Kapilas Bhuyan
The premiere of new Odia film ‘Trishna’ took place last week at the multiplex Cinepolis here in Bhubaneswar amid enthusiast young generation actors, technicians, singers and invited veterans of the industry.
‘Trushna’ is a film having an unusual storyline that connects drifted characters with a common thread called hope. In fact the opening scene is very heartrending as a teenager girl commits suicide by hanging herself on the ceiling fan due to the mounting pressure of studies. Thus, the journey of the film begins with hopelessness, yet strides ahead peeking into the lives of five main characters of Juli, Ankit, Sikha, Jatin and Anand, and finally blends their lives together with the common chord of hope.
Juli is a village girl, though lives her life in penury with her family, who loves to dance. Her dancing and smartness draws the attention of other village boys who wants to befriend her. However, she likes Abhishek despite knowing that he belongs to lower cast which makes Ankit very envious. So Ankit looks for any pretext to torture Abhishek. But Abhishek never reacts to any of it.
Ankit feels suffocated in the rural milieu and wants to go to the city where he can become a film star. But after arriving in the city he realizes that it’s not easy to survive as an actor.
Shikha is a young generation TV journalist who believes in changing the society through her stories. But her TV Chanel never supports her the way she wants to pursue her stories. Almost every day on her way to office she finds a bearded and lone man sitting in the bus stop near a particular traffic junction. She gradually comes to know that the lone man is a superstar of yester years, and has been living alone as his wife and daughter staying separately from him.
Jatin wants to be a screenplay writer but in vain. He has been a dependant on his family and friends. However, he never leaves behind his passion of storytelling to amuse others.
Almost halfway through the progression of the film these characters appear as if going through endless struggles. However, director Suresh Pattnayak quickly sums up their stories with some kind of minor successes that make them feel confident to getting ahead with hope and confidence through rest of their lives. And that assimilation works like magic for the film.
Thus ‘Trushna’ as an Odia film stands out from the run of the mill lot and has a lot of promises as a contemporary film having a pan national appeal.
The actors are very well handled in maintaining restrain in portraying various main characters. Young actors like Suryamayee Mohapatra and Sailendra Samantray are promising in portraying the characters of Sikha and Ankur respectively. Abhishek Giri, Leena Mishra, Jyotiprakash Panda and Bighnesh Panda are equally good.
The film as a whole comfortably dwells between the musical foray and plain narration. The most beautiful aspect of the film is that director Suresh Pattnayak has deftly handled the storytelling without overstepping into any exaggeration.
(The Reviewer is a Senior Journalist and National Award Winning Filmmaker)
Tags: #FilmReview #OdiaFilm #MovieTrushna #Trushna #TVjournalist #LifeJourney #OdishaMovies