Whoa! What? Did you say Q? Yes, it’s The Q (Qaushiq Chatterjee), the maverick, the radical, the insane, the genius. Like his name, his films too are bizarre. This particular flick is his adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novel of the same name. And as expected, Q leaves no stone unturned in leaving his audience perplexed, and make them hunt desperately to find even the most obscure clue to comprehend his story. Frankly, let me shamelessly admit, I did not understand the story. Q’s take was beyond comprehension except in the second half where he sparingly tosses digestible nuggets to his literate audience.
Am I being snobbish? Yeah. You might feel I am being supercilious because of my usage of “literate” audience, but believe me; I count myself among the very few “literate” cinema goers who would dare to visit a theatre and watch Q’s esoteric stuff. Taasher Desh is not for the masses, it is for the classes, and that too the hardcore intellectual class that has the “eye” to appreciate cinema this bizarre. Bizarre, not in a deprecating sense, but in an ingenious sense. As admitted, I hardly understood the stuff presented on celluloid, but a few things that touched (read bruised) me were: cinematography, sound, abrupt blending of episodes, dicey narration. Have you ever seen a movie where the main credit is shown suddenly in the middle of the film? It gets even stranger when a deliberate digital aberration is tailored where you feel the reel has accidentally got stuck or the projectionist of the theatre has made the worst possible mistake of his career. Loud, jarring sound effects, weird video graphic angles, eerie lighting, unpredictable storyline, it’s all there. Abrupt, sudden appearance of any of these attributes haunts throughout the film that it almost hurts the senses.
The first half is an absolute ambiguity; the over-the-top phenomenon re-visits again and again to the point until it becomes a sore for the logical half of the human brain. But in the second half the mist clears and a prominent silhouette appears. I am not the right person to elaborate the story as it would not do justice to Tagore and obviously Q’s “bizarre” creation. See it for yourself as you need to experience it if you really want to get the feel (read pinch) of it.