F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

Well, he can shout out Meri Marzi! Fair enough. But do watch the videos in this post. The first one is a trailer of his new film Memories in March. The film is directed by Sanjay Nag and stars Rituparno Ghosh, Deepti Naval and Raima Sen.

To quote from the official release, “Written by Rituparno, Memories in March unspools the story of a bereaved mother who comes to Kolkata to collect her son’s ashes. She is Arati Mishra, an art curator who lives in Delhi. Through his friends and colleagues, she discovers that they knew him in ways different from the way she knew him as his mother.”

Seems like Memories In March is Hazar Chaurasia Ki Maa, just replace Naxalism with sexuality. But from the trailer it feels like Rituparno Ghosh might have killed the film with his acting. Because he is just playing himself.

A filmmaker who knows how to explore that intimate space in a relationship so bloody well, and someone who has done it so many times, why this acting keeda suddenly ? Mr Ghosh, you can do better.

The second clip is from another bengali film titled Just Another Love Story (Arekti Premer Galpo). Directed by Kaushik Ganguly, it’s about a filmmaker Abhiroop Sen (played by Ghosh) who makes a documentary about Chapal Bhaduri, the legendary jatra (Bengali folk theatre) actor who spent his entire career playing female roles on stage, primarily as Goddess Shitala. Thus begins a journey where director and subject learn from one another – on the one hand is Bhaduri (playing himself) who was a closeted gay for fear of social ostracism but was openly accepted as a cross-dressing actor, and on the other is the modern urban filmmaker who is open about his sexuality but is still negotiating his gender identity.

The film stars Rituparno Ghosh, Raima Sen, Jishu Sengupta, Indraneil Sengupta and Chapal Bhaduri.

And click here to read Variety’s review of the film and more about Ghosh’s acting debut.

We haven’t seen either of the films and may be it’s completely wrong to judge his acting just on the basis on the trailers. But then,  if the reverse is true, we will write the apology post in big and bold font too.