The Many KOLKATAs

Kolkata, my city, is often shown in films or in television serials as a city which is unanimous with many known facets but, interestingly, it is a far more complex and heterogeneous in reality. Often, I feel that there are many Kolkatas, many fringes, many ghettos, many marginalised sections, many strange & unique dimensions that do not get explored enough in popular media.

This year, I saw Kolkata in its renowned and resplendent visuals in Birsa Dasgupta's debut feature film called "033", but did know whether to laud it for its music-video-like appeal or pass it off as yet another glossing over in a picture-postcard-like depiction.
Again, there was this film called "Mahanagar @Kolkata", by Suman Mukherjee, and it was quite a novel approach, though tad more ambitious than able. The film - for a large part - had brilliant depictions of the underbelly, of the marginalised, decadent segments, and I must salute the courage shown by the director to do so. However, the director failed in the third segment (the film being a collage of three distinct segments, loosely tied up as a single narrative) as he tried to go somewhat offbeat in the portrayal of the desperation and despair of the urban yuppies; it came off as false and hollow apart from being show-offish.
I am happy to note that Kolkata has also been captured in many of this year's Bangla releases like "Shukno Lanka", "Le Chhakka", "Clerk" and "Ekti Taarar Khonje" - with mixed results. "Clerk" (reviewed earlier in my blog) scores highest in its depiction, according to my evaluation, in terms of content and style/manner.
May my city be the lensmen's delight ever more. And may the films too go a step further to show the many of its hitherto undiscovered and untapped aspects.