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| A Still Frame of Watchmaker (2018) |
Watchmaker (2018) is a Bengali and English language Indian film directed by Anindya Pulak Banerjee. It's a German expressionist style film. Smug was his first short film with duration of 35 minutes and it was critically acclaimed by the experts. Smug was the turning point of Anindya to be from actor to director. Anindya is a popular director in Kolkata, West Bengal. He acted in Dibakar Banarjee's Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015), Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani (2012) and Kahaani 2 (2016) and many films. Watchmaker is his second feature film. He has broken the film making style and made the Watchmaker through a new style. It is German Expressionism. It was officially selected at Orinos Film Festival, Italy; Habitat International Film Festival and Hyderabad Film Festival. It gets award as the best experimental film at Orinos Film Festival.
Synopsis:
'The film shows the difference and intermingling of states of dreaming and having visions. Lack of colour is compensated by ''nothing''.'
Cast and Crews
Directed by: Anindya Pulak Banerjee
Script and screenplay by: Anindya Pulak Banerjee
Production house : Sarkar E Motion. In association with Seventh Rex Dimensional Films with Rajdeep Sarkar and Sreeram Raja Brahmin.
Distribution company: Three Wish Entertainment.
Starring: Anindya Pulak Banerjee, Ritabhari Chakraborty, Ritabrata Bhattacharya, Joey Debroy, Aishika Bandyopadhyay and some others.
Music: Chirantan Banerjee.
Cinematography: Madhura Patil.
Editor: Pronoy Das Gupta.
Publicity Design by: Ritu Parna Thakur, Anindya Pulak Banerjee.
Other info:
Language: Bengali and English (recitation in French).
Duration: 106 minutes.
Color: Black and white.
Anti-logical and philosophical film.
Plot Summary
Anindya Pulak Banerjee the director is the main character of the film Watchmaker. As the main character, he works as a watchmaker for 20 years. Ritabhari Chakraborty as a woman character, she has come out from Delhi at 2.30 am to buy watch. But when they are at watchmaker's dwelling, watchmaker tells it is 2.30 am, too. Joey Debroy as sculptor, he is a no-believer. He does not believe in existence. So, he believes time does not exist. But the woman character's concept is time is stopped. Watchmaker has been making watches for 20 years. But all the watches he has made is rotating anti clockwise. He is writing a letter to the Indian President penning existential angst. The film is started and ended with conversation of a woman and a young girl who are walking on stair from below to high. But it is cycling again and again. They do conversation but at the middle place of the stair a man is coming from high to below and interrupts them. this seems they enter into a new civilization and come out from the old civilization. The film is divided between two locations___ claustrophobic dwelling and the streets of the late night city. There is another character who is listening the three character's conversations and sometimes is giving answer and asking questions. Actually he is telling something that confuses them. So, in a word they are compelled to get out from the dwelling. The sculptor has a pistol. The watchmaker told them to play a game of blindfolding. They hided the pistol. The two person would be killed and whose concept would be right, would be alive. The sculptor finds out the pistol at first and killed the woman and then he killed himself. The main character started walking for a new civilization.
Review:
The director Anindya Pulak Banerjee makes the film for the audience not to entertain. So, the audience will not get entertainment to see it. The audience would be the undergraduate film students. The audiences will watch it to think it in their own way. It is a anti-logic film. The film is intermixed with dream and visions. So, it would be uncomfortable for the audiences. But it helps the audiences to think and create concept. The film would take the audience to a different world. The director makes the film to be inspired from the film ; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis and German expressionist films. It is a different kind of art film that help to think about the philosophy of time, life, civilization, abstract, German expressionist aesthetics, art-cinema everything. The shots, music, sound, editing style; director gets these kinds of style to be inspired from different great filmmaker's film making style and their films. For example, 'The scene with a clock with eyes but no hands is inspired from Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries.
Watch the official trailer of the film 'Watchmaker' (2018) here..
