Name and fame are you game? Of course anyone would be game,
but is that why Sumanto Chattopadhyay went all the way from Kolkata to Mumbai
to become an advertising guru? If so, then what makes him return to the mangrove
forest of Sunderbans in West Bengal and disappear one fine day during his
journey in the just released Bengali film named ‘Taan’? Is it the allure of
acting opposite Rituparna Sengupta in this mystery movie. Or is there more to
why Ogilvy and Mater’s Executive Creative Director South Asia, Sumanto
Chattapodhyay was lured back to his roots in Bengal?
It might not have been his plan, but it was in his fate that
the director of the film Mukul Roy Chowdhury was his former colleague in
O&M and asked him to play the part of a wildlife photographer who goes
missing in the Sunderbans, only to be caught in the murky net of flesh trade
and the mafia. Contrary to his real life persona of a successful advertising
big shot, Sumanto is an idealistic photographer in the movie, the opposite of
ambitious, who is being frantically searched by successful ad film friend ‘Liza’
in Rituparna Sengupta’s world as a ‘Jolbeshya’ or river prostitute.
Being his first Bengali film, acting in ‘Taan’ was not
Sumanto Chattopadhyay’s challenge, as his global stint in theatre gave him a
strong footing. The real challenge was shooting his first scene, an intimate one
with Rituparna Sengupta even before he had a chance to know the actress well
enough and be comfortable doing the scene. Says Sumanto, “While she had apprehensions
about me considering I was new, later on the ice broke.” During the premier of
the film, when the leading Bengali actress herself commented that Sumanto
didn’t look like he was new to cinema, the flashback to the first scene he shot
with her seemed like it was actually
never a big deal.
Not limiting himself to advertising, he dabbled with
modelling a decade ago in Mumbai getting his portfolio being shot by none other than actor Boman Irani who was then a photographer. After all, Sumanto says “I am a
creative person, creativity cannot be limited only to adverting.” It was this
thought that propelled him to take up the offer of acting as Lord Buddha in the
play ‘The Life of Gautam Buddha’ by a Delhi theatre group, which toured the US
and Singapore amongst other locations. He also got to depict his acting skills
in a Rabindranath Tagore bilingual adaption of ‘Char Adhyay’ some years ago. Now it
is ‘Taan’ that has made this UK born Bengali connect with his roots.
The initial response to the film has been mixed. While some
audiences found it too bold a subject to handle, what with the promos bringing
out more about the facet of the flesh trade, others have liked the movie. For
Sumanto Chattopadhyay, it was a sigh of relief when his father liked the film
centred around a bold subject. He is hoping there will more like his father who
see the film in it’s entirety. Sumanto feels preconceived notions should not
formed merely by the promos. “I would be happy if people went and saw the film
before deciding if it was good or bad.”
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