Bengali Movie Review- Jodi Ekdin (2010)
By SAMPURNFriday, April 23, 2010
JODI EKDIN – BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY
April 23, 2010 (Sampurn Wire):We do not realise the value of love when it is within us, around us, with us, beside us. This tragedy defines the magic chemistry called Life. You cannot turn the clock back. Or, can you? Riingo’s stylishly mounted Jodi Ekdin explores this through dreams and real life. ‘Inspired’ by the Hollywood flick If Only (2004) starring Paul Nichols and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Riingo adds his original touch by introducing the character of a street magician (Saheb Chatterjee) who through simple magic tricks, warns Neil, the protagonist, that he is running late. Neil (Indraneil Sengupta) is a high-powered ad-man whose fierce ambition places his relationship with his live-in girlfriend Nikita (Priyanka) on the back burner. Nikita is the more giving between the two. But will this stasis go on forever? Or will it find an anchor?
“Time is up,” the magician keeps warning Neil, springing up, sometimes as himself, sometimes as a young man stammering cheerfully away on his motorcycle, offering a lift to the surprised Neil till he realises that time is really up and he must pull himself together to get the best out of life so that death, when and if it comes, will not be dotted with sighs of regret. The script is cut up into two neat halves – before the interval and after. One half is a dream and other is reality where incidents that happen in the dream are replicated in reality in the lives of Neil and Nikita. But to give away which half is the dream and which half is its replication will give away the mystery. The film imbibes the features of a suspense thriller in the second half without mayhem, blood, gore or scenes of death and mourning. The screeching sound of the two car crashes, the sound of the ambulance puncturing the silence of the night, the long, white and silent corridors of the hospital captured with razor-sharp editing (Riingo) expresses things more eloquently than dialogue would have done.
The cinematography (Riingo) is brilliant though Riingo’s forays into the pastoral scenario of ‘Paharpur’ are overdone and do not blend into the story. The same goes for the first song sequence in flashback and the song sung by Neil on a boat that Nikita enjoys. The final orchestra performance crowned with Priyanka’s maiden debut as a vocalist is pure melodrama. Reducing the conductor-composer (Rabi Ranjan Moitra) to a caricature spoils the scene further. The culture in which the live-in partners function is too alien and Westernised for the Bengali audience. Saheb as the magician is brilliant in a cameo. Indraneil looks the model of sophistication his character demands and fluidly slips into his role with his face registering sharp changes in expression in low key. Priyanka is good but could have done better. Rii as their friend is brazen and real. Joydeep Sarkar’s music is good for a debut but it is Chandrabindoo’s duo Anindo and Chandril who take the cake with their beautiful lyrics and their beautifully orchestrated and picturised performance in the film. Jodi Ekdin may have had foreign ‘inspiration’, but it is by far, Riingo’s best.
-Shoma A. Chatterji/ Sampurn Wire
