71’ Bengali thriller Kuheli to hit the screen in new avatar

The  makes of the new film Kuheli said the 1971 Kuheli, which had a formidable cast of Biswajeet, Robi Ghosh, Utpal Dutta, Sandhya Ray, Chhaya Devi and Ajitesh Bandopadhay can’t be repeated, since it had a signature feel of spookiness which became synonymous with the film’s title.

“We have not attempted a Kuheli remake. It has a new story, new surroundings but having the same sense of eeriness,” the young woman film maker, having earlier directed Hoichoi and Kalkiyug told IBNS on location of the film’s shooting off E M Bypass.

To add to the thriller quotient the character of a tarot card reader (Chandrayee Ghosh) has been invoked in the film. She plays the soothsayer in the life of the  young couple – played by Indrasish Lahiri and Pujarini Ghosh and how her presence is always heightened by a black cat, the precursor of an event.

“I have sought to expand the title Kuheli which means illusion and there are scary elements and effects. But in my Kuheli I have also interwoven a murder mystery, involving a serial killer, which is solved by an ACP, Kolkata Police, essayed by Kaushik Sen who plays an important cog.  Kuheli is a thriller on a psychopath’s life having dollops of super-naturalism,” Debarati said.

Pointing out the classic Kuheli can’t be recreated any more, one of the main actors Indrashis said, “We have taken the name and few references but it’s absolutely an original tale. We thought today’s Bengali audiences are now more taken in by muder mysteries and such new thriller genre films on serial killers, psychopaths and relationship tales meeting crisis situations.

Poster of 1971 Kuheli

“Leave behind the evergreen Kuheli, I think the present age Bengali will wholeheartedly receive such films as the new-age Kuheli  has a smart and slick look and freshness in approach. My confidence stemmed from success of many such content-rich films in recent years – including Shororipu - as murder mysteries have become trend in Bengali film industry,” Indrashis, one of the busiest young actors in Tollywood now, said.

Actor Pujarini Ghosh, who had earned audience praise with her portrayal as Ratan in Tagore-based Postmaster recently, said there were uncanny elements in the film but it was shades different from the previous Kuheli.

“There are passionate romantic scenes and there are murder mysteries and above all there is a black cat who pops up now and then. The new Kuheli will be liked the way it is and if some audience comes for the curiosity factor with the similarity in name, that will also help in creating the buzz as they will be gripped by the content and style,” Pujarini, also appearing in a film by Sudeshna Guha-Abhijit Roy ‘Benche Thakar Gaan’ on old-age home inmates and the solitariness of the elderly, said.

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