Mondo Meyer Upakhyan

Mondo Meyer Upakhyan

The French language film poster of the film
Directed by Buddhadev Dasgupta
Produced by Arya Bhattacharjee
Written by Buddhadev Dasgupta, Prafulla Roy (short story)
Starring Rituparna Sengupta
Cinematography Venu
Release dates
 2002
Running time
 90 minutes
Country India
Language Bengali

Mondo Meyer Upakhyan ( Bengali: মন্দ মেয়ের উপখ্যান, English language:A Tale of a Naughty Girl, released in the French language as Chroniques Indiennes) is a 2002 Indian Bengali film directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta and starring Rituparna Sengupta. The film won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 2003.

Plot

Based on a short story by Bengali writer Prafulla Roy, the central idea developed by director Dasgupta, tells the story of a girl, Lati (Samata Das), whose mother Rajani (Rituparna Sengupta) is a prostitute living and working in a brothel in rural India. Rajani plans to offer her daughter to an older man, a rich husband and protector to her daughter. Lati, however, wants to return to school and finish her studies. Unwilling to pay such a price for material success, she runs away to Calcutta. The discovery of this new world is described parallel to other stories of emancipation, such as that of three young prostitutes, of an aged couple going nowhere and man's landing on the moon. In a surrealistic approach typical of the director, a clumsy cat and an intelligent donkey are also present in the film.

Ganesh (Tapas Paul) works full-time as a driver for wealthy Bengali-speaking, Natabar Paladhi (Ram Gopal Bajaj), who lives in a mansion with his wife, children and grandchildren, and runs 'Anjali Cinema' He has Ganesh use his vehicle as a private taxi cab. Amongst Ganesh's customers are a woman named Bakul (June Malia), who alights near a town of Gosaipara to take up prostitution with Jamunabai; an abandoned elderly couple who are in need of hospitalization — there is none in the vicinity, and they end up secretly riding with Ganesh all the time; while Natabar uses this vehicle to travel to Gosaipara to visit a prostitute named Rajani and negotiate with her so that he can have her 14-year-old daughter, Lati, as his mistress. Things get complicated when Lati rebels against her mother so she can return to school, and a prostitute is about to get killed by her vengeful husband.

Cast

Crew

Promotion

Directors like Dasgupta (and others of his ilk like Adoor Gopalakrishnan or Mrinal Sen) make movies that are very specific to their own cultural milieu. A great master like the late Satyajit Ray was never comfortable when he stepped outside his native Bengal with his camera. So too Dasgupta. His latest work, Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (A Tale of a Naughty Girl), is set in his favourite Purulia, a backward region in West Bengal. Beyond these main travails of Lati, Dasgupta presents a gripping account of village life. On Dasgupta's canvas, one witnesses life in all its splendour. A Tale of a Naughty Girl is undoubtedly a piece of celluloid that elevates cinema to another realm. It is extremely positive, and probably comes from a deep sense of peace and tranquillity that Dasgupta must have achieved from his poetic inclination.[1]

Released

Country Date Fesivals
Canada 7 September 2002(Toronto Film Festival)
Brazil 25 October 2002(Mostra BR de São Paulo)
South Korea 18 November 2002(Pusan International Film Festival)
USA 14 January 2003(Palm Springs International Film Festival)
Denmark 31 March 2003(NatFilm Festival)
USA 4 April 2003(Philadelphia International Film Festival)
France 17-May-03(Cannes Film Festival)
UK 15-Jun-03(Commonwealth Film Festival)
Russia 26-Jun-03(Moscow Film Festival)
Czech Republic 09-Jul-03(Karlovy Vary Film Festival)
Australia 18 September 2003
USA 22-Oct-04(Milwaukee International Film Festival)
France 17-Nov-04
Poland 24-Jul-05(Era New Horizons Film Festival)

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "The Hindu : Work of rare depth". www.hinduonnet.com. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  2. ↑ "Mando Meyer Upakshan(2003) Movie Awards". www.gomolo.in. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  3. ↑ "Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (2002) - Awards". www.imdb.com. Retrieved 2008-10-29.

External links

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