Chander Pahar has made box-office history of sorts. On the day of release, it broke the previous record of a Kolkata film; in less than two months, it has gone on to collect close to Rs 20 crore. It had a budget of Rs 15 crore, the highest for a Bengali film, when it was released late last year.
Time was when Bengali cinema was divided into two distinct parts far removed from each other. One was art or serious cinema, identified with the works of a few heavyweights. The other was commercial cinema - poor in content, worse in technical expertise, reduced to making terrible, inferior imitations of ingredients of Bollywood's commercial formulae.
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But things have changed since multiplexes came; a more discerning audience with spending power opened up a new space in between the two ends. Fortuitously, a set of capable film-makers have filled it with competent productions, which entertain and also have a little something to say. Chander Pahar is among the best in this genre.
The novel is an adventure story about a 20-year-old sportsman and boxer in rural Bengal who loathes the prospect of becoming a clerk in a jute mill until good fortune comes in the form of a job offer in the Uganda Railway with the help of an acquaintance there. He grabs the opportunity and undertakes an incredible journey into the wilds of Africa, which brings him close to death at the hands of the most challenging outdoors and the fiercest of animals. With luck equalling his fearlessness, he comes back from a journey to the Mountain of the Moon, with a few uncut diamonds that make him rich, but with the loss of his companion, who saved his life and was a key motivator for the final adventure.
The film was shot in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda, taking in the natural beauty around Johannesburg, the Kruger National Park, the mountains of Drakensberg and the Kalahari desert. On the latter, the director, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, says that after an Italian film was shot 17 years ago, "the furious desert (day temperature 51 degrees Celsius and night temperature 5 degrees Celsius) has not witnessed a camera". So breathtaking is the African wilderness in the film that ever since its release, travel interests catering to South Africa have seen a sharp jump in enquiries from West Bengal.
There was considerable risk in shooting with wild animals like elephants, lions, cheetah, hippopotami and crocodiles, not to speak of a variety of snakes, including the python. For the safety of both wild animals and the crew, carbolic acid (to keep away snakes) and electric fences (to keep away animals in general) were used.
Box-office hits in India rely in large part on set formulae and must have item numbers; Chander Pahar has none. There is not even a man-woman angle to the story; nor is there a heroine. The one concession made to popular taste is taking Dev, a top name in Bengali commercial cinema, in the lead role and he carries it off well, looking as fit as he should.
The film owes its distinctiveness to the director, who has made only two other movies - one of them pure art cinema, Meghe Dhaka Tara, on the tormented life of the legendary director Ritwik Ghatak. Chander Pahar has many flaws - poor editing, poor special effects and making out that its protagonist is a super-lucky superhuman. But the love of the African wilderness and the drama and adventure there is in journeying into it come through and keep you at the edge of the seat for over two hours.
Bibhutibhushan never travelled beyond Bengal and Bihar, but captured many Bengalis' intrinsic love of travel and the wilderness. Writer Anjali Chowdhouri sees Apu’s close relationship with the rural world of Nischindipur underlining the relationship between man and nature. Chander Pahar is popular cinema and Pather Panchali is high art cinema, but they meet in their author being in thrall of nature.