Flights of Fancy

Zee5’s first Bengali original, AranyaDeb, is for all of us who still believe in fairy tales. Or so says the narrator in the beginning of the film. The film follows two estranged friends, Aranya (Jisshuu Sengupta) and Deb (RJ Mir Afsar Ali), through their lives till one day they meet again. Aranya and Deb are best friends in school despite being the polar opposites of each other. Aranya is a tall, gangly, laidback dreamer with a vivid imagination, while Deb is practical and studious. The two are separated while still in school and they stay in touch through letters. The tale is told through many flashbacks and follows four different timelines with a chunk of it based on the adult lives of the two friends.

As an adult, Aranya is a good-natured neighbourhood simpleton. He’s popular with children and the elderly and often comes to the aid of those in need. He imagines himself to be a superhero. Deb is a successful executive in line for a promotion. Things come to a head when the two meet 20 years later on their shared birthday.

The script, especially the English lines, could have used more work. There’s nothing more grating on the ears than when a character with a hammy British accent speaks grammatically incorrect sentences. Rules of basic grammar, if the statement is negative, the question tag must be positive. So it should have been “It is not a matter of joke. Is it?” Not “isn’t it”.

The film is deliberately languid, but it seems too long at two hours and 12 minutes, partly because Aranya’s imaginary girlfriend and childhood love interest are superfluous to the main plot. As a result, the end feels anti-climactic because the build-up was far too long.

The best moments come when the two child actors playing the characters as young boys recite the poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Sukumar Ray. Similarly, the film’s homage to the courtyards, shuttered windows and open terraces of Kolkata’s houses evokes a strong sense of nostalgia.