I finished watching the movie Ballygunge Court. It is a movie by Pinaki Chaudhari about the tragic lives of a few elderly couples in a Calcutta based multi-storeyed apartment complex called Ballygunge court.
Although the setting and circumstances look real enough, the movie can be at best called mediocre and weak. Assuming the Pinaki Chaudhari wanted to depict the plight of the modern senior citizen plight in Calcutta, I do not understand why he had to show it in such a negative light. Surely, the senior citizens deserve more dignity than this.
The movie starts with a middle-class elderly (?) house-wife being driven out of her home by her alcoholic husband being accidentally run-over by a car and the husband beating himself up while their son dumps the blame of her mothers death on his father and going abroad. Then we get acquainted with all the other couples in that complex. Sabyasyachi Chatterjee, the real cool dad. Soumitra Chatterjee who does not allow his son to move abroad and Mamata Shankar the understanding mother. Monoj Mitra, the lonely father who takes resort in gardening etc. And the oldest couple, the Hirani's who get murdered.
The movie has some good acting by Sabyasachi Chatterjee, Soumitra Chatterjee and Mamata Sankar and good music by Pt. Ajay Chakraborty.
But, other than that it is too slow and long drawn. And at times very self-contradictory. In the movie, Sabyasachi Chatterjee's daughter Begum goes away to Mumbai to join fashion designing school and with lot of guilt for that (shown in negative light) whereas the security guard of the building Rudy has left his cancer ailing mother in his village (shown in positive light) while it looks like the relative distance of Calcutta to the village is a couple of hours and that of Mumbai and Calcutta too is just a couple of hours by people who can afford to fly which surely Begum can.
Other such contradictory points are more evident. Like the fact that Soumitra and Mamata had been abroad busy earning money and fame while their son stayed in hostels but when they get old, it seems like suddenly all the equations get reversed and the son has to give up his life to stay and take care of his parents who by the way are neither senile nor incapacitated in any way. And even Soumitra is selfish enough to ask what his daughter-in-law would do in her parents' place for a week! That was ridiculous! Just because she is a good wife and good daughter-in-law and just because he is used to her being around does not mean that her own parents do not mean anything to her! I found it a bit harrowing that she had to ask permission to go to her place and really beg and cajole. And also the logic of the daughter-in-laws sister was infallible in a way that when she comes back home for holiday from UK she will spend all the time with her parents unlike her sister, the perfect wife and daughter-in-law who cannot take care of her parents that way. The fallible part of her logic according to me is that she thought she would be able to come back for 5-7 weeks. That kind of holiday is unthinkable.
What amazes me even more is that all the parents wanted to keep their sons and daughters back so that they could take care of their parents, but never came up with the term 'brain drain'. Never asked them to stay back because of their country. Because of what they owed to the country. And the question of how Soumitra's daughet-in-law almost never visited her parents came into the equation.
There were however strong points that the Hirani's kept trying to get through to their son and hit the unbudging wall of the answering machine. It was heartless of their son to leave behind two very old and helpless people behind without bothering to ask after them or take care of their well-being.
But, these well-made points are few and far between. Mostly it turns out to be a tale of selfishness of everybody, young and old and the general indignity of the senior citizens and the changing family structure in urban India. Of the age old Bengali emotional blackmail.
