OTT Review: Jazz City: There Will Be Blood
Jazz City | Director: Soumik Sen | Cast: Arifin Shuvoo, Sauraseni Maitra | Bengali | SonyLiv
A dying man is asked by a Pakistani soldier pointing a gun at him: Are you a Bengali or a Muslim? Both, he says. Bangla is the hero of the handsomely mounted Jazz City, set in 1971, and written and directed by Soumik Sen. It tells the fictional story of a nightclub owner Jimmy Roy, played with a rare swagger by Bangladeshi actor Arifin Shuvoo. Roy will do anything to make his club run. His old love, Sheela Bose (Sauraseni Maitra), works for the refugees pouring into Kolkata from what was East Pakistan. Jimmy is more concerned about his club’s liquor licence until he sees the atrocities being committed in East Pakistan, and is slowly convinced of the mission. The series uses a mix of voiceover and black-and-white recreation of excesses to ensure that the news of the genocide is carried to the world. An impatient Indira Gandhi, a cautious Sam Manekshaw, and Mujibur Rahman, appalled at the blood spilled, feature in the show. Shuvoo is a star in the making, playing a common man who is an uncommon hero, and Maitra is effortlessly elegant as Jimmy’s muse. It is a timely plea for peace, and for the angry world to be angry for the right reasons. Jazz City is a love letter to Kolkata, to the ever glittering Park Street, and ultimately to the beautiful Bangla language.