Real-life freedom heroes still strike reel-life chord

Bengali cinema had spawned a genre of patriotic melodramas in the immediate post-Independence context.
Set against the recently ended anti-colonial movement, patriotic films were naturally contemporary, given the strict censorship laws of the colonial era. Bengali film-makers took to the freedom movement with gusto for inspiring episodes, which translated on screen into dramatic film content.Colonial rule was a recent memory for the audiences that saw these films and they were emotionally connected with their heroes.
The first of these films was Hemen Gupta's 'Bhuli Nai' (1948), set against the 1905 Partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon - the tragic story of a revolutionary group formed during the anti-Partition movement. The film failed at the box-office, but was acclaimed for its depiction of a glorious chapter in Bengal's anti-colonial history.
Next year, there was another film, 'Chattogram Astragar Lunthan', based on the famous episode of the raid of the colonial government's Chittagong armory by a group of Bengalis under Surjya Sen in April 1930. This affair had acquired mythical proportions in Bengal's nationalist lore. Other contemporary films were Hemen Gupta's '42 or Biyallish' (1951), set against the Quit India movement, and 'Biplabi Kshudiram' (1951), based on the life of Khudiram Bose.
These films had a special resonance for Bengalis. With Independence, Bengal had suffered the loss of East Bengal - which amounted to more than just loss of territory. It permanently damaged a Bengali sense of pristine homeland, set against the lush East Bengali countryside - the idea of a 'Sonar Bangla'. Bengal's greatest nationalist hero, Subhas Chandra Bose, was reportedly killed in a plane crash over Taipei in 1945, which put paid to any ideas of a Bengali resurgence. Alongside, the aftermath of Partition brought a refugee problem, food crisis, and an economic downswing. Yet, Bengali film-makers continued to make successful patriotic films - perhaps because the very same films allowed the Bengali public to relive their nationalist fantasies.
Thus, in 1950, New Theatres Ltd - the famous talkie studio of the '30s - released 'Pehla Admi', a film set against the backdrop of the march of Subhas Chandra Bose's Azad Hind Fauj during the Second World War. 'Pehla Admi' was a film inspired by the Netaji cult - and though made in Hindi for the "all-India" market, it was a subject of special bearing for Bengali audiences, in a milieu rife with rumors that Bose was still alive.
Bengali patriotic films had their heyday in the '50s, with a director like Hemen Gupta, for instance, who was almost fixated by the genre. Films based on the lives of Bengali patriots continued being made, like the 1971 film 'Mahabiplabi Aurobindo', but they almost uniformly lacked the high emotional quotient of Hemen Gupta's 'Biyallish'.
More recently, the Chittagong episode has been the focus of two films - Ashutosh Gowarikar's 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se' (2010) and Bedabrata Pain's 'Chittagong' (2012). Though contemporary Bengali film-makers have largely stayed away from the subject of Bengal's freedom struggle, an interest remains, so that even a grainy DVD of the hair-raising 'Biyallish' gets sold out in shops.
We might have outgrown the euphoria of Independence, but Netaji, Surjya Sen or Khudiram still touch a chord.
The writer is a film scholar