Glimpse silence of 'Nirbaak' through hand shadowgraphy

Known for out-of-the-box thinking, national award winner Srijit Mukherji has used the rare art of hand shadowgraphy in the trailer for his forthcoming film "Nirbaak" (Speechless) for a poignant narration of the movie's four stories solely through the fluid movements of hands and fingers.

Scripted and performed by the duo of Amar and Sabyasachi Sen, the three-and-a-half minute hand shadowgraphy (HSG) titles video is a silent rendition of four love stories connected by a single woman - the character played by former Miss Universe and actress Sushmita Sen.

"In each of the four love stories, one character is speechless. There is a tree, a corpse, a dog and a mirror depicted in the video through HSG. The element of love is shown through a throbbing heart, all created by the movement of fingers and hands," Amar told IANS.

'Hand shadowgraphy' or 'cinema in silhouette' as coined by the two Sens, is the art of creating shadows using only hands and fingers against a blank screen against a light source.

From depicting animals to silhouettes of monuments to personalities including Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, the two can project anything with their hand movements.

The Sens have to their credit the very eye-catching Madhya Pradesh tourism campaign ad - 'MP Ajab hai, sabse Gazab hai' - based totally on hand shadowgraphy, as well as the popular 'Let Calcutta Surprise You' campaign.

Both videos have received millions of hits on Youtube.

For "Nirbaak", Amar explains, icons of Kolkata such as the Victoria Memorial and the Howrah Bridge have been staged via HSG and added to the background through computer layering.

Shadows of a tree sprouting leaves and branches, a character on a park bench, a man hunched over a dead body in a morgue, a dog wandering against the city backdrop and a figure leaning against a mirror have been meticulously created by the Sens with the swish and flick of their bare hands.

The themes of the film are centred on lust, jealousy, affection and separation. "Nirbaak" is Sushmita's debut in Bengali cinema . The film also stars Jisshu Sengupta, actor-director Anjan Dutt and Ritwick Chakraborty.

"The last scene in the trailer is a combination of all the elements. The script was in accordance with Srijit's wishes and we are grateful that he was open to ideas," Amar said.

The Sens took to hand shadowgraphy in the 1960s, and after a lengthy self-taught process, conducted their first show at the Outram Club here in 1988.

In 1997, the duo performed internationally for the first time in Muscat, Oman and since then their reach has expanded to Jordan, the US, Germany and other countries.

The HSG trailer which has been highly appreciated by Sushmita in a recent tweet, though minimalistic in appeal, took a "lot of time" to perfect in contrast to its short run-time, admits Amar.

The enchanting audio-visual is set to a soulful rhythm by Neel Dutt (the film's music composer) and put together by Arko Sen and Kumar Chitrang. The film releases on May 1.

Despite the video grabbing over one lakh hits and the duo receiving several awards internationally, Amar, however, lamented the dearth of respect for the artists' efforts.

"People fail to understand the depth and intricacy of the art since they can't see the technicalities that go into making it," he added.