previously published on Asian Movie Pulse
We tend to see India as a single country, no matter how complicated. But even geographically, it is a sub-continent, while the diversity of its social landscape reminds us that it should be seen as a complete civilization. And, where is the whole civilization, there is a plenty of the axis of division: linguistic, religious, ethnic, class and caste. Sometimes it is quite a hard task to govern such a country and achieve some kind of balance in it.
The diversity also applies to the national cinema with different “schools” of it in various states. Coming from Kolkata, one might assume that “Myth & Pieces” (“Kalponik” in original), written and directed by Arka Mukhopadhyay, could be something along the lines of art house cinema. However, it is a mix of fairly conventional sub-genres of thriller, with an investigative, political and even symbolic mystery angles, which in theory sounds fine and dandy, especially when packed in a compact 90-something minutes format. In theory…
Mukhopadhyay takes some sweet time for exposition, introduction of characters and situation, with a hint of plotting the matter. Maithili (Satakshi Nandy) was once a promising journalist, but facing the sensationalism in her house, she decides to change her employer. She starts working for the paper supporting a seemingly progressive rising star of a politician Adhiraj Mitra (Sahidur Rahaman) who tries to improve his chances on making a splash in the upcoming elections. One of the first stories she stumbles upon is the one of a legendary lost temple served to her by the professor Shom (Janardan Ghosh) which turns to be a great hit.
However, when an old Hindu statue is found underneath the Muslim temple, the tension rises in a seemingly peaceful West Bengal town, culminating with a murder of the professor Rakshit (Rajatabha Dutta) who previously contacted Maithili in attempt to debunk Shom’s theory. Aided only by the filmmaking student Meghnad (Sudip Mukherjee) who was the last to interview Rakshit, she starts her own investigation. Also, in a different plotline, we get to follow a man named Dilip (Sayan Ghosh) who struggles to get the money needed to buy an apartment in a new building…
The thing is, the exposition part takes something like two thirds of the film before the plot even starts to take a shape, juggling with characters to develop and topics to explore. The thing is, none of the two is done in a satisfying manner, since the characters remain as given at the beginning, without much change due to their findings as the plot thickens, while the topics of the divisions and tensions within the society in India are explored only superficially. The mystery to bind the whole thing together is not strong enough to succeed doing so, effectively ending on the level of which character plays which part in the mosaic.
Production values are solid throughout, and so is the acting, but none of it raises above the level of passable. The impression is further reinforced by Mukhopadhyay’s directing that is pretty functional, “invisible” and devoid of anything resembling style. The thing is, the complicated story with such a number of characters, events and discoveries does not fit the compact format, especially in such moderate pace and without proper dynamic accents, which might be the fault of the editor Amitava Dasgupta. In the end, it seems that the final version was extracted from a much longer one and that some continuity fell a victim of that. With such plain directing, “Myth & Pieces” seems more like a two-episode pilot for a season of a TV show which would let the characters and the plot breathe and develop properly.
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