Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!

This is a niche film mounted on a grand scale. Calcutta in 1942 was one of the most vibrant cities in East Asia and this movie reflects the period when it made the transition from a phase of imperial majesty to that of modernity. Trams rumble by on streets lined with that hybrid architectural combination of British ostentation and Bengali tradition. The streets themselves are rather more cosmopolitan, and the English, Bengali and Chinese residents of this city mingle easily in the convivial spirit of money-making. Capitalism rules supreme for the moment. But nationalism is slowly raising its ugly head, and Japanese aggression is at hand.

All this is a delight to watch, but then a snail takes over the narrative, shortly to be overtaken by a tortoise. The movie spends too much time in its creation of ambience and development of plot. Creating atmosphere and character is the most important literary tool in the writing of detective fiction, but cinematic adaptation demands a faster pace. We are slowly—very slowly—introduced to a young and inexperienced Byomkesh (Sushant Singh Rajput), just as the detective himself is introduced to his ally and future accomplice, Ajit Bandyopadhyay (Anand Tiwari), a charming Dr Watson-like, cerebrally inclined ‘bhadralok’. The femme fatale in the movie is played by Swastika Mukherjee, and she has two sensuous scenes: one in a bathing suit by the river, the second in a bathtub, both bringing Byomkesh to the edge of erotic doom. But resist, he does, and is by and by able to see through the spider’s stratagem in which the lady herself is trapped.

The casting, the art direction and the cinematography of the film is painstakingly done and evokes admiration. The disastrous pacing, however, lets it down badly. This movie is not supposed to be a documentation of history. It is just a whodunnit, and director Dibakar Banerjee seems to have forgotten this.

Anand TiwariDetective Byomkesh Bakshy!Dibankar BanerjeeSushant Singh Rajput