Review of Uttam Kumar's Kuhak.

Review of Uttam Kumar’s Kuhak.

Uttam Kumar was considered to be the greatest romantic actor to have been born in Indian soil in the golden age, that is 40s, 50s, and 60s. But after giving legendary romantic films with Suchitra Sen (both of them acted in 30 films), Uttam Kumar tried to change his image in some of the films.

In Goli Theke Rajpoth he was involved in unlawful activities, in Abak Prithibi, he was a thief who was reformed by a small child, and in Kuhak he was a thief again. He broke his image in Kuhak directed by Agradoot.

In Kuhak, the film opened with a scene in the jail where Uttam Kumar met Tarun Kumar. Uttam Kumar spoke about his activities relating to theft. Tarun Kumar disclosed about his capabilities relating to opening any lock in any almirah or cupboard and he was imprisoned for those activities.

Uttam Kumar after being released from jail came to the same village where Tarun Kumar lived with his two sons and sister played by Sabitri Chatterji. Uttam Kumar was a singer and with the team of Premangshu Bose used to perform in the role of Chaitanyadev in village plays (jatras).

Most of the villagers started thinking that Uttam Kumar was actual Chaitanyadeb. Tarn Kumar told Uttam Kumar that he stole Rs 30000 from a locker in a nearby house, but when he tried to escape from the police, he was fired by the police and died. He showed the place where he kept the money to his son. Both Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose stayed back in the village to take that money that was kept by Tarun Kumar.

Uttam Kumar fell sorry for Sabitri Chatterjee, the sister of Tarun Kumar and fell in love with her. The last part of the film showed the fight between Uttam Kumar and Premangshu Bose in extracting the stolen money.

The music of the film was impressive, with Uttam Kumar giving brilliant lips in Hemant Kumar’s song “bishnupriya go”. There were many other songs sung by Hemant Kumar for Uttam Kumar and the character of Uttam Kumar being a singer was bolstered with the music.

The film should be restored for the young generation to show them that director Agradoot had the skills of making crime thrillers with the background of stories based on village life of Bengal.

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Uttam Kumar and comedy films like Mouchak

Uttam Kumar and comedy films like Mouchak.

Uttam Kumar, the most versatile superstar of Bengali films became one man industry in the 70s. Viewers were not that bothered about who was his heroine in the film or the co-actors or actresses. The moment the name of Uttam Kumar flashed in the silver screen the viewers knew that he had the potentiality of pulling on the film alone.

Arun Kumar Chatterji, better known as Uttam Kumar acted in Arobindo Mukherjee’s film Mouhak in 1975. Aurobindo Mukherjee had experimented with Uttam Kumar and Sabitri Chatterji in the films Nishipadda and Dhanni Meye. In Mouchak, Uttam Kumar was the elder brother of Ranjit Mullick who got a job outside Kolkata.

When he came to his workplace, he found that right from the CEO of the company to the different officers, people were looking for qualified men to get married to their daughters. Even the house that was rented to Ranjit Mullick was in the vicinity of all these persons who wanted to keep him in close watch and convince him to marry their daughters.

The situation became so worst that Uttam Kumar had to come to that place and artificially campaign about the bad character of Ranjit Mullick. He told all the officers that Ranjit Mullick was a drunkard, gambler and anti-social. Even after that the fathers of these girls never stopped coming to his house and convincing him about marrying their daughters.

At the end of the film Ranjit Mullick entered into an affair with Mithu Mukherjee, and after the acceptance of her both from Uttam Kumar and Sabitri Chatterji, the marriage was solemnized. The film showed the crude reality of fathers of unmarried daughters in Bengal in the mid-70s who generally were in need of qualified bachelors to get their daughters married to them.

Even the lips given by Uttam Kumar in Manna Dey’s songs like “Jodi jagai madhai”, “ebar mole suto hobo”, “paglagarod kothay ache”, etc., was equally brilliant.

Uttam Kumar died almost 29 years back. Bengali films these days get lot of sponsorship and technical development had taken place in the film industry. Yet the vacuum created by superstar Uttam Kumar neither had been filled up, nor can be filled up by anyone else. Comedy films like Mouchak should be restored to show the contribution of Uttam Kumar in those types of films.