National award-winning filmmaker Pradipta Bhattacharya’s upcoming film Rajlokhi O Srikanta clarifies in the trailer itself that the film is a modern interpretation of some selected portions from Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s popular 1917 novel Srikanta.
In the film, Ritwick Chakraborty enacts Srikanta while Bangladeshi actress Jyotika will be seen as Rajlokhi. Rahul Banerjee and Aparajita Ghosh Das also have important roles in the film.
In the novel, childhood lovers Rajlokhi and Srikanta get separated. Many years later, Srikanta chances upon Rajlokhi as courtesan Pyaari. As Srikanta puts his best efforts to pull out Pyaari from her job, their relationship intensifies yet gets complicated too.
The trailer offers some glimpses of the storyline but there are a lot of original inputs from the director and his team. Bhattacharya is known for infusing folk elements in his film, in terms of music and ambience.
In the trailer of Rajlokhi O Srikanta, there is abundance of those influences. Certain shots near the beaches and river add interesting dimension to the probable plot of the film.
At the same time, Rajlokhi and Srikanta are also seen to be decorating a new apartment as their own den. In a scene, Rajlokhi calls Srikanta as her personal but the statement is not defined in the trailer. Even though they seem to be settling as a happy couple, but the background score and certain hints of a parallel narrative seem to threaten their peace.
Banerjee is only seen as a client in a sequence, while Aparajita’s narrative seems to have an interesting contribution to make in Rajlokhi and Srikanta’s love story.
The interesting trailer leaves a lot for the audience to anticipate. Moreover, it has some signature flavours of Bhattacharya that were seen in his acclaimed film Bakita Byaktigato (2013), raising expectations.
Rajlokhi O Srikanta is due to be released on 20 September.