A Death In The Gunj Free Download
Magnhild Mongolo
Amidst this web of internal jokes and bygone references what stands out the most is the friendship between Nandu, Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) and Brian (Jim Sarbh). Some friendships grow and shape themselves as we grow as individuals in the world. These friendships are often characterised with certain traits which then tend to become the identifying markers for them.
What his family members do not realise is that the death of his father two years back had left Shutu heartbroken and he is grappling to come to terms with it. He seeks the warmth of his father in his old sweaters and his graduation certificates, tokens which are reminders of the man. Death is an incident which leaves unrehearsed imprints on individuals. Speaking from a personal account, I completely relate to the difficulty to grapple with the loss of that individual. Its not the absence of that person that strikes out to you, but it is the sudden reminders of that person which get unleashed from your memory, that make you sit up in your bed in the middle of the night and weep inconsolably.
Things tend to look up when Mimi and Shutu start having a brief fling, and Shutu starts to feel important. But when Tani goes missing and everyone blames Shutu for not taking care of her, Shutu realises his position. His feeling of abandonment is further heightened when he goes to look for Tani with Nandu, falls in a ditch in the forest and is left there by Nandu. Meanwhile the Bakshis celebrating the safe return of Tani, do not even realise Shutu is missing until Mrs Bakshi is preparing to serve dinner. But unlike Tani, Shutu is not that important to the Bakshis, and hence only a servant is sent to search for him, rather than the entire household.
Mental illnesses are like a ticking bomb, you might never realise their existence, but they keep gnawing away at your reality. Bullying triggers a lot of bitter emotions within us and the bully does not realise the extent of the damage he or she is doing. But, standing up to your bullies is difficult, and there are people whose pain and grief leads them to choose death, just like Shutu.
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A Death in the Gunj is a 2016 family-drama movie directed by Konkona Sen Sharma. She makes brilliant use of atmospheric horror to instil a disturbing apprehension of doom among the viewers. Set in 1978, Ranchi, the movie begins with seven family members gathering at McCluskiegunj to spend a short winter vacation. Subsequently, the movie follows a slow but uncomfortable descent into development of complex emotions without any resolution to them. The movie has an ensemble cast of Vikrant Massey, Kalki Koechlin, Gulshan Devaiah, Ranvir Shorey, Jim Sarbh, Tilottoma Shome, Tanuja and Om Puri. All of them are aptly selected to bring out an almost perfect expansion of their characters through the 110 minutes of its running time.
Vikrant Massey plays the protagonist of the movie, Shutu. Shutu is a gentle and sensitive boy who has recently lost his father. He is struggling to come to terms with the overwhelming sense of loss and this turmoil has resulted in instability in both his academic and personal life. To escalate this internal disorder further, his emotional vulnerability is ignored for the most part by his family. However, he is able to build a relationship with the youngest member in the family. The relationship between the 8-year-old Tani and Shutu is tender and represented through affectionate cinematography.
They spend time against muted backgrounds carrying out mundane activities. Shutu finds comfort in Tani because he is unable to find relief in the other members of the family who are constantly trying to make Shutu imbibe traits of violence and coarseness. Be it in a game of kabaddi or through cruel pranks, Shutu is always seen to be the feeble link who is at the receiving end of the banter.
Through glorification of old guns and consequently the orthodox machismo attached to them, the movie makes the viewers aware of what is to occur. Sen Sharma pulls the viewers into a story of familial structures and makes them witness the horrors of gender roles.
Although Sensharma seems confident behind the camera, she directs her cast of name actors at too high a pitch. It becomes exhausting to watch their near-manic singing, dancing, and playing games. Nevertheless, veteran cinematographer Sirsha Ray makes good use of the decaying melancholy of the McCluskiegunj location to establish mood. The score by Sagar Desai is impressive but a tad overused.
I am writing this on a flight back from a blissful week spent at home (Kolkata). There is something to be said about the romance of writing while flying. Home is where I go to reconnect with myself. My dates with my mother often include movies and this past week we went to watch A Death in The Gunj. The film marks Konkona Sen Sharma's directorial debut and it only made sense for me to watch it in Kolkata, a city that celebrates families steeped in fanciful culture. I am not a critic of Kolkata's band of intellectuals and respectable lineages at all. On the contrary, I was at times envious that there was no bonedi bari (ancestral Kolkata house) lending gravity to my nuclear family which has mostly lived outside Kolkata. That being said, there was no pretentiousness ruining A Death in The Gunj. Konkona has done justice to doing the job of a storyteller in the movie.
Shutu is the mistreated, bullied underdog of the family. He has recently lost his father and is moved when he stumbles upon his father's clothes in the old house. He is wearing his father's sweater at all the key moments in the film. Disregarded by the young adults, he spends a lot of time with his adolescent niece, Tani. He also loses his virginity during this brief trip to McCluskiegunj but the tryst does not wrap up well for him. Sex lends to the beauty of the film, used subtly but with no moral restraint.
One of the most powerful aspects of the film is the underlying dialogue on masculinity. Shutu's cousin's friend, Vikram, is a brash, arrogant, violent, hot-headed, bike-riding man. Vikram is a poster 1970's Indian 'fuckboy'. He loves guns. He breathes life into this little community of characters every time they hang out. Shutu, on the other hand, is quiet, respectful, soft-spoken and sensitive book lover. Both Vikram and Shutu feel threatened by each other in the film. His insecurities come to the fore when he beats Shutu up at the end of a seemingly innocuous game of kabbadi.
While prevailing notions of masculinity allow plenty of room for Vikram's brash personality, they don't have much space for Shutu's personality. The film underscores that society participates in ruining the lives of both, the Vikrams and Shutus of the world, when the elderly matron (played by Tanuja) explains away Vikram's uncalled for kabaddi game outburst, saying, "Boys will be boys."
When Nandu (Shutu's cousin) and his wife, Bonnie, are discussing the kabaddi debacle, Nandu derides Shutu for being emotional and distraught about his father's death. In today's lingo, he feels that Shutu should 'man-up', and get a job and take care of his mother. The macho-ism that Vikram has to live up to does him no good either. He clearly does not buy into the life decisions he has made. Repressed emotions have more than one victim in this beautifully narrated story.
The narrative beautifully portrays the idiosyncrasies of people and diversity across this region back then.McCluskiegunj used to a place which Britishers loved during their stay in India and therefore a lot of Anglo Indian families settled here. Hence there were typical colonial bungalows,clubs and bakeries all around. The holidays used to be full of happening events then. Small house parties happened almost every weekend, Picnics happened in the backyard of the houses and a huge amount of activity kept on happening in the kitchen where special food items made with fresh ingredients were prepared.
The narrative is more about dialogues and each character is explained in detail. The characters are so full of blood and flesh that they almost feel like people we see in everyday life. The screenplay has a mix of majorly English dialogues with some Bengali and Hindi dialogues in between. However this never looks artificial and brilliantly blends in with the theme of the movie.A major credit for this should go to the performances of all the actors in this movie. Almost everyone is at their best, however, the performances by Kalki and Vikrant stand out. Vikrant is almost across every frame and has the best role etched out for him. Konkona Sen Sharma is more than impressive in her debut film. Her flawless direction reveals how well she understands these characters and situations. She is a keen observant and never makes any part of the movie look fake. The subject of the movie is well researched and you will always be at the edge of your seats waiting for what will happen next. Parts of it are slow at times but there is not a single moment of boredom existing in this movie otherwise. The climax will especially make you stupefied.
Set in 1979, A Death in the Gunj is a coming of age story, about a shy student Shyamal Chatterjee. He uses a family road trip to McCluskiegunj, an old Anglo-Indian town, as an escape from his failed semester. At the outset, the makings of a perfect family holiday are in place but something is amiss. In the week that follows, Shutu's quiet unraveling is overlooked by the family revellers, until the holiday ends with an implosion.
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