An honorable attempt
‘Capital I’ tries a lot, with a capital T. The film has in genuine thoughts, great lines and makes for an art thriller. In the directors words, a psychodrama. But as a film, at least for it making, it looks as if it’s one step below. The film looks like a staircase to an actual film. There may be a lot of reasons to it, budget, technical difficulties etc. but eventually as an audience one would expect only the end product, which feels like there is something lagging. There were moments of awe but put together doesn’t do the damage it intends to.
The film starts with a couple arguing and the girl irritating him before the boy goes out of town. The first thing which stuck out was the make up or the lighting which was giving the lady, shadows or dark circles around her eyes. That was so distracting. Followed by bad acting. In fact the only decent actor of the lot was Susant Misra who acted as Professor Misra. Even he was not great but at least was better than the rest.
We get to know about a mysterious character called as ‘Capital I’. The police find an old house which was locked from inside with all windows closed, and when the police break open the door, they find no one, neither any living person, nor a dead body. They only find few papers lying, with some abstract phrases and pictures with the signature below reading ‘Capital I’. As there was no physical harm to anyone the police find the case to be unworthy. It’s a great Poirot plot, just that Amartya doesn’t take the traditional route but the philosophical route.
The film is about the talks between the Professor and Piyali (Pallavi Priyadarshini). Amartya’s forte is his words. The poems, the discussions and the drawings were top notch. If only the acting and production value was good, the film would have been more appealing. Because the actors were mostly poker faced (unintentionally) it didn’t appeal.
The film had its moments of thrill and a great climax to boast about itself but the entire angle of sex and lesbian encounters, which any director who wants to go off beat, was a put off. Wish at least the sex scenes were good.
More than the film, the articles about the film are inspiring, especially the Wikipedia page of the film. It’s amazing that with Canon 550D and kit lens and 50 mm (the cheapest of the lenses), the director was able to come up with a proper film and go ahead with what he was passionate about. It’s the same lens I have and I’ve gone nowhere. So there is no excuse. With just five people and a camera, if he can make a film like this, he surely would have only got better with time. Something which I was not able to do. Coming to think of it, I don’t even feel like making a film anymore, my passion has dwindled. May be I’d not be able to have lines and arts like this in my film but it need not be, it’s not my genre. I still could have made something unique but it never happened.
This film, more than anything, made me realize, how much I’ve missed!
constantscribbles 