Bhoot Bongla

Most of us first encounter haunted-Housefilms as entries in the horror genre; at least you do if, like me, you have had an unmonitored childhood marked by viewings of slasher movies like Houseand Fright Night. The impulse while watching such films is to be scared in that very particular, jump-three-feet-out-of-your-chair way. And of course, this was the effect that the filmmakers were reaching for.

But as should be obvious to anyone who has seen a “friendly” Ghost film outside the horror genre (The Canterville Ghost and Blackbeard’s Ghost come to mind), the genre can be a versatile one, accommodating broad humour as well as poignant reflections on modernity’s neglect of the past. Both these tropes come together pleasingly in Anik Dutta’s Bhooter Bhabishyat, one of the most popular Bengali films of the past year.

Its title translates as “Future of the Past”, and appropriately enough the film is replete with juxtapositions between what we think of as “old” and “new”. The plot begins with young filmmakers scouting an ancient north Calcutta mansion. A writer-director named Ayan works on a script (in English) on his Apple laptop, then gets distracted and puts on some classical music. Sounds from different eras merge: the ringtone on Ayan’s phone is the otherworldly voice of the bhuter raja that Satyajit Ray himself recorded for Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (a film that is frequently referenced here). A shot of the desolate Houseis accompanied by an incongruous background score that brings the sounds of its past revelry to our ears.

The idea that past and present are constantly interacting is central to this tale of the supernatural, and spelled out with delightful economy during an opening-credits sequence that involves animated Ghostly eyes and voices lamenting that Calcutta is now a concrete jungle, that its heritage is disappearing and that its Ghosts have nowhere to go. Over the next two hours we see how this theme plays out. It involves Ayan, the young director, encountering a middle-aged man who tells him a story about a group of spooks who live in this very mansion. Most of what we see from here on is a visualisation of this tale: we are introduced to these relics of the past, including an 18th century zamindar, a gora sahib from the East India Company, an actress-singer from the 1940s and a generic buffoon who continues visiting the local fish-market in his spectral state because he can’t overcome the Bengali habit of bargaining. “Ojeeb collection hai,” as someone puts it.

The back-stories of these Ghosts — originally from different time periods and socio-economic strata — facilitate many references to environmental and social issues, from global warming to rich youngsters mowing down pavement-dwellers in their SUVs to the ubiquitous destruction of flora. But this lot knows how to live it up too, and their jollity emerges in full force during an anachronistic fashion parade where they dress up in outfits they wouldn’t have got to wear when they were alive.

While these shenanigans are enjoyable, what most interested me about Bhooter Bhabishyat is that it is also a homage to cinema, sprinkled with filmic references and with a visible love for a medium that can accommodate vastly different modes of storytelling, from the politically charged cinema of Mrinal Sen (“with handheld cameras”) to the magnificently imaginative Ghost dance in Goopy Gyne... to commercial elements that many of us reflexively dismiss as vulgar — comedy that takes the form of crude puns or stand-alone “humour tracks”, for example. And the film affectionately draws on these many different modes by incorporating them into its own narrative.

Which means that this movie about a bunch of happy-go-lucky Ghosts is also in a way a movie about its own conceptualisation. “We have made this film to protest,” the Ghosts sing in those opening credits, implying that what we are watching is a sort of magical projection, financed and sponsored by marginalised spirits to raise awareness of their plight. It’s a fine conceit, marrying the “magic” of the cinematic process with a more ancient supernatural tradition.

Jai Arjun Singh is a Delhi-based writer