Nadharer Bhela movie review: Pradipta Bhattacharya delivers a brilliant, unsettling tale of survival

The job of any provocative art, it has been said, is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Pradipta Bhattacharya’s latest film, Nadharer Bhela, not only makes you uncomfortable and uneasy but pushes you to the brink and forces you to take a deep dive into a parallel world that we so wish didn’t exist.

Outstanding performances and a gripping narrative make Nadharer Bhela a must-watch Bengali film

But the film is not about the mere existential crises and struggles of the marginal sections of society. The story goes beyond the simple narrative to reiterate that even the weakest of the weak, when pushed against the wall, can hit back with unexpected ferocious strength.

The film’s protagonist Nadhar, immaculately played by Amit Das, is the slowest-moving man living on planet Earth, perhaps slower than the sloth. The man who takes hours to move from his bed to his courtyard is solely dependent on his mother, who manages to earn a square meal for both by running errands around the village. Nadhar is also revered by the village folks, who often visit him for blessings and wish fulfilments in lieu of meagre provisions. Nadhar refuses to play the saint anymore, putting his mother in further crisis. The story begins when his mother dies of a sudden accident.

The totally unemployable Nadhar catches the attention of a manager of a circus that sets up a tent in the village. The story proceeds lucidly from there until it reaches a denouement. But by the time you reach the end, you are already sucked into the world of the circus and the helpless existence of its employees.

The film’s success lies not in the storyline and beautiful gimmick-free camera work alone. Despite the narrative taking place in a circus set in a village, the audience can relate to the story. It perhaps will resonate at every level with every individual, be it exploitation at work, tropes of patriarchy, dashed hopes and frustrations, social rejection and how a crowd of otherwise sane people can turn into a completely insensitive mob, deriving pleasure out of bullying someone weak and helpless.

It’s also a story of how even the weakest in the lowest strata of society can possess and evoke great strength. The film shows how love can be found in the most unexpected manner in the least likely places in highly unsuitable individuals. Nadharer Bhela is symbolic of what happens every day around all of us in a civilised society. It shows how easily society rejects someone as useless, how easily neighbours can turn into foes and how frighteningly alone we all are in our battles. But despite the dystopian world that the film’s characters inhabit, they never actually lose faith in humanity and give up on the hope for a good life.

The background music and songs add significantly to Nadharer Bhela’s ambience, pulling the audience further into the world and journey of Nadhar.

The camera doesn’t act smart and keeps at eye level and is as candid as can be. Only the last shot was captured by drone, beautifully conveying the message of the film without any waste of words.

Amit Das, after The Academy of Fine Arts, once again shows what a great actor can do on screen. With hardly any dialogue or movement, he delivers a riveting performance with his expressive eyes, which speak to you, conveying every emotion he is going through in the film. He literally wrings the audience‘s heart.

Words fall short when it comes to Priyanka Sarkar, perhaps the most underutilised actor of our generation. Priyanka doesn’t act in this film; she lives the life of Shyama. As Shyama, she deftly portrays the many emotions of a much-used and abused woman hankering after one true love. Shyama is a woman who, despite being exploited at so many levels, hasn’t given up on her search for true love and redemption. Satakshy Nandy is another talent who waits to be adequately exploited by Bengali cinema. As Rupa, she simply rules the screen with her eyes, and her raunchy dance moves sometimes remind us of Dirty Picture’s Vidya Balan. She is naughty, serenading, manipulative and assertive, yet is as helpless and exploited as any other woman in a man’s world.

If anyone could evoke extreme revulsion, hatred and anger in us, it was Ritwick Chakraborty. We couldn’t believe our eyes: how a civil and reticent Ritwick (in his personal life), usually seen as a struggling civil urban middle-class man in most of the films, could transform into someone so biliously vile, exploitative and abusive as Haradhan. He played the vitriolic character with so much conviction that the audience can easily feel an urge to throw something at him on screen.

Long after the movie ends, you will remember Ritwick for his evilness and Priyanka for her compassion. But Amit’s Nadhar will make you believe once more that we all possess that inner strength to fight injustice. And that love can cut through impossible barriers.

The only pity is that one cannot watch the movie in a regular theatre. In order to explore a different route, avoiding the traditional distribution network, co-producers Pradipta and Ritwick are renting auditoriums to screen the movie. The next show—the 50th one, in fact—will be held at at Tehatta in Nadia (where the film was shot) on August 29 and the one in Kolkata will be held at Gyan Manch on September 13, 5.45 pm. Tickets are available on the websites 180 Degree and Explara.

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.