Antareen (1994)

Antareen ("confined"), a quiet and literary Bengali film by Mrinal Sen, examines a peculiar relationship that arises between two profoundly isolated individuals.  They connect and affect one another, in a demonstration that the effects of human contact can traverse both distance and anonymity.

A young writer (Anjan Dutt) arrives for an extended stay at the isolated, palatial home of a friend, who has given him the run of the house while he and his family are away.  Completely alone - save for the occasional company of a servant and the servant's grandson - the writer settles in for late-night, tea-fueled writing sessions.  One night the telephone rings, and though the other end is silent, the caller rings again the next day, and soon the young writer engages nightly in cryptic, languid conversations with the woman at the other end of the line.  She is a rich man's mistress (Dimple Kapadia) whose lover has apparently lost interest in her.  Still, he keeps her in a luxurious high-rise apartment, and also supports the rest of her family, from whom she is estranged.  The young woman is lonely and depressed; she never leaves the apartment, and reaches out only to random strangers on the telephone.  Their conversations, and the effect those conversations exert on each of them, is the focus of the film.

Though the film's pace is deliberate at best, it is intriguing enough as it unfolds, especially as the details of the woman's life come gradually into focus.  Through the woman's conversations with the writer, she slowly overcomes her inertia and begins to pull the pieces of her life together.  For the writer's part, in the beginning his interest in her appears somewhat mercenary, seeing her cynically, as grist for his writing.  But he comes to truly care for her, as we are shown, for example, by his distress when she fails to call for several days.  The dynamics of their relationship are constantly shifting.  He has the power to reach her emotionally, offering observations that strike close to home.  But for most of the film she holds the ultimate control over their interactions - she has his telephone number, while he does not have hers.  The moment when she relinquishes that control marks a clear turning point in their interaction, and by the end of the film both of them have been thoroughly transformed by the experience.

What is less clear is the statement that Mrinal Sen intends to make with the film.  It may be a statement about the randomness of human relationships, how we can be touched by input from completely unexpected and even virtually unknown sources.  I can't help but feel that if I were acquainted with Bengali literature I would have a better sense of the film's message, as it contains numerous explicit references - and probably even more implicit ones - to the short stories of Rabindranath Tagore, among others.  Without that background, Antareen is more of a mildly interesting curiosity than a truly compelling film. 

Antareen is available for download at Jaman.com.  The film is less than 90 minutes long; Dimple Kapadia is as pouty and lovely as ever in it; and the download is free - so if you are a fan of Dimple's it's definitely worth a look. 

Comments

[Beth]

I just discovered the story is by a Urdu author (and Hindi film screenwriter)!
http://middlestage.blogspot.com/2006/03/film-writing-of-saadat-hasan-manto.html

[carla]

I did not know that - thanks Beth. I guess I had assumed it was more Bengali literature since it repeatedly cites Tagore, and since there seems to be such a rich trove of Bengali literature made into movies.