Autograph

I've just seen the Bengali movie Autograph. Before I say anything further I should accept that many of the people involved with the making of the movie are very well known to me - they include Srijit, the director, Priyam, the assistant music director, Anupam, lyricist and composer of a few songs and also the singer of perhaps the most popular track from the movie and Saptarshi, who has sung one of the songs. So I may be a little prejudiced while writing the review of the movie. But let me say that even if hadn't known anyone of these people still I would have written the same things that I'm going to write now.

Some information about the movie.

Some info about the songs

Listen to the songs

As Srijit has declared at the beginning, the movie is a fitting tribute to Satyajit Ray and Uttam Kumar, perhaps the two most prominent figures of all times in Bengali movies. The movie is about a director who wants to remake Nayak that Satyajit Ray had made in the sixties with Uttam Kumar in the lead. Nayak was a movie about a very successful movie star, about his stardom, about his past, about his continuous struggle to be in the top and about his constant inner fights that he fights alone. In Autograph an aspiring, confident and also extremely talented young director wants to remake Nayak with Arun Kumar Chatterjee in the lead role. Arun Kumar's role is played by Prasenjit. The name Arun Kumar itself has some significance - it's the real name of Uttam Kumar. A great part of the movie is about the making of the remake of Nayak - people who have seen Nayak will just love the way Srijit has shown the shooting of some of the very important scenes of the remake. As the shooting progresses the relation between Arun Kumar (Prasenjit), the director and his girlfriend Srin (Nandana Sen) moves in an unpredictable but quite logical way - that's the main essence of the movie. The director wants success at any cost and Arun Kumar himself has invested enough in his own movie - all these are very common things which you might have seen many times in many movies. But what makes the movie special is the climax and the ending - like the relations in the movie, the climax is also unpredictable but quite logical.

Nothing happens in the movie that shouldn't have happened. At the end you come out of the hall with only positive things - each turn of event, each nuance in the multi layered relations, each development either in the movie within in the movie or in the movie itself leaves you satisfied at the end - you don't feel excessively bad for anyone, neither do you feel extremely sorry for anyone. Neither you feel dejected nor you feel, ish eta ki holo, shit, why did it happen! I feel the ish eta ki holo feeling is very easy to evoke and most film makers titillate the viewers with it. But to make a movie without evoking any of the titillation, either in sentiments or testosterones, is indeed a great thing.

Go and watch the movie for a really positive feeling and off course some good music!

Riju, all the best to you!! I hope you make many more movies like this.