January 28, 2011 (Sampurn Wire): Film: Tokhon 23 (Bengali)

Cast: Jisshu Sengupta, Indrani Halder, Paoli, Aparajita Ghosh Das, Tanusree Shankar, Rajatava Dutta, Sujon Mukhopadhyay, Biswajit Chakroborty, Loket Chatterjee, Biplab Chatterjee and others

Director: Atanu Ghosh

Rating: 3.5/5

Atanu Ghosh has dared to go beyond the conventional thought process where the virtual world is concerned and intersperse that world with the real life drama and weave in a thriller element in the psychological film Tokhon 23. With the second venture after the debut film Angshumaner Chobi, the director Atanu preferred to tell a story of a doctor aged 27, played by Jisshu whose life was changed at the age of 23.

At that time he had four women, Paoli, Aparajita,Indrani and Tanusree in his life and with 48 hours his life took a different turn. Paoli is the runaway prostitute who excites Jisshu when he was young and the actress went beyond conveying herself with her eyes and took her acting to a new level. Aparajita and Tanusree are also quite impressive in their acts but it is Indrani and Jisshu in the film that takes the cake.

The actor was able to portray the multi-layered character who becomes a frequent at pron shows, is infatuated by his teacher and coming in terms with his over-possessive mother. All the supporting casts just help in bringing the film together in a unique way. But Atanus fearless act of tackling a subject of the predominant virtual world and leaving the bits and pieces of the narration for the audience to put together for the film only adds to the excitement.

The editing by Sujoy Dutta Roy and the background score by Mayukh Bhowmick just adds more grit to the film. If TT is accepted by the audience, one can be assured that the other directors will be ready to break the mould of conventional stories and linear way of narrating a film.

-- Sampurn Wire