Official Selection - Competition 2004 / Raincoat / India 2004
In this intimate love story swept up in the sentimental mood of the rainy monsoon season, the young country boy Mannu goes to Calcutta to seek out his past love Niru. The borrowed raincoat becomes a metaphor for a story about lost feelings, in which both former lovers indulge in a noble-minded charade with wretched determination.
Mannu leaves his native village for Calcutta. The young man claims that he is going to look for work but, in reality, he longs to see his childhood sweetheart Niru again, who was married off to a wealthy man, and broke Mannu’s heart. Mannu finds accommodation with his former classmate Alok and his wife Bhabi, who has a greater understanding for his desolate situation than her husband – a successful producer of television soap operas. One rainy afternoon, in a borrowed raincoat, Mannu goes to find his love’s house. An elegantly dressed Niru opens the door. The servants and husband are not at home and so, while the rain continues, the couple spend the afternoon together. Seeing the perfect life Niru now has, Mannu pretends that he, too, is successful, rich and loved. Afterward, he discovers that Niru’s life isn’t as idyllic as she had made it out to be. Set during the monsoon season, evoking a nostalgic and sentimental atmosphere, a story unfolds of lost love, structured around the motif of a borrowed raincoat.
120 min / Color, 35 mm
World premiere
Director Rituparno Ghosh
/ Screenplay Rituparno Ghosh
/ Dir. of Photography Abhik Mukherjee
/ Music Debojyoti Misra
/ Editor Arghyakamal Mitra
/ Producer Shrikant Mohta, Mahendra Soni
/ Production Shree Venkatesh Films
/ Cast Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgan, Annu Kapoor, Mouli Ganguly, Sameer Dharmadhikari, Surekha Sikri
/ Contact Shree Venkatesh Films, Venus Records and Tapes Pvt. Ltd.
Rituparno Ghosh (b. 1961, Calcutta) studied economics but was always drawn to film and literature. Possibly under the influence of his father – a documentary filmmaker – he finally decided to pursue the cinema. He began in advertising where he worked for ten years as a copywriter and director of commercials and short films. Over the course of twelve years he made ten features in which he focused chiefly on female leads and family problems. His work has already been shown twice in Karlovy Vary: in 1998 Crossfire (Dahan, 1997) was shown in competition, and in 2000 The Lady of the House (Bariwali, 1999) in the section Another View. He made his debut in 1992 with The Diamond Ring (Hirer Angti), which was followed by 19th April (Unishe April, 1994), Malaise (Asukh, 1999), Utsab (2000), The First Monsoon Day (Titli, 2002), Shubho Mahurat (2003) and Raincoat (2004). Chokher Bali is the second adaptation, following a film made in 1938, of the love story of the same name first published in 1903 by Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore; it will be presented this year at Karlovy Vary in the section Another View.
Shree Venkatesh Films
, 700 069, Calcutta
India
Phone: +91 33 224 802 67
Fax: +91 33 221 011 24
E-mail: [email protected]
Venus Records and Tapes Pvt. Ltd.
Shiv Sagar, Corner of A.B.Nair Road, Opp. Chand Society, Juhu, 400 049, Mumbai
India
E-mail: [email protected]
Rituparno Ghosh
Vishnu Kant Mohta
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