Sometimes, Anjan Das has different stories to tell. Sometimes, he tells known stories differently. With a rare film like Jara Bristitey Bhijechhilo, he tells different stories differently. Which of these spaces do we bracket Achin Pakhi into?
Achin Pakhi is an old story picked from a segment of Moiman Singh Geetika Panchali from Bangladesh. It is a remake of a Bangladeshi film called Monpura released last year, a hit.
Having wearied of making niche films for a niche audience, Das has gone mainstream with this film. Achin (Subrat Dutta), an unlettered orphan who serves the powerful and affluent Rai Saheb is tricked by his mentor to take refuge in an island because the police are looking out for him for a murder he did not commit.
Rai Saheb’s deranged son Tanu is the real culprit. Rai Saheb leaves him alone in this no man’s land with some goats and a mynah for company. He falls in love with Pakhi, a fisherman’s daughter who lives in another island and comes to meet him everyday. They decide to run away when Pakhi’s father is bribed into marrying his daughter off to the insane Tanu.
Thanks to the diabolic manipulation of Rai Saheb, Achin is captured and imprisoned before they can flee.
Pakhi is married off to Tanu. Achin is set free for want of evidence. By then, Pakhi, unable to bear the thought of Achin having been sentenced to death – a false rumour fed to her by Rai Saheb’s wife, has killed herself.
Achin sails off on the Ichamoti hoping to meet the love of his life, till his boat turns into a small blob on its rippling waters and slowly disappears from view. His visions of Pakhi dressed as a bride in another boat is moving.
Is the 21st century audience willing to accept this tragic love story of ill-fated lovers? No, if the near-empty theatre on its second screening is something to go by. Achin Pakhi is shot almost entirely on and along the banks of Ichamoti River on Machranga Dwip, an island in Taki near Kolkata.
Ichamoti divides West Bengal and Bangladesh and is barely one kilometer away from the Indo-Bangladesh border. The scenic beauty of the setting is captured with mesmerising effect, perhaps entirely in natural light, by veteran cinematographer Aseem Bose.
The dark and depressing ambience is set in relief by the smiling, innocent faces of Pakhi (Manali Dey), by now a popular Bengali soap actress and better known as Mouri of Bou Katha Kao, and Achin (Subrat Dutta) caught in close-up, mid shots and most often, in long shots on the river waters. The production design in the villages is an exemplary blend of the aesthetic and the real.
The songs, carried over from Mominpura are good but sometimes intrude into the fluid flow of the story. Subrat grows better with every film while Manali invests Pakhi with a bubbling innocence that washes naturally over the character. Sudip Chakroborty as the deranged Tanu is outstanding.
The first half is grindingly slow while there is little story left in the second half. The love-at-first-sight element could have been more convincing. It is an old story differently told. But in a world of live-in relationships, one-night stands and casual flings, Achin Pakhi fails to hold.
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