Sharmila Tagore Returns to Bengali Cinema
Veteran actress Sharmila Tagore returns to Bengali cinema after 16 years in Suman Ghosh’s poignant film Puratawn – The Ancient.
Well, here we are then — sixteen years since her last outing in Bengali cinema, and Sharmila Tagore walks back on screen with the sort of grace that makes you sit up, put the kettle on, and take a long, contemplative sip. In Suman Ghosh’s Puratawn – The Ancient, she’s not just playing a role. No, she’s inhabiting a space between memory and myth — a grand old dame not merely of the screen, but of time itself.
This film isn’t your run-of-the-mill drama with dramatic outbursts and biscuit-throwing arguments. No, Puratawn is a quiet little creature — the cinematic equivalent of a dust-covered photo album found in a forgotten trunk in your grandmother’s attic. It doesn’t shout, it murmurs. And at the centre of it all is Sharmila Tagore, or “Mamoni” as she’s known in the film — an octogenarian whose mind is slowly, heartbreakingly unravelling, like an old woollen jumper that’s seen one too many winters.
She’s battling what looks to be Alzheimer’s, although the film, ever polite, never shoves labels down your throat. Instead, it lets Mamoni cling to her precious relics like a shipwreck survivor clutching flotsam. There’s a Tagore book with yellowing pages, a 1974 bank passbook (bless it), and a harmonium that wheezes like an asthmatic accordion. These are her anchors, her companions, as her grip on the present gently slips through her fingers like dry sand.
Enter Ritika, her daughter, played with a quiet, tea-stirring tension by Rituparna Sengupta. Ritika’s a modern woman, sharp as a tack, employed at some faceless multinational where things are likely “streamlined” and “monetised”. She’s desperately trying to care for her mother while also negotiating her own existential identity crisis. One minute she’s sorting spreadsheets, the next she’s holding a wooden walking stick from Puri wondering what memories it holds. It’s not exactly easy-peasy.
There’s a rather touching moment when Ritika organises a birthday for Mamoni, surrounding her with the relics of her past — and I’ll admit, if you don’t get a bit misty-eyed, you’re either made of stone or a tax inspector.
Indraneil Sengupta turns up as Ritika’s estranged husband Rajeev — a wildlife photographer with the aura of a man who’s spent far too long in the jungle and not enough time in couples therapy. His presence adds a melancholic note, the kind that gently hums in the background like an old gramophone playing in the next room.
And let’s talk about that house. A mossy, ageing Kolkata bungalow by the Ganga, it’s less of a location and more of a sentient being. You can almost hear it sigh when someone opens a cupboard. It’s the sort of place where you expect to find a diary no one remembers writing, or a ghost who refuses to haunt — just loiters politely.
Suman Ghosh, to his credit, doesn’t try to tie everything up with a neat little bow. This isn’t the sort of film where you get a resolution and a standing ovation. No sir. Instead, he invites you in, offers you a seat, and simply asks you to listen. It’s all atmosphere, ambiguity, and the kind of silences that say more than dialogue ever could. If you’re after a whodunnit or a rom-com, best keep walking, love.
The film’s aesthetic, courtesy of Ravi Kiran Ayyagari’s camerawork, is like a watercolour left out in the rain — muted, soft, wistful. Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s editing doesn’t rush a thing — in fact, you might find yourself checking your watch, not out of boredom, but because time, in this world, has become an old friend who talks very slowly.
Puratawn doesn’t spoon-feed. It doesn’t even hand you a fork. It simply lays out its fragile bits of memory and says, “Here, make of this what you will.” Who was Mamoni before all this forgetting? Did Ritika ever really know her mother, or was she always a stranger wrapped in nostalgia and silks?
This is not a film to “watch” — it’s one to feel. Like dipping your toes in the Ganga at dusk, or smelling the pages of a book that belonged to someone you loved but never fully understood. Sharmila Tagore doesn’t act here — she remembers for all of us. And for that, one is quietly, profoundly grateful.
Pass the biscuits.
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