Swapner Din

I read a criticism of an eminent film critic about Buddhadeb Dasgupta becoming 'very personal' in his later films which lack the social commitment and depth he showed in his early films (Dooratwa, Grihajuddha, Bagh Bahadur and others). SWAPNER DIN would fall in the second phase of his films and no different from the personal kind of films (LAL DARJA & others) he has been making in recent times ... I was trying to dissect SWAPNER DIN and its inner message. The film is basically about a Govt. employee (Prasenjit) and his driver friend (Rajesh Sharma) who tours the villages to promote Govt. schemes (like educating the rural folks about the use of condoms). In carrying out the mission, the Projector and even the Govt. Car gets stolen. A number of characters make brief appearances to fuse themselves into the abstract storyline of the director... While trying to unravel the hidden message, I think that BD is telling us that in spite of the fact that all dreams are crumbling (the uneasy relationship the protagonist Prasenjit has with his father and his mother living with another man, the quibbling land-lady where Prasenjit lived as a tenant for seven years, thieves robbers terrorists and exploiters abound everywhere...) we must never stop dreaming ...this is validated in the concluding sequence of the film wherein the beautiful village belle (Raima Sen) leads our protagonist towards dreamland... The supporting cast includes Reema Sen, Haradhan Bannerjee and others ... Rating: 2.8 out of 5