Film Review: PENDULUM-A TALE OF TIME

Runtime: 131 Minutes.

Writer and Director: Soukarya Ghoshal.

Producer: Cozum Analytics.

Lyrics: Anindya Chatterjee, Chandril Bhattacharya and Soukarya Ghoshal.

Vocalists: Somlata Acharya Chowdhury, Anindya Chatterjee, Kartik Das Baul, Tushar Roy, Sanchita Roy, Gorki Mukherjee, Lagnajita Chakraborty, Ivy Banerjee and Sayani Palit.

Music: Mainak ‘Bumpy Nag Chowdhury.

Starring: Subhasish Mukherjee, Rajesh Sharma, Shantilal Mukherjee, Rajatava Dutta, Anindya Pulak Banerjee, Samadarshi Dutta, Radhika Apte, Sreelekha Mitra, Doelpakhi Dasgupta and Shaili Bhattacharya.

         When I took my pen to write a review of Bengali film ‘Pendulum-A Tale of Time’; it really reminds me of time. From the days of beginning I have been told that Pendulum speaks the language and the word of time. So, I have a faith and confidence in my mind that the film will also speak the story of time. Behind that, if we want to debate on recent Bengali films, we have to admit that, the Bengali film industry had became most fertile and continuing its golden run in recent time of around five years than last three decades. In recent times with many of the commercially successful films are following by some sort of experimental flicks that also are doing well commercially. Soukarya Ghoshal’s ‘Pendulum-A Tale of Time’ is that kind of experimental flicks in Bengali film industry arena.

         In the center of the story there is an accident and a painter (Subhasish Mukherjee). The other apparently detached occurrences and characters are revolving around them. Each and every character portrays a sort of crisis. Somewhere the crisis is of family matters, somewhere it’s of the adolescence period or crisis of relation and sometimes it directly indicates an identity crisis. Through time and space director wanted to state that, our life is oscillating like Pendulum by avoiding such crisis circumstances. In-fact every pictures of the painter is acted like a live time-machine, through which an individual could make and feel the journey. In the initial scenes where we have Subhasish Mukherjee with some old paper in hands reminds us the ‘Herbert’.

      Sreelekha Mitra, Doelpakhi Dasgupta, Radhika Apte, Samadarshi Dutta and Rajesh Sharma acted well enough but Anindya Pulak Banerjee (Blind Musician), Shantilal Mukherjee (Driver), Rajatava Dutta (An ordinary Bengali teacher) and last but not the least the child actor Shaili Bhattacharya (plays daughter of Rajatava Dutta) must be named separately for their enormous performance. There is no doubt that, Anindya Pulak Banerjee and Shantilal Mukherjee had delivered one of the best performances of their life.  

          Apart from director Soukarya Ghoshal, there are three more persons made their debut with the film ‘Pendulum-A Tale of Time’. First one is director of photography, Harendra Singh; then music director Mainak ‘Bumpy’ Nag Chowdhury and producer Cozum Analytics.

Cinematography and the still shoot of the film are awesome. Most appreciable is that the film has been made on film, not in digital. It’s a pleasant experience to see on-screen. The music is appropriate; especially “Kauke Janachchhi Naa” by Somlata is a mind-blower. There must be an appreciation for the producer to encourage such kind of experimentation.

        Within a span of 2hours and 11minutes, director tried hardly to tell the story smartly and this is laudable. Director also tried to keep the thriller format until the end but somehow failed to do so. Like the suitcase of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ it fails to create any questions. Script and dialogue may have been a bit better. As a whole, if we take the point of debutante director then it is needless to say that Soukarya Ghoshal passed with the star marks.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10.