Jaya finds her roots in Bengali Lovesongs

Kolkata is celebrating Jaya Bachchan’s latest in Bengali cinema Lovesongs -Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. However Bengali has been used sparsely in this movie; English being predominant language for the film. Based on the story by the Director itself, the film centers on 64-year-old Mridula Chatterjee (Jaya Bachchan) She is an independent, cheerful, fun-loving widow who runs an NGO for disabled people in Kolkata. The film is woven through Mridula’s unspooling her past which turns into a process of deep introspection and self-discovery, helping her to understand the choices she had to make.

In brief, it is a story about how ordinary lives suddenly change due to extraordinary circumstances and how, the fragrance of love is so deep and so all-pervasive, that it continues to light that single candle of hope in the darkness of even the greatest tragedy.

Our Bong friends will particularly like the film for its two traditional ghazals penned by Mir Taqi Mir and Rabindranath Tagore’s famous Ekla Chalo Re. The film has seven beautiful songs, two in Hindustani, one a Bengali lullaby and the rest in English. We will see Usha Uthup mark her debut as an independent music director in this film.

“Jaya-di is a past master at making any written dialogue come alive with spoken nuances and silences pregnant with meaning. It was an honor working with her, Om Puri and Mallika. As actors of the highest caliber, they gave their best. And as sensitive, compassionate human beings, they left their indelible impression on my film, which I will always cherish”, says Director Jayabrato Chatterjee.

Lovesongs -Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow marks the return of award winning journalist-poet-author Jayabrato Chatterjee to film making after 22 long years. This is his 2nd film. He is the second Indian writer after Dom Moraes to have won the Hawthornden Award in Scotland for his first novel Last Train to Innocence in 1995. Shahana Chatterjee, who has a Masters from the University of East Anglia in Theater and Development and is Jayabrato’s daughter is making her debut in this movie. Jaya Bachchan plays her mother in the film. Due for release tomorrow (Friday, March 28, 200 the film, has already been invited to the Indian festival of Films in New York in November.

This film was premiered at 10th MAMI International Film Festival on March 8, 2008. Here are a few pictures from the premier.