Film Review by LITEROMA PUBLISHING SERVICES :: ‘ADHURA’ by Euphoria Films (1st Review)

** Thanks to Euphoria Films for requesting us to review their new release. **

** Thanks to our reviewer Mr. Sayan Basak for reviewing the short film on behalf of Literoma. **

The short film "ADHURA" is based on- Reetwika Banerjee’s original micro story ‘One Rainy Day’ published in her debut book ‘Fantastic 40’ in 2014.

About ‘One Rainy Day’- A perfect micro story which amalgamates love, friendship, separation with emptiness keeping the romantic rainy day as the backdrop. The story gives us a different perspective of a friendship. Friends are a strange, volatile, contradictory, yet sticky phenomenon. They are made, crafted, shaped, moulded, and created by focused effort and intent. And yet, true friendship, once recognized, in its essence is effortless. Best friends are formed by time. Everyone is someone’s friend, even when they think they are all alone. If the friendship is not working, your heart will know. It’s when you start being less than perfectly honest and perfectly earnest in your dealings. And it’s when the things you do together no longer feel right. However, sometimes it takes more effort to make it work after all. Stick around long enough to become someone’s best friend.

Adhura as a Title - I felt the title of the film was apt. The entire story stood upon a metaphorical theme of emptiness and loneliness which further illustrated that Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

Film Review - Keeping the backdrop as the Durga Puja, The plot revolves around a dark secret beyond love, sacrifice and hate. The sweet Sudipto-Mira’s relationship was focused beautifully as it explored the fact that they were from two different worlds. Two entirely different people. But upon their coming together, they created- they found- their own path and together they had their own world and in their own world, they were the same. Everyone else outside of it- everyone else was over there. Away. And they together- they together were here. They were right here. They were the same. Moreover the characters’ highlighted the fact that When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.

A third person, Bunny gets introduced on the midway. But Bunny, adds the flavour of sacrifice and love to the plot. He, take the story to a new direction not to prove the point that a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head; But  to prove that good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you lose like a wildfire and you can’t stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that’s a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it!

The story doesn’t ends here.  On Dussera, as Sudipto plans to propose his love, the plot takes a different lane this time which keeps the viewers mind completely blank. A dark truth gets revealed amidst of the festive season, keeping Sudipto’s love incomplete or 'adhura'.

Film Recognitions:-

The film has achieved an Official Selection at the 12th season of Calcutta International Cult Film Festival (CICFF) which is a member of the Film Society of Lincoln Centre, New York. CICFF annual gala festival will be held at the city of joy Kolkata on 5-6th Dec, 2017 and the selected short films will also be screened at the prestigious theatre ‘Indira Cinema’ during last week of November. ‘Adhura’ found a place in the top 15 list competing with short films from Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain and many more countries.

Movie credits:-

Director: Abhijit Sinha
Writer: Reetwika Banerjee
Producer: Nisha Prabhat

Cinematographer: Amarjit Virdi
Costume: Anupama Negi
Music & Singer: Surajit Nandi
Editing: Nikunj Gabani

Key Cast:-

Praveen Srivastava (as Sudipto)
Ajoy Chakraborty (as Sujoy)
Amita Bharat (as Mira)
Dhruv Jha (as Bunny)

Technical Details of the Film:-

Type: Short Film
Genre:Dark Romance
Category: Silent movie
Run time: 00h 19m 06s
Release Date: September 26, 2017 (Durga Sasthi)
Distribution medium: Youtube
Shooting Format: 35mm (Coloured)
Aspect Ratio – 3:2

About ‘Fantastic 40’- "Fantastic 40″ is arguably one of India’s first assortment of English micro stories which is an amalgamation of author’s figments of imagination based on fiction works depicted in the form of crispy narrations. It contains 40 stories encircling various moods of life including anger, love, humour, trust, revenge, happiness, comedy, sarcasm, mystery, affection, sportsmanship, friendship, thrill, romance and forgiveness. Though all the events/characters depicted in the book are purely imaginary, yet readers can easily identify oneself with most of them. Target readers will mostly include the young Indians – age wise or mind wise. The language used being extremely crunchy, it will also attract anyone who enjoys witty puns and sweet love stories.

Overall, Literoma will rate the film as 4.8*/5* and recommend their audience to expect a sensational watch.