Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s creations, it is widely felt, lend themselves fluidly to the medium and language of cinema. Bankim Chandra began his literary career as a writer of verse. He soon realized that poetry was not his forte and he switched over to fiction. Interestingly, his first fiction to appear in print, Rajmohan’s Wife (published serially in Indian Field in 1864) was in English. Durgesh Nandini (1865) was his first historical romance. This was followed by Kapal Kundala (1866) and these two are known to be his best romances. He was a brilliant storyteller and a master of romance. He was a pathfinder and a pathmaker. Bankim Chandra represented the English-educated Bengali as a people with a tolerably peaceful home life, sufficient wherewithal and some prestige, as the bearer of the torch of Western enlightenment. No Bengali writer before or since has enjoyed such spontaneous and universal popularity as Bankim Chandra has. His novels have been translated in almost all the major Indian languages and have helped inspire creative fiction in those languages.

In Krishnakanter Will (1878), he added some amount of feeling to imagination and as a result, it comes quite close to the Western novel. The moral structured into the story is that the tolerance of a loyal but betrayed wife can really save the soul of the husband who had wronged her by engaging in a relationship that was based purely on lust. Nearly 130 years after the novel was published, three-time National Award winner Raja Sen has made a celluloid translation of Krishnakanter Will. He has made bold to choose Jeet, one among the three top male stars of the mainstream Bengali marquee, to play Gobindalal, stripping the star of much of his starry image. The film moves at a grindingly slow pace, perhaps in keeping with the period it represents. The colours are beautiful, soaking in the sunlight here, or focussing on the full moon at night as Rohini takes a dip in the framed pond outside the zamindar’s lush gardens. As Gobindalal, Jeet tries to mould himself into the character, and succeeds, but not without the effort showing through at times. He invests the character with the quiet dignity that characterizes the scion of a zamindar family way back in the 19th century. Monali Thakur as the naïve and sweet Bhromor madly in love with her much older husband is a natural while Swastika as Rohini looks beautiful even in widow’s weeds. Sen and his noted screenplay writer Mohit Chattopadhyay have remained almost totally loyal to the literary source except for their interpretation of Rohini’s character. This had strongly negative shades in the Bankim Chandra novel but Sen whitewashes her completely and points out that she is not only a victim of circumstance and destiny, but has also to die because Gobindalal misreads her encounter with the young stranger. They have also cut out the closure of the novel where Gobindalal returns after several years to discover that his younger cousin has immortalized Bhramar in the form of a sculptured idol in the mansion. Soumitra Chatterjee’s Krishnakanta is just the right mix of wisdom, charity and moral rectitude but his terrible wig tends to spoil the show. Papiya Sen as Gobindalal’s widowed mother has too brief a role to be noticed. Bhaswar Chatterjee as the ‘planted’ new interest in Rohini’s life is okay and Dulal Lahiri as Bhramar’s father Madhabnath is as good as he always is.

Arghya Kamal Mitra's editing needed to be a bit tighter with some clipping of the longer-than-necessary footage. Two hours and 25 minutes are just a bit too much considering that it is a period film. The slow pace and rhythm with a melodious background score by Partha Sengupta add to the poetic but volatile moods of the film. Tanmoy Chakrabarty’s production design is beautiful while Arghya Kamal Mitra’s sound design sustains the changing moods the narrative portrays. Having said all this in favour of the product, the sole element that tends to spoil the beauty of such a carefully built up edifice is the very whitewashing of Rohini’s character from a seductive and beautiful young widow into a victim of destiny. It cuts out the essence of the basic conflict the original story contains. It does away with the electric drama thrown up by the very polarities of Bhramar and Rohini, the wife and the mistress, that makes the original novel so timeless and universal. There is considerable whitewashing of Gobindalal’s character too. But at least his human frailties are not taken away from him, making him a credible celluloid depiction of the literary Gobindalal.

One has to grant it to Raja Sen for having given the Bengali audience a meaningful celluloid revival of classical Bengali literature after that ‘manufactured’ agenda for women’s oppression through Debipaksha a couple of years ago. At the same time, one must also point out that his celluloid interpretation of the Bankim Chandra classic contains the spirit of the original but lacks the fire within the novel.