini is given in marriage to Pandit Chandrashekhar who. we are told, is a sworn celibate i Brahmachari I . Whv a celibate should consent to take a wife beats our imagination. But there it is. a full-grown woman (or rather overgrown, as seen in the picture I with a full-grown man and the man spending his hours before idols of the family gods and the woman looking out of the window wistfullv. waiting for someone to rescue her from the shackles of traditions. Pratap. robbed in love, offers his services as an army captain to Xawab Mir kassam to help the latter to check the growing menace of the East India Company in Bengal. From here onwards the storv assumes the appearance of a stunt picture. Lawrence Foster, a Dutch gangster with the East India Co. goaded by lust, kidnaps Saibalini and takes her to his ship to place her on a comfortable bunk I probably because she didn't have one like that in her husband's home I and then waits patiently for the hero to turn up. The unholy hurry with which he kidnapped the heroine suddenly disappears and lust takes a patient edge to give Debaki Babu the time to dispense w ith the husband and lend wings to the hero ( Pratap) . Husband Chandrashekhar. hearing of the kidnapping incident, discovers himself to be incompetent in looking after his wife la fact which his celibacy should have long before suggested), and walks out of the house into the jungle for meditation. Pratap. the hero, reaches the boiling point when he hears of the Dutchman's outrage on Saibalini and grabbing his sword like an umbrella rushes forth for her rescue. 49