Now a movie that explores common man's universe

kolkata: in his latest presentation in the making, manda meyer upakhyan (the story of a wayward girl), poet filmmaker buddhadeb dasgupta once again sets out to explore the universe of the common man - his shattered dreams and his journey into fantasy from a world that has failed him. "every human being intends to reach somewhere in the limited span of his life, but some succeed while others fail midway.yet the unsuccessful ones at times get their wishes filled in fantasy," the three-time national award recipient director said in an interview. starring leading tollywood stars rituparna sengupta and tapas paul, the film is about the travails in the life of a sex worker in a rural redlight area, her predicament and frustrations and how her 13-year old daughter succeeds in leaving the oppressive climate to reach another life she wants. while sengupta was playing the lead character of the film produced by arjoe entertainment of nri arjoe bhattacharjee, paul was cast in a rather cameo role of a local driver who helps the teenaged girl get over a lurid life and reach a new destiny. the story has been sourced from three poems of the director and a short story by prafulla roy akasher chand o ekti janla (the moon seen through a window). asked whether all his 11 feature films had something in common, dasgupta said, "yes in some way they portray the universe of common people." "all my principal characters, artistocrat sasanka in a crumbling mansion in phera (the return), bird-catcher lakhinder having an intense love for the winged beauties in charachar (shelter of the wings), freedom fighter sibnath who goes to mental asylum in tahader katha (their story), the wrestling duo balaram-nimai in uttara or materialistically successful dentist nabin dutta in lal darja (the red doors) are sensitive persons feeling a vacuum in their lives caused by various extraneous factors of present times," he said. "amidst the emptiness or vacuum, everybody went for a journey of fantasy," said dasgupta, who won the best directing prize winner for uttara at the 2000 venice festival. the film narrates how a chasm develops between two close friends, hitherto engrossed in wrestling bouts in a remote area, because of lust, intolerance, religious fanaticism finally leading to rape and murder. dwelling on the time ever since he took to feature films in 1979, the 'trail blazer of the non-narrative poetic cinema' said, "my films are a combination of surrealism, realism and idealism to celebrate life." the facts of the films are borne out of his own experiences and of his social and political moorings, the 57 year old director exclaims. on the national award controversy in 2001, dasgupta said a certain slip-shod attitude in selecting the jury was posing a major problem. "the information and broadcasting ministry should be entrusting the act of jury selection with the directorate of film festivals to ensure that all the panelists have made some contribution to cinema," he suggested. however, if that was not acceptable to the ministry officials, they could make the jury board really broadbased by picking up creative people - writers, painters, poets, musicians - for the panel besides from the film world, he suggests. "any such step could reduce the element of arbitrariness in film selection and ensure transparency in the whole process," dasgupta, whose own celluloid journey began with durotta (distance) in 1979, said. "good films are known by their content and style, their way of establishing rapport with the viewer, their universal, transcendental approach and the average movie-goer likes the film not because of the number of awards it had bagged," dasgupta says. while work for the manda meyer upakshan would be over by april, which will have the typical dasgupta mark of experimentation with form and a touch of surrealism, the director would also start work for a documentary on bankim chandra chattopadhyay. while he was not willing to divulge anything on the documentary, dasgupta said, "in all my works i let the images speak for themselves". the director's last documentary was on folk art about the tribal artisans in bihar made on 50th year of independence.