Mondo Meyer Upakhyan
Encyclopedia
Mondo Meyer Upakhyan is a 2002
India
n Bengali
film
directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta and starring Rituparna Sengupta
. The film won National Film Award for Best Film
in 2003.
), whose mother Rajani(Rituparna Sengupta
) is a prostitute living and working in a brothel in rural India. Rajani plans to offer her daughter to an older man, a rich husband and protector to her daughter. Lati, however, wants to return to school and finish her studies. Unwilling to pay such a price for material success, she runs away to Calcutta. The discovery of this new world is described parallel to other stories of emancipation, such as that of three young prostitutes, of an aged couple going nowhere and man's n landing on the moon. In a surrealistic approach typical of the director, a clumsy cat and an intelligent donkey are also present in the film. Ganesh (Tapas Pal
) works full-time as a driver for wealthy Bengali-speaking, Natabar Paladhi (Ram Gopal Bajaj
), who lives in a mansion along with his wife, children and grandchildren, and runs 'Anjali Cinema' as well as has Ganesh use his vehicle as a private taxi-cab. Amongst Ganesh's customers are a woman named Bakul (June Malia), who alights near a town of Gosaipara to take up prostitution with Jamunabai; an abandoned elderly couple who are in need of hospitalization - but there is none in the vicinity, and they end up secretly riding with Ganesh all the time; while Natabar uses this vehicle to also travel to Gosaipara to visit a prostitute named Rajani and negotiate with her so that he can have her 14 year old daughter, Lati, as his mistress. Things get complicated when Lati rebels against her mother so she can return to school, and a prostitute is about to get killed by her vengeful husband.
or Mrinal Sen
) make movies that are very specific to their own cultural milieu. A great master like the late Satyajit Ray
was never comfortable when he stepped outside his native Bengal with his camera. So too Dasgupta. His latest work, Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (A Tale of a Naughty Girl), is set in his favourite Purulia, a backward region in West Bengal. Beyond these main travails of Lati, Dasgupta presents a gripping account of village life. On Dasgupta's canvas, one witnesses life in all its splendour. A Tale of a Naughty Girl is undoubtedly a piece of celluloid that elevates cinema to another realm. It is extremely positive, and probably comes from a deep sense of peace and tranquillity that Dasgupta must have achieved from his poetic inclination.
2002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Bengali
Bengali cinema
Bengali cinema refers to the Bengali language filmmaking industries in the Bengal region of South Asia. There are two major film-making hubs in the region: one in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh .The history of cinema in Bengal dates back to the 1890s, when the first...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta and starring Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress. She is the leading actress in Bengali Cinema for the last decade in India, and is also currently performing in critically acclaimed Hindi Cinema.- Early life and education :...
. The film won National Film Award for Best Film
National Film Award for Best Film
The National Award for Best Feature film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, India, and was constituted in the year 1954. This is one of the Golden Lotus Awards given among National Film Awards...
in 2003.
Plot
Based on a short story by Bengali writer Prafulla Roy, the central idea developed by director Dasgupta, tells the story of a girl, Lati(Samata DasSamata Das
Samata Das is a Bengali movie and television actor. She earned fame for her role as Lati in Buddhadev Dasgupta's film Mondo Meyer Upakhyan.-Movies:* Mondo Meyer Upakhyan * Desh* Lal Ronger Duniya* Nagordola* Ek Mutho Chhobi-External links:* *...
), whose mother Rajani(Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta
Rituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress. She is the leading actress in Bengali Cinema for the last decade in India, and is also currently performing in critically acclaimed Hindi Cinema.- Early life and education :...
) is a prostitute living and working in a brothel in rural India. Rajani plans to offer her daughter to an older man, a rich husband and protector to her daughter. Lati, however, wants to return to school and finish her studies. Unwilling to pay such a price for material success, she runs away to Calcutta. The discovery of this new world is described parallel to other stories of emancipation, such as that of three young prostitutes, of an aged couple going nowhere and man's n landing on the moon. In a surrealistic approach typical of the director, a clumsy cat and an intelligent donkey are also present in the film. Ganesh (Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal
Tapas Pal born in 1960 in a remote village in Jalpaiguri district is a Bengali actor from Calcutta, the son of Dr. Ganash Pal of Chandannagar. He is a Member of Parliament having won in the 2009 Indian General Eelections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from Krishnanagar . His mother hails from a...
) works full-time as a driver for wealthy Bengali-speaking, Natabar Paladhi (Ram Gopal Bajaj
Ram Gopal Bajaj
Ram Gopal Bajaj is a noted Indian theatre director, academician, and a Hindi film actor. He has also been a faculty member and a former director of National School of Drama, New Delhi ....
), who lives in a mansion along with his wife, children and grandchildren, and runs 'Anjali Cinema' as well as has Ganesh use his vehicle as a private taxi-cab. Amongst Ganesh's customers are a woman named Bakul (June Malia), who alights near a town of Gosaipara to take up prostitution with Jamunabai; an abandoned elderly couple who are in need of hospitalization - but there is none in the vicinity, and they end up secretly riding with Ganesh all the time; while Natabar uses this vehicle to also travel to Gosaipara to visit a prostitute named Rajani and negotiate with her so that he can have her 14 year old daughter, Lati, as his mistress. Things get complicated when Lati rebels against her mother so she can return to school, and a prostitute is about to get killed by her vengeful husband.
Cast
- Rituparna SenguptaRituparna SenguptaRituparna Sengupta is an Indian actress. She is the leading actress in Bengali Cinema for the last decade in India, and is also currently performing in critically acclaimed Hindi Cinema.- Early life and education :...
as Rajani - Samata DasSamata DasSamata Das is a Bengali movie and television actor. She earned fame for her role as Lati in Buddhadev Dasgupta's film Mondo Meyer Upakhyan.-Movies:* Mondo Meyer Upakhyan * Desh* Lal Ronger Duniya* Nagordola* Ek Mutho Chhobi-External links:* *...
as Lati - Tapas PalTapas PalTapas Pal born in 1960 in a remote village in Jalpaiguri district is a Bengali actor from Calcutta, the son of Dr. Ganash Pal of Chandannagar. He is a Member of Parliament having won in the 2009 Indian General Eelections on a Trinamool Congress ticket from Krishnanagar . His mother hails from a...
as Ganesh - Arpan Basar ... Shibu
- Ram Gopal BajajRam Gopal BajajRam Gopal Bajaj is a noted Indian theatre director, academician, and a Hindi film actor. He has also been a faculty member and a former director of National School of Drama, New Delhi ....
... Natabar Paladhi - Pradip Mukherjee ... Nagen
- June Malia ... Bakul
- Sudipta Chakraborty ... Basanti
- Pavan Bandhopadhyay
- Debjani Biswas
- Kajol Chowdhuri
- Ketaki Dutta
- Arjun Guha Thakurta
- Saroj Gupta
- Fakir Das Kumar
- Sreelekha Mitra ...ayesha
- Subrata MukherjeeSubrata MukherjeeSubrata Mukherjee is an Indian politician and the present Minister for Public Health Engineering in the Government of West Bengal. He is also an MLA, elected from the Ballygunge constituency in the West Bengal state assembly election, 2011.-References:...
- Anup Mukhyopadhyay
Crew
- Directed Buddhadev Dasgupta
- Screenplay Buddhadev Dasgupta
- Produced Arya Bhattacharjee
- Music Buddhadev Dasgupta
- Cinematography VenuVenuThe venu is a bamboo transverse flute used in the Carnatic music of South India. Although it is often called Carnatic flute or simply flute in English, venu is the instrument's ancient Sanskrit name...
- Film Editing Raviranjan Maitra
- Art Direction Kousik Sarkar
Promotion
Directors like Dasgupta (and others of his ilk like Adoor GopalakrishnanAdoor Gopalakrishnan
Moutatthu "Adoor" Gopalakrishnan Unnithan is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. Adoor Gopalakrishnan had a major role in revolutionizing Malayalam cinema and is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of India.. Adoor's first film Swayamvaram pioneered the new wave cinema...
or Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen is a Bengali Indian filmmaker. He was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing his high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student and studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the...
) make movies that are very specific to their own cultural milieu. A great master like the late Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
was never comfortable when he stepped outside his native Bengal with his camera. So too Dasgupta. His latest work, Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (A Tale of a Naughty Girl), is set in his favourite Purulia, a backward region in West Bengal. Beyond these main travails of Lati, Dasgupta presents a gripping account of village life. On Dasgupta's canvas, one witnesses life in all its splendour. A Tale of a Naughty Girl is undoubtedly a piece of celluloid that elevates cinema to another realm. It is extremely positive, and probably comes from a deep sense of peace and tranquillity that Dasgupta must have achieved from his poetic inclination.
Released
| Country | Date | Fesivals |
| Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
7 September 2002 | (Toronto Film Festival) |
| Brazil Brazil Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... |
25 October 2002 | (Mostra BR de São Paulo) |
| South Korea South Korea The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south... |
18 November 2002 | (Pusan International Film Festival Pusan International Film Festival Busan International Film Festival , held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan , South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia... ) |
| USA | 14 January 2003 | (Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January... ) |
| Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark... |
31 March 2003 | (NatFilm Festival NatFilm Festival The NatFilm Festival, staged annually across 16 cinemas in Copenhagen, in addition to several in Odense, Aalborg and Århus, shows the widest programme of films to the largest festival audience in Denmark... ) |
| USA | 04 April 2003 | (Philadelphia International Film Festival) |
| France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
17-May-03 | (Cannes Film Festival Cannes Film Festival The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals... ) |
| UK | 15-Jun-03 | (Commonwealth Film Festival) |
| Russia Russia Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects... |
26-Jun-03 | (Moscow Film Festival) |
| Czech Republic Czech Republic The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest.... |
09-Jul-03 | (Karlovy Vary Film Festival) |
| Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
18 September 2003 | |
| USA | 22-Oct-04 | (Milwaukee International Film Festival) |
| France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
17-Nov-04 | |
| Poland Poland Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north... |
24-Jul-05 | (Era New Horizons Film Festival Era New Horizons Film Festival New Horizons Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in July in Wrocław, Poland. It has been organised since 2001.- Festival programme 2009 :* Opening gala – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon... ) |
Awards
- 2003 - Anandalok AwardsAnandalok AwardsAnandalok Awards or Anandalok Puraskar ceremony is one of the most prominent film events given for Bengali Cinemas in India. The Anandalok, only film magazine in Bengali language, published from Ananda Publishers and Ananda Bazar Patrika presents this Award...
- Best Director - Buddhadeb DasguptaBuddhadeb DasguptaBuddhadeb Dasgupta is a poet and prominent contemporary Indian filmmaker, most known for films like Bagh Bahadur, Tahader Katha, Charachar and Uttara... - 2003 - Best ASEAN Film Award - Buddhadev Dasgupta
- 2003 - National Film Award for Best FilmNational Film Award for Best FilmThe National Award for Best Feature film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, India, and was constituted in the year 1954. This is one of the Golden Lotus Awards given among National Film Awards...
- Arya Bhattacharya (Producer), Buddhadev Dasgupta (Director)