It is rather unfortunate that Swastika Mukherjee is known in Bengal for some of the controversies surrounding her rather than the fact that she is brilliant actress, a natural performer whose career in Bengal is rather envious for she has done movies without limiting herself to the barriers of genre. She has given some strong performances in several Bengali movies that definitely got noticed and gave her the much deserved praises. The biggest among them was definitely Bhooter Bhobisyot directed by Anik Dutta that was made in Hindi as Gang of Ghosts starring the likes of Anupam Kher as well as Mahi Gill, who essayed the role of Swastika from the original. While Bhooter Bhobisyot did amazing business in Bengal, Gang of Ghosts sank without trace. The character that Swastika played in Bhooter Bhobisyot was that of Kodolibala, a perfect caricature of the stars of the nascent film industry of 30s-40s. Everyone noticed her in that role and many thought that finally she will hit the big league but nothing like that happened. She had started her career with TV Serials and finally moving to commercial cinema, briefly reigning as the queen of Tollywood, before slowly changing her career path again, doing offbeat movies. But somehow the directors or the scripts could never do justice to her talent. She was stereotyped and Bengal’s so called new wave of movies totally failed to give her best but irrespective of the script, the often shoddy direction, her presence in the screen was always a boost.
Swastika’s presence in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy is definitely a good omen and she is not going to disappoint. Her role will definitely be appreciated for she once again goes into that known territory. Though in a recent interview it was stated that her character in Byomkesh is inspired by the legends of Mata Hari, one has to remember this role is quiet reminiscent of Kodolibala, the one she played in Bhooter Bhobisyot, though the tone in Byomkesh where she plays Anguri Devi is very different. Kodolibala was funny, Anguri Devi is the essential femme fatale. But the timeline manages to intersect and if going by the result of Bhooter Bhobisyot, Anguri Devi is definitely going to rule the hearts.
According to director Dibakar Banerjee, Swastika’s role is something unique and can bring back memories of Nadia, the 1930s actress known for her dare-devilish roles. If you look at the career-graph of Swastika, you will notice that she has always approached her roles with certain deftness and irrespective of the performance of the film she has always been outstanding. But several of her recent outings in Tollywood, as the Bengali movie industry is known as, has done miserably mainly because of the lack of vision from the directors. But Swastika has always been consistent. Be it her debut in Hemantar Pakhi, to a very different Aami Aar Amar Girlfriends, and several movies with Bengal’s maverick director Srijit Mukherji, she has more or less made her presence felt everywhere with her recent films Jaatishwar as well as Ebar Shabor both commercial and critical successes.
Incidentally, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy is not Swastika’s debut Hindi movie. She was seen in Mumbai Cutting, an anthology of short movies, directed by some known and unknown faces like Anurag Kashyap, Rahul Dholakia, Rituparno Ghosh among others. The movie somehow was not widely released and what could have been a memorable outing for her, never quite materialized.
But with Byomkesh she has got the platform she deserves and now it is up to the audience to be blown away by her performance and for Bollywood to take notice of her talent. Maybe this movie will offer her a chance to rekindle her Bollywood career and its actually good for Bollywood because it will give them an actress who is always dependable and can be face of the transition that Bollywood is going through.
The post Swastika Mukherjee’s Bollywood Debut: The Mystery Behind The Byomkesh Leading Lady appeared first on Bollywood Celebden.
via Bollywood Celebden
No comments:
Post a Comment