Movie Review: Goynar Baksho

Director Aparna Sen

Year 2013

Language Bengali

Verdict Awesome

Three generations and how a box of jewelry changed its significance with time, this is the theme of Aparna Sen’s Goynar Baksho. The plot has a ghost, a shy housewife turned entrepreneur, a meek husband, a revolution, an almost affair and one young love-story. This movie has it all and the story is dense and told with care.

The box originally belonged to Rashmoni, who was widowed when she was very young and the jewelries were never much of use for her other than security. She is very old at the time of this story, staying in her ancestral home with her brother’s family and terrorizing the lot with her demands.

The family of this story once was Zaminder of Bengal. Although with time they have lost their wealth but the pride is still hanging on. To keep this pride alive, two sons of this family do not do any useful work.

The story starts with Somlatha (Kankana Sen Sharma) coming to this house after marrying the youngest son (Saswata Chatterjee). Don’t go after her appearance, she is timid, she is gentle but she possesses courage and she has wit. She is the hero of this story.

By some weird circumstances, Somlatha ends up with the box and a ghost of Rashmoni aka Pishima on her neck.

These jewelries were not just some ornaments to her, they meant capital. She wanted to come out of the so called pride of a zaminder household and start a business. And she does that precisely by somehow managing her husband, her in-laws and the ghost of Pishima.

The position of that box of jewelry totally changes with the next generation Chaitali, daughter of Somlatha. This generation has attitude, not the pseudo pride or the necessity to prove her freedom, she was already free than the two generations before her. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the worth of the box of jewelry and gave it away for a good cause.

The story will not complete if I don’t tell the story of the poet, who was in love with Somlatha and was never able to tell her. He only showed his love by keeping a red rose on the door step every morning for Her.

I loved almost all the movie directed by Aparna Sen, and I loved this one more. I have no comment about the acting of the main characters other than Chaitali, they were just remarkable. But if I don’t talk about Moushumi and I will be at a fault. She was just spectacular, just perfect for the role of Pishima… not a penny less not a penny more.

Srabanti Chatterjee in the role of Chaitali was week with respect to others. Also, I felt her character was a bit stretched to show her modernism. Smoking for a girl in 1971 and moreover in a suburban may not be very realistic. Then again Ms Sen is from that time and she will know better.

On a footnote, I liked the ending of the book (written by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay) better but that ending would not have conveyed the difference of the thought process of the three generations.

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