Films bring old fictional sleuths to current gen: Arindam

Introducing fictional sleuths of the by-gone era to the present generation and that too in their original period is the responsibility of the film-makers, feels director producer Arindam Sil.
Arindam made two films based on Byomkesh Bakshi, the detective character created by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay before the Independence.
"Since I am not sure how much the present generation reads printed works of Byomkesh and Feluda, it is our responsibility to introduce them to the works as feature films," Arindam said at a Bengali literature festival here.
Feluda is another fictional detective created by Satyajit Ray.
"Also it is our responsibility to faithfully reproduce the time frame referred in the original classics to let today's audience know about the period," Arindam said.

Stories of Byomkesh were written by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay between 1930s and 1970s and they were set on the time they were penned.

"For this reason we are shifting the location of my next Byomkesh project from Kolkata to another place as you can't recreate the 1950's look of this city," the film-maker said during a discussion at the Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob.
He said film-makers have the right to change the location to recreate a particular period but cannot tinker much with the time.
To buttress his point, Arindam said in his 'Har Har Byomkesh', the location Benaras had to be given the period look in the most detailed manner.

But for those belonging to the earlier generation and people who know about Byomkesh, it is a brand difficult to ignore, said Arindam and actor Abir Chatterjee who essayed the character in five films directed by Arindam and Anjan Dutt.
It is for this reason, Byomkesh movies always carry the name of the detective in the titles, Abir said.
"Since Byomkesh is such a huge brand... there is a tendency on the part of the director-producer to retain the name in every film," the actor said.
He said director Anjan Dutt changed the story title 'Adim Ripu' in his film to 'Byomkesh Bakshi' (2010).

Similarly, 'Chitrachor' became 'Abar Byomkesh' (2012) and 'Beni Sanghar' was renamed 'Byomkesh Fire Elo' (2014).
For Arindam's movies, story titles 'Bahni Patanga' and 'Amriter Mrityu' were changed to 'Har Har Byomkesh' (2014) and 'Byomkesh Pwarbo' (2016).
Film journalist Alokprasad Chattopadhyay moderated the discussion "Sahityer Goyendara Cinema e Palte Gelo" (Fictional detectives change in films).
Pompy Mukherjee, who made a film on another fictional child detective Gogol created by Samaresh Basu, also took part in the discussion held last night.