Films that infused the real essence of Durga Puja

There are certain films which celebrate the true spirit of Durga Puja. It’s a great time to binge on films to soak up the festive spirit, especially when we are down with festive blues and sad about Durga Puja getting over. Still, the festive mood is still intact and almost every Bengali out there is in no mood to stay gloomy, especially when family and friends are here. While you enjoy some amazing family time and get-together with close ones here’s a list of films that captured the real essence of Durga puja and will be perfect for binge-watch this weekend.

It’s been one of the most important films by Rituparno Ghosh which received Golden Lotus Award for Best Director. On the backdrop of Durga Puja, the film is a nice commentary showing many emotional currents passing among a family and relatives. Some of the industry’s big names like Madhabi Mukherjee, Mamta Sankar and Prosenjit Chatterjee played key roles alongside Rituparna Sengupta. The story starts with the Durga Puja celebration in an elderly lady's spacious, ancestral house but the fragmentation of the joint family soon changes the scenario. Rituparno used Durga Puja as the ideal peg on which hangs the film.

Kaushik Ganguly's 2017 hit ‘Bishorjon’ has received several prestigious awards including the National Award for the best Bengali cinema. The audience loved the characters played by Abir Chatterjee, Jaya Ahasan and Kaushik Ganguly. The story of the film revolves around a Muslim man from India and a Hindu widow and it’s a cross-border love story. Ganguly's character Ganesh no doubt adds the cherry on the cake. The film gained such popularity that it convinced Ganguly to make a sequel. The second film, titled ‘Bijaya’ is slated to release soon.

‘Devi’ (The Goddess) tells the story of a girl Dayamoyee (played by Sharmila Tagore) who was forcefully married to Umaprasad (played by Soumitra Chatterjee). Dayamoyee takes care of his father-in-law Kalikinkar Choudhuri who believes Dayamoyee is actually an incarnation of Goddess ‘Kaali’ and she has to be worshipped. The whole village also worships Dayamoyee. Her husband Umaprasad, a school teacher outside the village, can’t convince Dayamoyee because she also starts to believe the ‘incarnation of Goddess’ story. But her so-called belief soon becomes a tragedy.

‘Debipaksha’, directed by Raja Sen, is all about Haimanti (Rituparna Sengupta), a survivor of a brutal sexual assault who courageously decides to stand against her molester when her younger sister's safety is also threatened. Transformed by the violence of the evil moment, Haimanti finally lifts the trident of her priest father's presiding deity, and manages to plunge it into the tormentor. It’s symbolic to Shakti prevailing over evil once more. Decimation of Asura lifts the spirit of Maa Durga also. Good performances backed by a strong cast, led by Soumitra Chatterjee, make this film a must watch for every Bengali movie buff.

Suman Moitra's film is a romantic tale set in the backdrop of Durga with many twists and turns. Koel Mallick (Tuli) and Indraneil Sengupta (Abhi) are childhood sweethearts. Abhi runs a small business to earn his livelihood after his parents passed away, and he had to quit his studies mid-way. Tuli graduated from the University and went off to the U.S. for higher studies. During Durga Puja, Tuli is coming down after completing her Ph.D. in the States; she wants to spend the puja with her relatives and friends at Kolkata. This story presents her eventful, twist-and-turny five days of puja.

The plot revolves around a family crisis that starts on Mahalaya (the very first day of the Puja fortnight) and encapsulates Ishaani's (Arpita Pal) inner dilemma about motherhood and its boundaries. ‘Bodhon’, directed by telecom engineer turned filmmaker Ayananshu Banerjee, is an ideal tribute to all those caring women in our lives. The title also symbolizes the invocation of Maa Durga to mark the countdown of the 10-day festival.