KHACHA Bangladesh's Oscar entry deserved a better release and bigger audience

The curse of Bangladesh's Oscar entries (in the Foreign Language Film category) at the box office continues this year. Akram Khan's “Khacha” – this year's nomination – was taken off the only movie theatre in the capital, Star Cineplex that was screening it after just a week of running. Previous Bangladeshi Oscar entries – “Oggatonama” (2016) and “Jalaler Golpo” (2015) – suffered the same fate of empty seats and truncated runs at the theatres. Despite having Jaya Ahsan, one of the biggest names in Bangladeshi filmdom, in the lead role along with a heavyweight ensemble cast including film, TV and theatre veterans Azad Abul Kalam and Mamunur Rashid, “Khacha” shut shop as quietly as it was released.

Based on Hasan Azizul Haque' short story with the same title, “Khacha” is set in a village in present-day Bangladesh, and chronicles the strife of a Hindu family trying to migrate to West Bengal (as many Hindu families did during and following the Partition in 1947) by exchanging their home with a Muslim family from India looking to move here. The once-wealthy family of Ambujakkho (played by Azad Abul Kalam) and Sarojini (Jaya), along with their elderly father (Mamunur Rashid) and four children drift aimlessly for a decade and a half of failed attempts and evaporating hopes of a new beginning and a better life.

Despite this being his second film (after “Ghasphul”), Akram Khan gets pretty much everything right in this moving, cathartic work of tragedy. He expertly averts the problem of producing a period piece on a modest budget by limiting his location and characters, and sets a truly believable backdrop of 1948. Akram's attention to details in his frames – both visually and audibly – is remarkable. The sound design, with plenty of ambient sounds of nature and surroundings, helps to fill in the rather slow screenplay, and the cinematography, kept fairly simple, only enhances the depressive mood of the story. By having these secondary elements strongly in place, the director gives his actors the space to fully shine, and shine they did. Three of the finest actors of their generations go toe to toe in showcasing great character complexity, and with a support cast holding their own, the film is seamless in its storytelling. Azad Abul Kalam in particular (being the co-writer of the screenplay and dialogue), is mesmerising in his character, and Jaya shows why she is equally adept in her commercial ventures as she is in arthouse projects. The film also sort of drifts along for a fairly long runtime of almost three hours, and I don't know if that is intentional to give the audience the same feeling of directionlessness as his characters. The interactions of the members of this family with other people, like Ambujakkho's visit to a recently-settled Muslim family, or the children's interactions with other kids, are also purposeful and striking in their own subtle way. Akram Khan shows plenty of glimpses of his storytelling style, one of the most memorable being his choice of using the only moment of intense emotional outburst to close the film.

“Khacha” shares a few more resemblances to its two predecessors (in Bangladesh's yet-in-vain Oscar dream): they all feature excellent actors, are hard-hitting humane stories, and are productions of Impress Telefilm. “Khacha”, which was also the recipient of the 2012 National Film Grant, got its censor certificate on August 31 this year, and was originally planned to be released in December. It was released on September 22 by Impress Telefilm on three days' notice and near-zero promotional campaign (only a rather shabby-looking trailer that gained little traction) and it is of little surprise that a big fraction of the discernable film audience even got to know of it. It appears in retrospect that the rushed release was only to meet the Oscar submission deadline, considering there was only one other film that was submitted for consideration (“SonaBondhu” starring DA Tayeb and Pori Moni). This film deserved a much better release and a bigger audience. It's a shame it received neither.