It takes a helluva lot of courage to make something as nakedly anti-superstition as Charak, especially at a time when primitivism and tribalism are being favoured by a particular genre of moviemakers who have patented blind-faith as unquestionable .
Forget humour, this genre doesn’t even recognize cynicism as a legitimate response to superstition.
Producer Sudipto Sen and director Sheiladitya Moulik deserve praise for opening up the dark dangerous dungeon of sinister superstitiousness. Yes, child sacrifice also comes into prey, as layer after later of fetishisized ritualism comes undone in a storytelling pattern that embraces messiness as the only means of decoding minds which are blinded to rational thoughts.
It took me some time to figure out the inter-relationhips between the tribal characters who are seen as a closely-knit community of blurred individuals and distant desires. This is perhaps a deliberate device in the storytelling: the huddle of collective conspiracy makes the eventual horror of ritualistic excesses even more chilling.
Standing above the melee of sinister superstitiouness is the cop-hero Subhas Sharma (Sahidur Rahaman, trying hard to convey the clenched intensity of Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer) newly posted in the tribal area where the annual Charak festival is around the corner.
This is when taboo rituals come storming to the surface. Subhas and his free-spirited wife Shefali(the underrated Anjali Patil) are trying desperately to have a child. She can see what her husband can’t: the light side of their desperate procreation attempts.
“The best thing about not having a child is we are liberated from using condoms and contraceptives,” Shefali jokes.
Subhas is not amused. This is not the place for lighthearted banter.
Some of the locals too face progeny issues, leaning into occultism when science fails. The tangled relationship between two local men Sukumar(Shashi Bhushan) and Bikas (Subrat Dutt) and the two male children in their lives Birsa(Sankhadeep Bannerjee, looking a little to urban for the role) and Kanu(Shounak Shyamal) is hued in haziness and selfdoubt: I am not sure even the characters in that amorphous inhabitance know what they share amongst themselves.
It is a world of ill-defined borders, easily crossed, comfortably abused. Charak makes telling use of the cryptic topography brimming with ominous secrets. The co-cinematographers (Manas Bhattacharyya, Prasantanu Mohapatra)lens the looming haze with a steady gaze.
The film sucks you in, but doesn’t always know what to do with our attention after grabbing it. What works well is the pursed-lipped confounded characters’ blind reliance on the inexplicable to bail them out of urgent crises. This is a film that needs to be seen for telling us what Kantara never would: faith and religion without borders is not recommended.
