Movie World
Rabindranath Tagore’s stories converted into Bollywood Films – Part 4
Bioscopewala (2018)
By Dinesh Kamath
The works of Rabindranath Tagore
have inspired many cinematic titles in multiple languages over the years. The
audience, in our times too, find Tagore's world engaging and relatable, feeling
attached to the emotions, issues, drama and anxieties suffered by the
characters he created. Tagore’s story has inspired a commercially successful or
remarkable piece of cinema in Hindi in recent times. Let us have a look at one
such film which is Bioscopewala (2018)
This is the most recent and
relevant Hindi interpretation of Tagore's Kabuliwala for the big screen. The
film, starring Danny Denzongpa as Rehmat Khan aka Bioscopewala, Geetanjali
Thapa as Minnie and Adil Hussain as Robi Basu, is an ultra-modern update of
Tagore's 1892 classic short story. It takes forward the timeline of Kabuliwala
from the 19th century to somewhere in the 1980s during the Taliban regime,
changing the profession of Rehmat from a dry fruit seller to a man who goes
around showing films to children through his bioscope. The film, directed by
Deb Medhekar, has been lauded for paying tribute to cinema and for making a
strong statement against fundamentalism.
Bioscopewala (transl. Man with a
bioscope) is an Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Deb Medhekar, and
produced by Sunil Doshi. The film stars Danny Denzongpa and Geetanjali Thapa in
lead roles and had its world premiere at the 30th Tokyo International Film
Festival on 28 October 2017. The film is an adaptation of Nobel Laureate
Rabindranath Tagore's short story Kabuliwala and released on 25 May 2018 in
India. The official trailer of the film was released on YouTube by Fox Star
Studios on 8 May 2018. Bioscopewala has taken forward the timeline of
Kabuliwala, the original story written by Rabindranath Tagore, from the 19th
century to somewhere in the 1980s during the Taliban regime and changed the
profession of Rehmat, the central character, from a dry fruit seller to a man
who goes around showing films to children through his bioscope.
The movie has an interesting plot. Bioscopewala
is the story of Rehmat Khan (Danny Denzongpa), a man from Kabul, Afghanistan
who used to show films to children through his Bioscope. Rehmat befriends a
little girl named Minnie who is of the same age as his own daughter and one day
disappears from her life. Many years later a grown-up Minnie (Geetanjali
Thapa), who is now a documentary film-maker living in France, comes to know
about her father, who died in a plane crash while traveling to Afghanistan. As
Minnie tries to figure out the reason why her father made that trip, she comes
across Bioscopewala, the man who used to tell her stories when she was a child.
The film has Danny Denzongpa as
Rehmat Khan, Geetanjali Thapa as Minnie Basu, Adil Hussain as Robi Basu, Tisca
Chopra as Wahida, Maya Sarao as Ghazala, Brijendra Kala as Bhola, Ekavali
Khanna as Shobita, Ivan Rodrigues as Airline Spokesperson, Shashi Bhushan as
Bakht Rawan, Mir Sarwar as Zadran and Ahmer Haider as Security Officer.
In the year 2009, it was reported
that French-Afghan filmmaker Atiq Rahimi was planning to adapt Rabindranath
Tagore's short story Kabuliwala into a film but the project did not
materialize. In the year 2012, it was reported that Sunil Doshi was
collaborating with Atiq Rahimi to make Kabuliwala, which was an adaptation of Rabindranath
Tagore's short story of the same name, and Amitabh Bachchan was going to play
the title role. The film, which had its screenplay written by Atiq Rahimi and
Jean-Claude Carrière, was set in modern-day Kolkata where a refugee from
Afghanistan befriends a 5 year old Bengali girl and was supposed to be filmed
in Kolkata and Jaisalmer for a period of 60 days beginning from June 2013.
Apart from Amitabh Bachchan, Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, Sara Arrjun,
M.K. Raina and Rajat Kapoor were also supposed to be a part of the film. But
the project got indefinitely delayed. In the year 2016, Sunil Doshi approached
Ram Madhvani with the idea of adapting the story of Kabuliwala to the screen
who in turn directed him towards his colleague Debashish Medhekar, who was an
ad-filmmaker at Equinox. Debashish says that, “When Sunil said to do this film
I felt it was everything that I wanted to do in my first feature – it had
children, magic realism, nostalgia, travel, and says something about the world
we live in and how people are suffering.”
In 2016, Deb Medhekar's
Bioscopewala was selected to be a part of the Work-in-Progress lab at the 10th
NFDC Film Bazaar (an annual event where filmmakers present a rough cut of their
projects for review and feedback by a panel of international film experts) held
in Goa during November 20–24, 2016.
Director Deb Medhekar says that for
the role of Minnie Basu he was not just looking for a good actress but also
someone who resembles Meena Kumari, as a result of which he finalized
Geetanjali Thapa for the role. Deb says, "I am a big Meena Kumari fan and
I think no other actress can look as authentically beautiful and Bengali as
Meena Kumari did in ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’. So when I was casting Mini in
‘Bioscopewala’ as an adult, I cast Geetanjali Thapa because she has an uncanny
resemblance."
There is only one song in the film,
titled Bioscopewala. Sung by K Mohan this song was composed by Sandesh
Shandilya while the lyrics were written by Gulzar.
Critical reception
Reza Noorani of The Times of India
praised the performances of Danny Denzongpa and Geetanjali Thapa and gave the
film a rating of 3.5 out of 5 saying that, "At one hour and 31 minutes,
the film doesn’t waiver much and wraps up the loose ends perfectly."
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 saying that,
"Danny Denzongpa's Performance Is First-Rate In This Well-Crafted
Sparkling Little Gem." Prasanna D Zore of Rediff gave the film a rating of
3 out of 5 and said that Bioscopewala "is a sweet film, soothing to the
eyes, and weaves a story of human suffering cutting across national
boundaries." Rajeev Masand of News18 called the film "a smart, moving
adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Kabuliwala." The critic praised the performances
of all actors with special mention for Danny Denzongpa and concluded his review
saying, "Make time for Bioscopewala, it’s a deeply affecting film, imbued
with a lingering love for cinema." The Indian Express praised the
performances of Danny Denzongpa and Brijendra Kala but felt that the film
failed to tap its complete potential and gave the film a rating of 2.5 out of
5. Sweta Kausal of Hindustan Times praised the adaptation as well as the
performances of all actors and gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5. Shrishti
Negi of News18 gave the film a rating of 4 out of 5 and said that, "In a
rising atmosphere of cultural intolerance, hate and violence, director Deb
Medhekar’s Bioscopewala promises hope and manages to convey the more heart-warming
emotion of humankind."
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