8/12: Binay Badal Dinesh review – Cinematic finesse, compact screenplay make this one of the better Bengali period films

Arun Roy’s film 8/12: Binay Badal Dinesh is based on the historic attack on the Writers’ Building, then the seat of government in Calcutta, by revolutionary trio Binay-Badal-Dinesh on 8 December 1930.

Starring Kinjal Nanda, Arna Mukhopadhyay and Remoo, the film depicts the premise of the attack launched on Lt Col NS Simpson, inspector general of prisons, infamous for torturing political prisoners.

Shot in black and white, the period film engages the viewer within minutes with its focused plot progression. The account begins with police commissioner Charles Tegart and a Mr Lowman launching a desperate search for the revolutionaries involved in the Chittagong Armoury Raid of 18 April 1930 under the leadership of Master-da Surya Sen. Threatened by the attempt of the revolutionaries, the British police officers ruthlessly arrest suspects to get information on the revolutionaries and unleash bestial torture on the prisoners.

The well-shot graphic portrayal of the torture is quite disturbing and reveals the barbaric face of the colonizers. The effect gets multiplied when a female suspect called Komola (Gulshanara Khatun) becomes a victim of relentless abuse in the prison but defiantly refuses to disclose any information.

As more accounts of the tyrannical acts reach the mastermind of Bengal Volunteers, Hemchandra Ghosh (Saswata Chatterjee), his team begins preparation for launching more attacks on the British to scare them of the power of the oppressed countrymen.

Binay Basu (Nanda), one of the founders of Bengal Volunteers in Dhaka and with the vision of a hawk, gets the first assignment of killing Lowman. When he succeeds, the desperation of the British increases. Binay declares that they need to shake the foundation of the government and some heroic souls need to sacrifice themselves for the purpose.

To undertake the mission, Binay seeks two companions with comparable zeal and a willingness to lay down their lives for the motherland. Badal Gupta (Mukhopadhyay) and Dinesh Gupta (Remoo) join the mission. Eventually, the historic day arrives when the trio shoot Simpson dead on entering the Writers' Building dressed as Europeans. After an intense gunfight with the police in the corridors of the secretariat, Badal consumes potassium cyanide while Binay and Dinesh shoot themselves.

From the beginning, the film keeps the audience on edge with an unfaltering pace and restrained screenplay that doesn’t get into too much detailing of the life of the revolutionaries. While there are small loopholes that can be ignored, like the episode involving Kharaj Mukherjee’s buffoonish police officer, who seems to have been incorporated merely for comic relief, the plot focuses singularly on the incidents connected directly with the historic attack.

The casting of the revolutionary trio with distinguished character traits and Saswata Chatterjee as Hemchandra Ghosh seems on point, but the actor playing Subhas Chandra Bose doesn’t quite fit the role.

Chatterjee brings alive the foresight and wisdom of Hemchandra with effortless finesse, but some of the other performances come across as theatrical and bereft of nuance.

Gopi Bhagat’s experienced camerawork and editor Sanglap Bhowmick’s fine trimming of the scenes make 8/12 one of the better Bengali period films made in recent times. Tanmay Chakraborty’s production design is well-researched while Bhagat’s camera angles have made the work quite convincing.

However, the moments leading to the attack of 8 December 1930 are conceptualized and presented in a larger-than-life manner. Bereft of subtlety, the sequences seem straight out of a modern-day action thriller.

While the gunbattle in the corridors of power is prolonged and intense, given that the entire plot build-up leads to this particular sequence, the lack of dramatic changes during the battle itself makes the sequence drag somewhat.

The film's weakest link is the almost headache-inducing wall-to-wall heavy metal background score that picks up from the beginning and doesn’t let up until the end. It hampers the spontaneous build-up of the plot in the minds of the audience, as the score seems to force a momentum on the plot.

Arun Roy has successfully manipulated a historical account to present a film that often generates the effect of a massy entertainer, with charged sequences and some over-the-top portrayals. Though bereft of the sentimental touches expected from patriotic films, 8/12 is worth a watch for its cinematic excellence and the effort that has gone into recreating the past.

8/12: Binay Badal Dinesh was released on 26 January in theatres across West Bengal.