After his last film Chorabali in 2016, Subhrajit Mitra is ready to shoot Avijatrik based on and concluding part of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s epic novel Aparajito. This will be a sequel to the classic Apu Trilogy by Oscar-winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The movie deals with the wanderlust of Apu instead of the inner journey of Apu and will portray the relationship between Apu and his son.
Shot in black and white, it will be filmed in Benaras, Gorubathan, Taki, Bolpur and Kolkata and will star Arjun Chakraborty in the lead besides Arpita Chatterjee, Ditipriya, Sohag Sen, Barun Chanda, Tanushree Shankar and Sreelekha Mitra. Before the shoot begins from Mahalaya next week, Indulge sat with Mitra for some exclusive takes on the making of the film:
In black and white
Mitra intends to recreate Kolkata in the year 1939 in black and white. “There will be shots of Howrah Bridge under construction and we are recreating the yesteryear Howrah Railway Station by referring to the pictures from that year available at the Railway Museum. Besides, Kolkata had cobbled streets then and since it’s on the big screen, everything has to be larger than life. I am also putting the film in a global context and hence the BBC’s footage of Churchill announcing World War 2 will also be there,” says Mitra.
The retro look
A lot of hard work went into recreating clothes that were in vogue during the 1930s. Apart from books, Mitra watched 150-200 films depicting that era. “From collars to pockets to cuts and silhouettes, everything was different then. Buttons were made of wood or shells, pants had no zips and children’s pants had no elastic on the waist. For Apu (Arjun), who is a 20-something-year-old, educated man from a middle-class background, the look is restricted to mostly shirts, dhotis and kurtas in handloom to highlight the texture in grey tones. For Arpita, who plays Leela, a rich, ambitious and educated woman, we had to be very cautious with her looks. Since her last days are shown in the film, it had to be toned down, yet glamorous and we had Gayatri Devi’s look in mind,” reveals Mitra.
Love for the bygone era
Avijatrik will premiere in an International film festival before its theatrical release in summer next year. After this, Mitra, who is resolute to do period films based on Bengali literature, plans to either make a film on Bibhutibhushan’s Aranyak or Rabindranath Tagore’s last novel Dui Bon. “For Aranyak I have thought of Ritwik Chakraborty in the role of the author and for Dui Bon it can be Raima Sen and Darshana Banik with Victor Banerjee in the role of Tagore himself,” Mitra tells.