'Songshoy' is dilemma of today's W Bengal, says Saibal

Panaji, Dec 1 (UNI) Bengali film 'Songshoy' directed by Saibal Mitra and screened at IFFI here, is about the dilema of West Bengal middle class today.

The film depicts how it is torn between its old left ideology and the new-found fascination of their party for globalisation and privatisation.

''The film is representative of what is happening in Bengal today. The way the communist party is going for capitalist economy has left everybody, the trade unionists and old party loyalists in a great dilemma,'' Saibal Mitra told UNI.

He had come here for its presentation at IFFI.

A completely new thinking is coming in Bengal, which the old left finds hard to cope with, he said.

The film, Saibal said, has a very simple storyline. It revolves around four characters which are all very representatives of the various strands of thinking in the Bengali society today..

There is Anita, a widow of a leftist poet Arannya, who has a history of left political loyalty because of her marriage. She has a six-years-old son Bubai. Shyamal a doctor, ambitious and advocate of globalisation. Maitrayee, a radical leftwing activist.

''For Anita it is a very confusing situation, as she wants to break away from a conventional left minded Bengali society and embrace a contemporary free global society that is emerging in West Bengal,'' he said.

Nobody knows whether the route Anita is taking would land her and son into happiness and prosperity.

The characters meet one another head-on within a cloistered atmosphere of a North Bengalo hill resort on a weekend trip to sort out their point of views and in the web of confusions Anita falters on her responsibility as a mother, and she looses her child.

Now, what should Anita do. Should she continue to explore the global route or go back to where she belongs and try something indigenous as some are doing? The situation is really very difficult for some in West Bengal, which the film has tried to capture, said Saibal.

Star Rituparna Sengupta, who played the lead role in the film, said she very much enjoyed working in the film and she was very happy to be present on the ocassion of the screening of the film in the Indian Panoram section of IFFI here.

UNI NAZ PA KN1418