Subhash K Jha On 20 Years Of Pradeep Biswas’ Parineeta

There’s no getting away from Devdas in this  Parineeta a  fascinating absorbing and largely  sensitive rendering of Hindi litterateur Saratchandra’s other study of  the male ego and its tragic   repercussion on matters  of the heart,  set within a feudal backdrop. Parineeta had been done  on  several occasions in the past with actresses as varied as Meena  Kumari  and Sulakshana Pandit  playing  Lalita, the protagonist.

  Debutant Pradeep Sarkar’s adaptation  of the  complex original material is as far removed from Bimal Roy’s Parineeta  as Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas was from Bimal Roy’s earlier  classics.

  Literary classics are open to more than  one interpretation. Sarkar’s  take on Saratachandra proves it with bridled élan.  While  Saratachandra according to Bhansali was  far more emotionally and optically extravagant, Sarkar’s Parineeta is more reigned-in, at times almost inhibited …And then like a flower opening its petals, it is also prone to sudden fits of extroverted aesthetics. The Lolita-Shekhar love-making sequence(an add-on that may leave the purists gasping indignantly) is  done as   a smoothly transitional process from banter to bed between the  childhood pair.

  The contradictory  moods are well  balanced and preserved. It’s unclear why the original novel has been shifted from  the early 20^th century to the 1960s, unless  this dizzying translocation was done so that the hero can play jazz on the piano  and savour the songs of Elvis Presley,or Rekha(in a thoroughly redundant appearance) breaks into a smouldering jig at La  Moulin Rouge and even plonks herself into a visibly embarrassed Sanjay Dutt’s lap.

 Oooh…Hot, baby, hot. Too hot for Saratchandra or  his earlier screen adapator Bimal Roy to handle.  Pradeep Sarkar instils a smouldering  intensity into the story of a hero who’s too arrogant and selfabsorbed to say yes to love. Unlike Saratachandra’s Devdas, Shekhar finally stands up to his conscience, heart and tyrannical father in  the nick of time.

This Sartachandra hero is no walk-over. And neither is  the film.

    The sequences between father Sabyasachi Chakraborty(as nasty and selfserving as entrepreneurs  can  get in our movies) and son Saif Ali Khan would immediately remind audiences  of the father-son whiplash war of words  in Bhansali’s Devdas…Both dads refer to their  rather spoilt and decadent sunny-boy’s childhood sweethearts as  whores.

Not a nice thing to do.  Saratchandra suffered from a pronounced patriarchal complex.  Both Devdas and Parineeta are coloured by a filial prejudice that seeps into the romantic arteries  of  the plot, rendering the hero almost impotent .

In fact Shekhar’s autocratic father calls his son ‘napunsak’.  The provocative expletive triggers of a masculine reaction in Shekhar  leading to a rather strange and strident climax where we encounter  Saif Ali Khan literally breaking down the wall between him and his beloved, as inlookers egg him on, “Tod do, tod do!”

   Break a wall, don’t break a heart, huh?  Well, so much for literal literary transcreations. There is a lot that is soft delicate poised and palpably contemporary  in Sarkar’s Parineeta.

    The Shekhar-Lolita sequences possess a quality of understated naturalism.     Childhood love is omnipresent  in both of  Saratchandra’s classic. To  the director’s credit  Parineeta  succeeds in giving a twist to  to the tale…a tormented but ecstatic romantic twist. Saif and newcomer Vidya Balan  look  perfectly compatible. And Sanjay Dutt who plays Lolita’s    older benefactor, now looksmature and selfdeprecating  enough to  play the rakish  slightly over-the-hill Other Man.

 Cast in place, Sarkar gives the backdrop a body and a face. With  exceptional help from editor Hemanti Sarkar, art director Keshto Mandal/Tanushree Sarkar/Pradeep Sarkar and most of all cinematographer N. Nataraja Subramaniam, the director re-constructs the bustle and social life of the idle rich in Kolkata in  the 1960s. ..the clubs and cards sessions, the flirting and innuendos…The film takes us back to a lifestyle when an existential crisis  meant you had to choose between two  beautiful women, one for wealth and  other for romantic health.

     The world of Parineeta is cloistered and yet liberating.  The characters are dressed for  the occasion but not suffocatinglly bound to the period that they represent. The melodrama is often played at a step crescendo. But the down-scaling of the emotional pitch is done with stealth and grace. Except for the climatic rapping-on-the-wall (Saif looks far more convincing banging  the piano in a  frenzy of  unfulfilled passion)  the drama always moves  with a ballerina’s footsteps.

   There is a certain elegance and old-world charm  to  the narrative. We  can almost hear the characters’ breaking hearts on the elaborate but uncluttured soundtrack.

  The narrative , pacing and dialogue delivery are  shaded and opened-out. Though shot indoors the effect is of a liberating light rather than an unventilated darkness.

 Vidya Balan  in her  first full-fledged lead, is a refreshing  change from the conveyer-belt heroines of today. She looks like would rather stroll in the garden than pant over the treadmill. But she fails to comprehend  the innermost nuances of the character. Her performance skims the surface with prideful spontaneity.  To her credit  the debutante is surrounded by beauty and harmony, both in the cast(Raima Sen and Diya Mirza  are pretty  wallflowers)   and the production design so that she comes across far more effectively than she would have otherwise.

  Dutt, though looking strangely tired, gets the sur of the era right. But it’s Saif Ali Khan who walks away  with the acting honours. Expressing the rancour , petulance , arrogance and  insensitivity of a spoilt rich heir he lets the bile and  tears flow unabashedly.  His grip over  his character’s sensitivities is apparent though not in any come-see-how-good-I-am way.

   Parineeta works as a romantic drama  and a period piece mainly because the cast and crew seem to get the point of the literary source without making  a song-and-dance of scrupulousness. Sure,  there’s a tender care and a furious focus on period details and consistency of characterization. But most of all, there’s a  sense of nostalgic stock-taking in  the way the three people in the triangle react to their environment and social circumstances.

 Though  the striking resemblances  stare you in the  characters, plot and   rich colours   don’t look for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta. And you’ll come away a richer cineaste from this ode to a romantic era.

Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta was memorable on many counts. For Saif Ali Khan it brought  out Bengali side of his personality.

In an exclusive  conversation on  Parineeta, which  was released on June 10, 2005, Saif says, “I loved connecting with the Bengali side of me and getting to act in a screen version of  a Saratchandra novel .It was a mature and strong role.Something  different for me …and  so well shot!Pradeepda took special care of me and made me feel like a star . I got great reviews . It was a lovely time.We shot in Old Kolkota  and the same train my mum(Sharmila Tagore) shot  Mere sapnon ki rani (Aradhana) on.I’m doing a film with Priyadarshan and he said to me. “I’ m thinking of Parineeta .So it meant a lot , and still does.I played the  guitar and piano and treated the instruments like a professional .It was great fun. Priyan talks about Parineeta to me . It makes me happy. Pradeep Sarkar  made a period film look natural and modern. Vidya Balan was lovely to work with and very very sweet . Dada really pushed her to excel. Parineeta was such an important film to me for so many reasons .It broke a certain image and allowed me to play the lead with a very different energy.”

  Recalling Pradeep  Sarkar’s directorial  skills Saif says, “Dada only shot my left side  because he loved that profile!He encouraged the Bengali side in me  to be more artistic.His framing and design were beautiful . You had the feeling you were working in proper cinema : artistic , beautifully lit .His face would light up with childlike joy when you delivered something good.Films like Omkara and Parineeta still resonate with makers . Dada (Pradeep Sarkar) was very sure he wanted only me for the role. His confidence really boosted mine. I had done 80-odd ads by the time I came to an acting career. He was sure no one else could play Lolita. The producer, Vinod Chopra, wanted a well-known actress. He rightly thought she’d add to the film’s commercial value.”