Bulbbul

Bulbbul is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language period horror film written and directed by Anvita Dutt. It was produced by Anushka Sharma and Karnesh Ssharma under Clean Slate Filmz and starred Tripti Dimri in the lead role alongside Avinash Tiwary, Paoli Dam, Rahul Bose, and Parambrata Chattopadhyay. Tripti Dimri was praised in many reviews. Set against the backdrop of the 1880s Bengal presidency, the film revolves around a child bride and her journey from innocence to strength. Bulbbul was released on Netflix on 24 June 2020.

Bulbbul is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language period horror film written and directed by Anvita Dutt. It was produced by Anushka Sharma and Karnesh Ssharma under Clean Slate Filmz and starred Tripti Dimri in the lead role alongside Avinash Tiwary, Paoli Dam, Rahul Bose, and Parambrata Chattopadhyay. Tripti Dimri was praised in many reviews. Set against the backdrop of the 1880s Bengal presidency, the film revolves around a child bride and her journey from innocence to strength. Bulbbul was released on Netflix on 24 June 2020.

Production

The story of the movie was written by Anvita Dutt who has been a commissioned writer for films. She wrote the first two pages of the story after waking from her sleep one night and outlined the chudail, the myth, and the idea behind her in this first draft. She completed the rest of the story after returning from a trip from Kolkata, after seeing a bulbul make a nest outside her house and after some encouragement from her colleagues. She intended the story to resemble a fairy tale and set it in the neoclassical era of Bengal to fulfill that. She was also inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's portrayal of women; Binodini is the name of one of the characters in his work. The premise has similarities with Tagore's novella Nastanirh, which was adapted by Satyajit Ray as the 1964 film Charulata. Dutt describes, "Now in reality what happens to women is much worse. The emotional, the physical and the psychological abuse is much, much worse. In telling of the story, I chose to tell it this way. I wanted the cold rage of women to find an outlet... It's a tragedy. The story is set 200 years ago but it's still relevant." The film was shot over a period of thirty-three days in the Bawali Rajbari built by the Bawali Raj, and other locations near Kolkata and Mumbai. Siddharth Diwan led the cinematography. With inputs from Dutt, the artwork of Raja Ravi Varma and Caravaggio were used as inspiration, in addition to influences from Expressionism and Surrealism. Diwan also took inspiration from photographers like Man Ray and Raja Deen Dayal. Satyajit Ray's poster of the film Devi was an inspiration for the lighting. Some examples of symbolism used include the grass, kaash phool, the bird and flower motifs, all significant to the goddess Durga. The mansion used in the film is Bawali Rajbari, located from Kolkata in the village of Nodakhali. The mansion has previously featured in the film Chokher Bali by Rituparno Ghosh.

Themes

Set in the late 19th century in Bengal, the film delves into the idea of aristocratic Bengali women embracing ideologies of freedom. Aruna Chakravarti's Jorasanko described Tagore's relationship with his sister-in-law, the child-bride Kadambari, which Shreya Paul of Firstpost noted as the foundation behind the relationship between Bulbbul and Satya. Chakravarti described how Kadambari was devastated when she was separated from Tagore (due to his marriage). Further, Tagore's older brother, Birendranath, suffered from a mental illness but was still married off and abused his wife, similar to Binodini being married off to Mahender. Aditya Mani Jha of Firstpost noted that the film is "a postmodern example of the Gothic genre", the most common example of which is Bram Stoker's Dracula. Satya is similar to Jonathan Harker, the protagonist of Dracula, in that they have the same "cold, unemotional logic" that leads them to investigate the case (much like Sherlock Holmes) and eventually decide to kill the monster themselves. The supernatural element (chudail in this case) embodying repressed emotions or desires is a trope of the Gothic genre. Bulbbul's disclosure as the chudail frames her like a goddess, specifically like Kali. Binodini subtly planting the idea of Bulbbul and Satya in Indranil's head makes her similar to Iago.

Accolades

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1376745374 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.