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It was a #fangirlmoment for me... @itsSSR thankyou for being so sweet :) was super fun Interviewing u!!
Yash Raj Films presents one of 2015's most anticipated releases Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, a darkly compelling, pulp noir opening in cinemas worldwide on 3rd April 2015.
Directed by Dibakar Banerjee Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is a gripping, Indian crime thriller based on the pursuits of the fictional, detective character famous in Indian literature. Sushant Singh Rajput, features in the title role alongside Anand Tiwari and Bengali actress Swastika Mukherjee in principal roles, supported by an exceptional ensemble including Divya Menon, Neeraj Kabi, Meiyang Chang, Mark Bennington and Shivam.
Synopsis:
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is based on Saradindu Bandyopadhyay's popular fictional detective, Byomkesh Bakshy and presents a contemporary interpretation of Calcutta during the 1940's. This first of its kind detective film is an adventure thriller mired in deep political intrigue. A young, astute and intelligent Byomkesh, fresh out of college, pits himself against a mega world villain, depending more on his intuition and instinct rather than concrete proof to solve the case, sometimes sidestepping the law if needed.
We now present the characters of DBB!
BYOMKESH BAKSHY (SUSHANT SINGH RAJPUT)
Rude. Arrogant. Charming. Genius.
Byomkesh Bakshy is a man everyone loves to hate. A habitual non-conformist, Byomkesh is forever trying to make sense of the world around him. He cares for nothing else but truth; once found and he loses interest. It is the pursuit, the hunt which interests him. Byomkesh has almost photographic memory, and does not let go of a mystery until he has solved it for himself. Currently obsessed with his first case - the disappearance of a genius chemist.
He is short of two things in life - friends & love. While working on the case, Byomkesh becomes friends with Ajit Bannerjee, and their friendship grows to be legendary. The other lacunae in his life, love, is fulfilled by Satyawati, a woman who is an equal match to him in intelligence, character & strength.
AJIT BANERJEE (ANAND TIWARI)
Pursuing MA in Bangla Literature from Vidyasadan College. An aspiring writer, and a body-builder by hobby. Son of the genius chemist Bhuban Banerjee, who has suddenly gone missing.
SATYAWATI (DIVYA MENON)
The sister of Sukumar and niece to Gajanan Sikdar. The only one in the house who can stop uncle & nephew from jumping at each other's throats. She is young, quiet, demure - yet one can clearly see her sharp intelligence and strong will.
ANGURI DEVI (SWASTIKA MUKHERJEE)
Heartthrob of Bengal. Her films fan riots on the opening weekend. When she sheds on tear on screen, rivers flow on the street. When she dies, her fans slit their wrists. When she sings, hearts break. Her face launches everything from beauty soaps to diamond jewellery. Her politically connected lover Gajanan Sikdar backs her with influence and money. Yet why do they say that she does tragic roles best?
DR. ANUKUL GUHA (NEERAJ KABI)
The philanthropic homeopath and the owner/manager of Mahamaya Boarding House. He runs the boarding house like clockwork, has each boarders needs at his fingertips, helps the poor with free medicine, and is the only one who commands the respect of the rather arrogant new boarder Byomkesh Bakshy.
DCDD WILKIE (MARK BENNINGTON)
One of the sharpest Detectives to ever sit in Lalbazar. No one can figure him out. Some hate him for his ruthlessness. But many say he loves Calcutta. He is known to disguise himself and walk freely through the dangerous neighborhoods to keep up with the latest. But ever since the biggest shipment of Opium to land in Calcutta from Shanghai disappeared mysteriously from the riverside - he is a very worried man.
KANAI DAO (MEIYANG CHANG)
The Chinese opium trader (licensed) who found his home among the Bengalis at Mahamaya Lodge, loves fish curry, speaks Bangla fluently and has even changed his chinese name! He is on the lookout for someone called Cheng Ling. Cheng Ling who?
DR WATANABE (TAKANORI KIKUCHI)
The mysterious Japanese dentist residing in a tony apartment in white town. He could pull your teeth out with a pair of pliers, but he prefers practicing with a sword after lunch.
GAJANAN SIKDAR (DR KAUSHIK GHOSH)
Legislative Council member from the Amar Bengal Party that has shot to prominence suddenly in the last three years. No one knows how he in such short time he became so rich, politically powerful, and the special man in the life of the silver screen heartthrob Anguri Devi! Rumor has it that though in public he bays for the British Government's blood, actually he is hand in glove with them.
SUKUMAR GHOSH (SHIVAM)
Nephew of Gajanan Sikdar. Young, firebrand leader of the new Jai Bengal Party, which split from Gajanan Sikdar's Amar Bengal Party a few weeks ago. Sukumar doesn't lose a single opportunity to heap scorn at his uncle's character and his political compromises. Clearly, all is not well in the family!
PUNTIRAM (PRADIPTO KUMAR CHAKRABORTY)
Without him mahamaya boarding house will stop functioning. He cooks, cleans, serves, dusts and knows the perfect recipe for Byomkesh's potato fries.
ASHWINI BABU (ARINDOL BAGCHI)
The mournful, lost ex roommate of Bhuban Banerjee. He has not been the same since Bhuban Babu went missing. Cant sleep at night and keeps asking for for Bhuban Babu's trademark paan masala he used to love having every day when Bhuban was around.
PRAFULLA RAI (ANINDYA BANERJEE)
Insurance agent and the local wit at Mahamaya Boarding Lodge. He thinks he knows it all but does not have any proof!
Lauren Gottieb
She's gorgeous and uber talented, she's super sexy but she also exudes the innocent girl-next-door charm. Can you guess who am I talking about? Well, it's none other than Lauren Gottlieb! We all know that the pretty lass is a blessed dancer. She started her journey with the popular dance reality show in the West, So You Think You Can Dance and made her Bollywood debut with Remo D'Souzas ABCD: Any Body Can Dance. Plus, how can I not mention that she was the highest scorer and the runner-up of the popular Indian television dance show, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. After all, that turned out to be a major claim to fame for her.
And now, Lauren is all set to enthral the audience yet again! Brace yourselves, guys. She's going to be seen jiving with four masked men in a a sexy cabaret number on the song Calcutta Kiss in the Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. The flick is set in Kolkata during 1943 and this song is an ode to the cabaret dancers of 40's. It seems the music video will be released on Monday and I'm waiting with bated breath to watch it. Why? Because Lauren has never looked THIS sexy. Check out some exclusive stills of her sensuous avatar from the song.
Lauren Gottieb
Lauren Gottieb
I guess we just got one more reason to watch this super intriguing Dibakar Banerjee flick!
By Shama Bhagat
Published: 21st March 2015 10:00 PM
Last Updated: 20th March 2015 01:57 PM
He is known for making out-of-the-box films"from comedy drama Khosla ka Ghosla as his directorial debut, to black comedy Oye Lucky Lucky Oye! and intense thriller Shanghai. Director Dibakar Banerjee will be back in theatres on April 3 with his latest offering, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, a crime thriller based on the character of a young Bengali spy by the same name.
Dibakar says it was his fascination for the spy ever since he started reading and understanding him that made him take up the subject. "I have read Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's stories on Byomkesh Bakshi, and also Satyajit Ray's Feluda. Those were funny detective stories," he says, adding another reason: a detective film of this stature has never been made in Hindi. "Films on Byomkesh have been made in the 50s five to six times, but there hasn't been a spy thriller. We often copy James Bond, but Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is a mystery-thriller," he says.
The film is set in 1943 and Byomkesh is not the suave spy like Bond but a typical dhoti-clad Bengali. This fact, however, didn't bother the filmmaker. "Dhoti is one garment which has been worn by everyone in India and our film is set in a period when it was the only garment worn. Byomkesh is not stylish but he is ahead of his times and can predict what will happen in the future. It may sound normal to us now, but in 1943 there was novelty attached to it. In 1943, Japan was going to attack Calcutta, the British were ruling us, and there was bombing from Burma by the Japanese. Calcutta became a major centre during World War II and as a result a hub for smugglers. A place where there is crime and war makes an interesting work area for a detective," he says.
Dibakar says when he signed Sushant Singh Rajput, the actor did not come with any baggage. "We both wanted this film to happen. Short of producing the film, Sushant did everything to make it happen"from taking workshops for a month, learning to walk in a dhoti, practising to be a typical Bengali and even eating fish, keeping the bones on the side of a plate."
The toughest part for the film, however, according to the filmmaker, was research. "It took almost two years. We met a lot of people who were in their 90s and took audio interviews, capturing their memories. How siren would be blown during bombarding, how an elderly man made the sound of siren with his mouth"we recreated that particular sound"what the hawkers sold during the time, how they called out, what clothes they wore, what kind of food they ate. We recorded everything and tried to keep it as authentic as possible."
At the same, Dibakar says, he too is no less than a detective in real life. "I observe a lot and that identification is there with a detective. I believe that a detective can see deeper than an average person can. When I was researching in Kolkata, I spoke with a 90-year-old policeman who gave me his school-time pictures and asked me identify him. I knew what he wanted, so I pointed at him in the picture. He said, Arre waah, you are a true Byomkesh'," says Dibakar with a grin.
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, the director says, does not just stop at the spy. "We have his assistant played by Anand Tiwari and he is a reinterpretation of Ajit, and those who have read Byomkesh will find the character very interesting. We also have a villain in the film but would not like to reveal who is playing him. There is a clue in every scene and we want them to compete with Byomkesh."
A self-confessed history buff, the director says he has always been captivated by it. "I have always been a history nut. I find it exciting that people in every age and era are the same; only the situations change. We think of history in terms of how people in crowns spoke, like how Sohrab Modi spoke in films, but they didn't speak like that. They were regular people like you and me. Not many know that during Mohammed Bin Tughlaq's time biryani was specially made in blue colour and Ibn Batuta, who was a traveller during those times, wrote about this. Another has written that during Shah Jahan's time, there used to be traffic jams on the bridge over the Yamuna river, as it is these days," says Dibakar.
For a filmmaker who has churned out hit after hit, box office numbers don't matter. "I have always wanted a large number of audiences to watch my films. Whether it's a festival or theatre screening, arty or commercial film, I don't want to define myself; let the audience decide for themselves. I enjoy my films as audience and have loved what I have made so far," he says.
Will he ever try his hand at romance? "Byomkesh has romance and a definite relationship between a man and a woman. But no, I haven't planned anything on romance yet. It depends on what I write. Intriguing stories of human psyche or society are more important parts of my life. I love political thrillers and social dramas. A pure love story has to be an interesting one. For now, I am planning to take a long holiday. Shooting for this film has been strenuous," he concludes.
This week we spoke to Vandana Kataria the woman behind Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!'s flawless 40's look. Let's find out how the sassy production designer pulled off one of the most anticipated films of April.
Background
I hail from Dehradun and although I dreamt of becoming a neurologist, I found myself at the National Institute of Design (NID) straight after school, thanks to my mother. I graduated from NID in 1999. After that, I did a small stint at Miditech, a TV production house in Delhi and then soon moved to Mumbai, where I started freelancing as an assistant director for ad films. Then, I slowly started directing promos of my own.
Films Calling
I was keen to work on a feature film and, one day, I walked up to Dibakar (Banerjee) and expressed my desire to assist him. I knew he was in the final stages of post-production on Khosla Ka Ghosla and would surely be making his second feature film. Then, one day, Dibakar asked me if I would be the production designer on his next film Oye Lucky Lucky Oye! I was taken aback and asked him if he thought I was capable. To this, he said he wouldn't have asked me if he didn't think so. And from there, my journey as a production designer started. I knew nothing about the job; that was the best part!
In fact, many people offered me films but they all wanted another Oye Lucky...and I wasn't interested. It was only when Dibakar offered me Shanghai that I felt challenged, as a production designer, yet again.
On Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!
For Byomkesh..., Dibakar wanted the inputs of the three of us, his own, mine and the DoP's. Having sat in a time machine and going back to 1943, with our modern-day equipment and sensibilities, to film this detective noir story but in a verit style. We always knew we would have to shoot at real locations and build sets for everything that could not be shot in Kolkata as it's visually too contaminated even though architecturally it is period perfect. It took us five months to zero in on perfect locations. In Kolkata, we only shot at locations, some could not be altered much, we treated others as sets, where we built walls, broke walls, painted, aged, dressed and propped. But, in Mumbai, we shot at five locations, but the toughest and most exhilarating chunk of the work was on the sets, right here in Mumbai.
Building 1943s' Calcutta
We built phaetons, a '40s Dodge bus, a 1930s' tram, and a 900-plus-running-foot set, 26 feet high with tram tracks and overhead cables. It was like planning a miniature city. Our biggest constraint was always the budget, thus we constantly experimented with materials and methods to cut costs. It took us around 32 days to plan everything. We had around 250 artists, and truckloads of property especially brought from Kolkata to build one outdoor set, and one double-storey boarding house. Both these were built at Naigaon, Mumbai on an open ground.
On Research
We researched the period for six months in 2012, when we actually started working on the story, and then again for four months in 2013 before we started pre-production on the film. We dug into the Internet archives, public archives in Kolkata, people's personal archives, American and British archives, World War II archives, watched films from that era, read literature from that period, even collected oral histories from people who had lived during those times and were still alive. I personally studied a lot on design and construction, VFX techniques, miniature techniques, and the work of production designers from the '20s to the '50s to learn and draw inspiration.
http://www.boxofficeindia.co.in/planning-is-the-key/
If you have watched the trailer of Dibakar Banerjee's Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, you never really know what to expect from the film, which comes off as so different from the regular B-town flicks. With that same feeling of uncertainty, I plugged in my earphones to check out what the music is like. Oh Boy! It is an exhilarating experience or what? Composed by 8 different musicans and bands, the album has a distinct indie feel to it, at times reminding me of soundtrack of Bejoy Nambiar's David. So fasten your seat belts, as I take you through the musical world of Sushant Singh Rajput's Byomkesh Bakshy
Fast. Upbeat. Jazzy. That's how the first song from the album is. Sung by Saba Azad and Imaad Shah, the song composed and written by Madboy/Mink will make you put on your dancing shoes. The track kicks off with an impressive piece of drums, followed by saxophone sounds, paving way for Saba Azad to croon this jazzy number with quirky, rhyming lyrics. What I liked the most is the fusion of jazz and dub step beats it has. The soundtrack is mixed well and has a flow of an appealing tune and melody. The song manages to take us to the era of 40's club music. Byomkesh Bakshy album off to a good start.
Bach Ke Bakshy
The drum beats from Calcutta Kiss follow in this track. Composed by Sneha Khanwalkar and Dibakar Banerjee himself, Bach Ke Bakshy boasts an unconventional mix of singers Gowri Jayakumar, Big Deal, Thomson Andrews, Trevor, Smokey the Ghosht, Craz Professa to churn an unconventional song bursting with energy. The song kicks off with drums being played in such a pattern that it reminded me of a machine gun. The song quickly gets into rap mode, which I have to say is brilliant. But what I loved the most is Bach Ke Bakshy' chorus and Gowri Jayakumar's rendition which are haunting yet captivating. The fusion of fast paced rap and haunting melody, makes this track stand out. I bet you wouldn't have heard something like this in ages.
Byomkesh in Love
Next in the album is Byomkesh in Love, which is a fine example of western music and Indian classical singing can go hand in hand. Composed by Blek, the song is sung wonderfully by trio of singers Rishi Bradoo, Anil Bradoo and Usri Banerjee. The song starts of like a pop number from the west and has very band music feel to it. Packed with electric guitar riffs, drums, and a little dub step and techno beat here and there, the song is enjoyable till now. But the song actually transcends to something more deep when Usri Banerjee's slow classical singing manages to play with strings of your heart. When Usri's soulful singing is fused with all the electronic beats and western sounds, what we get is pure bliss.
Jaanam
Next is a waltzy number straight out of a retro Bollywood flick. This romantic track composed by Delhi based band Peter Cat Recording Co., the song will take you back to ballroom dancing era with accordion clearly dominating all the other instruments. The only thing which is little absurd is Suryakant Sawhney's vocals which doesn't seem to be apt for the genre of the song. Having said that the song has a lazy elegance and I consider it one of the underdogs in an brilliantly composed Byomkesh Bakshy album.
Chase In Chinatown
Next is a hardcore rock number, which will make you swing like a coke addict who are found a huge stash of cocaine. Composed by Bangalore based band Mode AKA, Chase in Chinatown boasts elements of heavy metal with electric guitar, drums and dub step, building the mood for some hoarse screaming like singing. So get ready for some head banging with Chase In Chinatown. Having said that this intense song is not everyone's cup of tea and I wont be surprised if an edgy number like this gets lost in plethora of typical Bollywood songs.
Life's A bitch
Ah Catchy song title ain't it? Well the song is every bit catchy as the title. Life's A Bitch composed by Joint family and sung by Akshay De is again a heavy metal number, which has an overpowering angry feel to it. Coupled with some incredible electric guitar riffs and exciting drum beats, the song exudes an aura of frustration which has been beautifully captured by the growling, gruffy voice of Akshay De.
Yang Guang Lives
Get ready to be spooked with Yang Guang Lives. This final number in an eventful album lives up to the edginess of the film. The song composed and sung by IJA, the song has eerie feel to it. Haunting sounds coupled with whispery singing makes the song stand out, creating an atmosphere of mystery.
Verdict: Packed with seven songs composed by a handful of indie bands and composers, the music of Byomkesh Bakshy is everything one doesn't expect from a Bollywood album. High on fusion and western sounds, this is not your conventional music album and you won't fall in love with it on first hearing. But after multiple listening, one would be able to appreciate the efforts put in by the composers to make the album so unconventional. According to me, the album is a winner and I plead to all Bollywood music lovers to give Byomkesh Bakshy brand of music a try. Who knows, you might end up playing these songs on loop over and over again?
Our Pick: Calcutta Kiss, Life's A Bitch, Byomkesh In Love
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