Arna Mukhopadhyay's directorial debut Bengali film Athhoi, starring Arna Mukhopadhyay in the titular role, Anirban Bhattacharya as Gogo, and Sohini Sarkar as Diya, was released in theatres on 14th June 2024. The film is the official adaptation of Shakespeare’s "Othello."
The story is set in a village named Vinsura, where Athhoi (Arna Mukhopadhyay) has grown up at his friend Gogo, aka Anagra Chatterjee's (Anirban Bhattacharya), house. Since the death of his mother, Athhoi dreamt of making a healthcare center in the village for the treatment of the villagers. Athhoi is a kind-hearted man who trusts people, loves people, and does everything he can for them.
On the other hand, Gogo is jealous of Athhoi since childhood, as the latter was a brilliant student and always achieved better results. Even when sharing his clothes, Gogo tore them before handing them over to him. Diya comes to Vinsura to spend the rest of her life with her love, Athhoi, and they get married. How Gogo takes revenge on Athhoi forms the rest of the plot.
I would like to appreciate Arna Mukhopadhyay for making his directorial debut with an experimental film like "Athhoi" and SVF Entertainment for gifting this film to us. Two major positive areas of this film are Subhadeep Guha’s background score and Soumik Haldar’s cinematography. Amit Chatterjee’s music composition looks decent. Arna Mukhopadhyay’s dialogue writing was impressive.
Anirban Bhattacharya delivers a top-notch performance. As a creative director, he has also been very impressive in this film. Arna Mukhopadhyay provided a decent performance in the titular role. Sohini Sarkar has been underutilized in this film. Earlier, we have seen that brilliant writing of her character brings out the best in her. You can take the example of her performances in Mandaar and Srikanto.
Arpan Ghosal, who recently delivered good performances in Basanta Ese Gyachhe, Raja Rani Romeo, and Antarmahal, had the potential, but the poor writing of his character was disappointing. The same goes for the talented actress Ditipriya Roy. She has been outstanding in series like Dakghor and Rajneeti Season 1, but she had almost nothing much to do in this script.
Arna Mukhopadhyay has tried to present the narrative while keeping the modern-day mindset of people in mind. This is a very common scenario in recent times, where we encounter friends who show their good side in front of us but are always looking for an opportunity to hurt us behind our backs.
This may be one reason the director has focused too much on Gogo’s character and missed giving sufficient focus to developing crucial characters like Athhoi, Diya, Mukul (Arpan Ghosal), and Pinki (Ditipriya Roy). Almost every character has missed a proper backstory that could have justified their present status or the events occurring with them.
Director Arna Mukhopadhyay’s Athhoi is a decent watch because of Anirban Bhattacharya’s performance, Subhadeep Guha’s background score, and Soumik Haldar’s cinematography.
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