Kabuliwala of Tagore, English Teacher of RK Narayana and Music Teacher by Sarthak Dasgupta. I am wondering what it is about these straight-out and heart-warming stories which have become like an extinct species these days.
I saw Music Teacher last night. It was most wonderful. I cannot believe it was made in 2019. Nothing about it is quite today; though ironically, the hills never age, the beauty of Himachal and the quiet melodies, sense of beautiful loneliness, are ever-present. The film is time-wrapped, and yet it would appeal to everyone because of its universal emotion.
Protagonist under an umbrella, raindrops falling from its sides; a bridge on the river, a smoke in a quiet corner, the characteristic non-committal hue of love, so familiar to the yester era where professing was banal, and reticence, diffidence, bashfulness were sacred even if they made gashes into life. I had exactly the same feel watching Music Teacher as Blue Umbrella and Aandhi (though Blue Umbrella wasn't as great a story experience as it was a visual treat)
Music Teacher could well have been released a good 40 years ago and still done well. In fact, it's like one of those Hrishikesh Mukherjee type films. And as good! The director, Sarthak Dasgupta, has done a wonderful job with absolutely natural actors like Manav Kaul, a gem in understated and sublime acting, Divya Dutta, sheer brilliance of sense and substance, Neena Gupta, candidness in motion and Amrita Bagchi, a splash of fresh mountain spring acting. Sarthak's writing is life-nuanced, I mean if there were words to accompany smiles and sighs and silences and songs, simple but deeply-fetched, then those are his.
This film is a proof: great music does not die, simple love does not die, and artists fascinated by the classics may fall out on the sides and be ignored by the contemporary world, because their emotions are of the old times, but they manage a great time travel. Sarthak's film is a tribute to some great cinema of the past, but more importantly, it being made in 2019 is good news to me (a sort of dated author): it says we have an old soul, revivable anytime, and beauty is an old song and we can be lucky and render it afresh like Sarthak did.
I saw Music Teacher last night. It was most wonderful. I cannot believe it was made in 2019. Nothing about it is quite today; though ironically, the hills never age, the beauty of Himachal and the quiet melodies, sense of beautiful loneliness, are ever-present. The film is time-wrapped, and yet it would appeal to everyone because of its universal emotion.
Protagonist under an umbrella, raindrops falling from its sides; a bridge on the river, a smoke in a quiet corner, the characteristic non-committal hue of love, so familiar to the yester era where professing was banal, and reticence, diffidence, bashfulness were sacred even if they made gashes into life. I had exactly the same feel watching Music Teacher as Blue Umbrella and Aandhi (though Blue Umbrella wasn't as great a story experience as it was a visual treat)
Music Teacher could well have been released a good 40 years ago and still done well. In fact, it's like one of those Hrishikesh Mukherjee type films. And as good! The director, Sarthak Dasgupta, has done a wonderful job with absolutely natural actors like Manav Kaul, a gem in understated and sublime acting, Divya Dutta, sheer brilliance of sense and substance, Neena Gupta, candidness in motion and Amrita Bagchi, a splash of fresh mountain spring acting. Sarthak's writing is life-nuanced, I mean if there were words to accompany smiles and sighs and silences and songs, simple but deeply-fetched, then those are his.
This film is a proof: great music does not die, simple love does not die, and artists fascinated by the classics may fall out on the sides and be ignored by the contemporary world, because their emotions are of the old times, but they manage a great time travel. Sarthak's film is a tribute to some great cinema of the past, but more importantly, it being made in 2019 is good news to me (a sort of dated author): it says we have an old soul, revivable anytime, and beauty is an old song and we can be lucky and render it afresh like Sarthak did.