DDR Presents

Icche (2011)
(A film by Nandita Das/Sibaprasad Mukherji)

DVD Rip - 692MB (1-CD) - X.264


Tech Specifications:
 
https://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4916/icchedata.png



Synopsis:
Shamik aka Rana (Samadarshi Dutta) is the only son of Mamata (Sohini Sengupta) and Manas (Bratya Basu). They come from a middle class family and all of Mamata's dreams are woven round Shamik. She slaves for him, drives him consistently to higher levels of achievements and as he excels her ambitions too rise. She shields him from all external influences including his first love Debjani (Ruplekha Mitra) and then as he grows up and falls in love again with Jayanti (Bidita Bag) tries to bring Debjani back to scuttle this affair. All the time Shamik yearns to be free of this obsessive parental control and the distance between mother and son increases...

Comments:
Icche, based on the story Iccher Gaach by Suchitra Bhattacharya is a story ob obsessive compulsive love of a mother for her only son. Mamata starts off dreaming about her son's future. She wants to fulfil her ambitions through him, but as time progresses, it becomes her obsession as she tries to control each part of his life. The rebellion by Shamik is put down with ruthlessness and yet with love. Slowly again this love becomes a possessive and jealous desire to control every aspect of her sons life. Each transition is filmed in sequence and despite the complex emotional content the film grips you and holds you to the last. It couldn't have been an easy task to portray such obsessions on celluloid but the two directors (Nandita Das & Sibaprasad Mukherjee) do a splendid job.

This is an out and out director's film. There is no respite from the relentless obsessive love of the mother or the repeated helpless surrenders by her son. Yet this is also straightforward story telling. There are no jump cuts, no flashbacks and few arifacts. the sequence of the story is the growth of Shamik from a child to an adult. There are some lovely scenes, like the one in which Mamata wakes up her little son in the wee hours of the morning to make him revise his lesson or the scenes with Jayanti, who is brash, confident and forceful and Shamik is hesitant for he was not able to take his first love to its logical consequences. Even the scene when mother and son are about to break and Mamata's world is about to collapse we see a brilliantly crafted scene in which Mamata is converted into a whimpering idiot...

They are aided by some superlative acting by Sohini Senguota. Despite the cliches she makes the obsessive compulsive mother come to life. He combination of love, guile cunning, and numerousother facial expressions are awesome. If I were to nominate anyone for the best actress award in 2011 it would be Sohini Sengupta. Watch the film just for her acting! Debutant Samadarshi Dutta is very good too. His role is easier than that of Sohini Sengupta but his restrained acting, particularly in scenes of high emotion is impressive. I liked the acting of Bidita Bag as well. Bratya Basu is also good as the father who ineffectively tries to moderate his obsessive compulsive wife.

Camera work is very good but falls short of being outstanding. Music is again very good, but marred by some needless songs which did not add much to the film. Editing is excellent.

Uploader's Notes:
Despite the size, I was able to tweak this film into a 700MB size. The discerning will find some scenes a trifle oversharpened. The subtitles were hardcoded in the original print that I have and so some people may find this a distraction.

Screens:
 
https://img842.imageshack.us/img842/2084/icchele.png
 
https://www.imagebam.com/image/257bb9159847526
 
https://www.imagebam.com/image/3ca864159847543