Sesh Chithi review: This is a thoroughly confusing and unecessary watch

Director Tanmoy Roy’s Sesh Chithi is a film of such poor quality that it doesn’t deserve a rating. Also, it is painful to watch the world renowned Soumitra Chatterjee being part of this film which is even devoid of proper cinematic techniques and has a thoroughly confusing storyline.

For most part, it seems that Partha Rakshit did not really care for any cinematography, rather placed a camera to record the ongoing events. Also, most of the sequences are shot in the film without a proper background or a set.

The plot jumps from one sequence to other, oscillating between flashbacks and present time. The audience has to arrange the scenes in their mind to get an understanding of the story (if there is any).

The film begins with a man listening to a lady singing on television, while his wife struggles to wake their daughter up and get her ready for school. Once ready, the daughter suddenly comes and changes the channel to watch cartoons. Thus, a confrontation ensues between her parents. Her mother argues that their daughter is learning good manners in her English medium school and draws the reference of their neighbours who are settled abroad. Her father replies that their education hasn’t come to any purpose as they have sent their parents to an old age home to enjoy their own life.

The story then shifts to Shibnath (Soumitra Chatterjee) and Mamta Devi’s (Lily Chakravorty) household. From the constant shifts between the past and the present it can be gathered that widowed Mamta Devi is revisiting her memories with her late husband Shibnath, a descendent of a zamindar family, while reading the last letter sent to her by him before she is sent to an old age home by her daughter Priya (Moubani Sarkar) and son-in-law Ramen (Ritobroto Bhattacharya).

For his entire life, Shibnath has been a staunch patriarch. It is the days of his loneliness and nearing his retirement that eventually makes him realise the importance of his wife’s outlook and way of life.

The plot then moves to the episode of Priya’s marriage. Her wedding is arranged with Ramen, a man dealing in antiques. Shibnath tries to connect with Ramen’s Canada-based parents, but they refuse to be present at their wedding, claiming to be too busy with their lives. Shibnath doesn’t mind and feels fortunate that his daughter can be wedded to a rich businessman.

Priya and Ramen get married. After a year, their marriage begins to turn sour. Ramen not only uses Priya as an object of lust, but eventually tries to dupe her family for his own profit by selling their age old mansion.

Though Ramen’s frauds and deserting his widowed mother-in-law to an old age home turns out to be the focal point of the film, numerous subplots and additional characters make it tedious to follow.

‘The Last Letter’ sent by Shibnath doesn’t play any crucial role in the film apart from being a tool of reminiscence. The climax only serves Mamata Devi with her proper rights and doesn’t really propagate the idea of taking care of old parents.

This reviewer is not quite sure whether the director attempted to raise a voice against patriarchy by pointing out to the past mistakes committed by Shibnath because Priya’s continuous compromises with her materialistic husband don’t really go well with the idea.

The dialogues in the film are mostly incomplete and repetitive. The shots lose coherence at large and a lot of scenes in the film are picked up from random videos, especially those of the bars.

Apart from Soumitra Chatterjee, Lily Chakravorty and Moubani Sarkar, none of the actors seem to have bothered to act. They were perhaps just happy to share screen space with the legendary actor.

The film itself is so clumsy that the overpowering background score by Sudhir Dutta does not capture the attention of the audience separately. However, the title track by Rupankar Bagchi is not that bad.