The lure of the ineffable: Remembering poet, filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta

One grouse that some votaries of conventional storytelling have about the films of Buddhadeb Dasgupta, who passed away on June 10 at the age of 77, is that they often go “nowhere”. They fail to appreciate that his extraordinarily poetic cinema thrives on just that.

His films hinge on people who seek to break free from the tyranny of expectation. Defiantly, they go “nowhere”. At his best, Dasgupta, a poet and former economics professor, thrived on veering away from the conventional and exploring the inexplicable. That is where the power of his films lay.

The 20-odd narrative features that the meticulous craftsman