A dreamscape where the decaying remnants of the huge mansions of the past are filled with vegetation that communicates in its own language is where “Jonaki” is set for the most part. The dreams and memories of an eighty-year-old woman are shown to us as she sees them.
“Jonaki” is screening at Indian Film Festival Los Angeles
“Jonaki” (Lolita Chatterjee) is in her deathbed and the memory of her whole life, which starts from her love affair with a Christian boy (Jim Sarbh), is being shown to the viewers. In her memories, everyone looks at their most memorable forms to her. She is in her eighty-year form while everyone else looks much younger when the memory is from her teenage years. Her doomed love and the arranged marriage where she was not happy that follows it, cover the basic story but the film has a lot more to tell.
The effect of World War II and the British leaving India are both huge in her life. However, the actual events themselves are unfamiliar to her. Her father (Sumanto Chattopadhyay) a research scientist, stops eating plants as his research on plants gets further, although his research also gets halted. All the while she's on her death bed and dreams her memories; her old lover is searching to find her present whereabouts. He carries oranges with him that was a huge part of their relationship back in the day.
“Jonaki” must be one of the most unique films to come out of India in recent years. I can only think of Tarkovsky's “The Mirror” for the way it deals with memory and dreams and yet it manages to be very different from that. It also gives a sense of confusion and tension from its surreal depiction of that world, like Lynch's “Eraserhead”. The way it has portrayed the mansions of the Bengali families who had thrived during the British Raj as decaying vegetation filled places that evokes a sense of natural beauty is creepy and wonderful at the same time.
The film definitely has a dream-like quality to it as it is permeated by surreal metaphors. The oranges that rush in the teenage years that can't be savored enough. The spark that dies inside everyone leading to the burning of what's left in them. Hopes and dreams getting shattered because of the time and society. But the only issue is that sometimes the metaphors feel to be too much and the dream-like pacing takes you away from the experience too often.
Director Aditya Vikram Sengupta wrote the story based on the stories he heard from his grandmother about her life when he grew up and the dreams and nightmares he had after her death. It is very obvious from the film that this is a very personal film for him. As a painter himself, Sengupta definitely had a clear idea of the aesthetics of the film which he has incorporated with the help of production designer Jonaki Bhattacharya and cinematographer Mahendra Shetty. Each frame looks like a painting, the production design, composition, and the camera movements are so well planned and executed.
The performances from all the actors were consistent througout the film, but the standout is of course Lolita Chatteree in the title role, embodying the character and even showing the emotions of a teenager with ease. As the last role in her career before her death, there couldn't have been a better opportunity for her to shine like this elsewhere and she have utilised the opportunity very well.
“Jonaki” is avant-garde filmmaking at its best with the kind of narrative choices that makes it unique and rare in world cinema. It may not achieve the greatness of the few movies that can be compared with it for the style or feeling it evokes but this doesn't take away the fact that it is among the few films that can be compared to those great movies.
