The script is absurd and illogical at points. The fact that it was stretched out over 3 excruciatingly long and painful hours seemed pointless.
What made the movie unbearable was its slow pace. In fact, by the end of the film, none of the actors manage to make a lasting impression. The acting of the supporting actors isn’t up to the mark either. Throughout the movie a ridiculously large number of aerial shots have been used to portray the landscape of South Africa, which started to bore the eyes 20 minutes into the movie. The film is visually appealing, but not visually exciting. Without changing a single facial expression, as Dev trudges along towards the Mountain of the Moon, the audience is subjected to a 3 hour montage of South Africa with dull narration, only to be interrupted intermittently by terrible acting. However, he survives and the movie drags on forever. Every time he is chased by a man-eating tiger or slips while climbing a cliff or even (almost) bitten by a black mamba, the audience feels a sense of relief as they feel he’s going to die and the movie is going to come to an end. Dev as the lead role was horrible to say the least. The movie has spent copious amounts of money on creating original replicas of time pieces and weapons but since they were busy getting funds, they must have forgotten that a film is defined by the actor’s performance and the script, not the amount being invested. He is posted as a station master to a nondescript village where habitation is sparse, his house is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by man-eating lions and deadly snakes which slither over him while he sleeps. The film is based on Bibhutibhushan Bandapodhyay’s immensely popular Bengali novel of the same name.Ĭhander Pahar is the story of a small town Bengali boy in the early 1900s who leaves the country and travels to Africa in search of a more adventurous life. That, in addition to this being the biggest budget that a Bengali movie has ever had (16 crores), made this a movie which had considerable hype surrounding its release. It causes angst, nausea and mental retardation.”ĭoctor turned director Kamaleswar Mukherjee had impressed the cinephiles with his previous venture Meghe Dhaka Tara based on Ritwik Ghatak‘s life. Some of the other recent releases which had done excellent business at the box office are ‘Awara’ (2012), ‘Paglu’ (2011) and ‘Mishawr Rawhoshyo’ (2013).Along with the disclaimer for smoking, Chander Pahar (The Mountain of the Moon) should have a disclaimer at its beginning which says “Tolerating Dev for 3 hours on screen is injurious to health. The highest grossing Bengali film of 2013 was the Dev starrer adventure film ‘Chander Pahar’ whose box-office collection was over Rs 15 crores, an unheard of figure by Tollywood standards. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are fast becoming the preferred medium of entertainment especially in smaller towns where six out of ten people watch films on their cell phones. In the districts, around two thirds have visited halls to catch a Bengali film but the frequency of visits are quite low, not even three films in a year. Home to acclaimed directors and actors, there is a need to revive an industry that contributes to eight per cent of the total films made in the country but fails to accounts for its fair share of revenue.Ī survey of Bengali film viewers in Kolkata revealed that a majority (54 per cent) have not been in theatres in the last one year to watch a Bengali film despite proliferation of multiplexes. Industry experts believe that the current trend in Bengali film production is not a sustainable one. “This has left a large number of individual producers, small time players operating in the space on a short-term basis unable to recover their promotional expenses let alone production costs,” the report said. The industry is valued at Rs 120-150 crores in terms of expected revenue in 2014 and has shown negligible growth over last year,” the report said.Ī primary survey of 35 single screen theatres across Kolkata and West Bengal revealed a dismal 30 per cent occupancy on weekends and around 20 per cent on weekdays.Īlmost 70 per cent of the box office collection of Bengali films today is claimed by 22-25 films emanating from three-four large production houses. “The buoyancy in the investment however is not matched by the absolute and the growth in earnings in recent years. The total investment in Bengali film industry, fondly called Tollywood, is estimated to be around Rs 150–180 crores of which a very large portion is from Shree Venkatesh Films.
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