Konttho: A Story Of Grit And Resilience Sans Excessive Melodrama

Konttho: A Story Of Grit And Resilience Sans Excessive Melodrama

STORY:

Konttho has a fairly simple yet powerful plot. The story revolves around Arjun Mullick, a top radio jockey, who develops laryngeal cancer and has his voice box removed. The film depicts his journey, narrating a story of courage, hope, struggle and redemption leading to success in a poetic way.

REVIEW:

This Bengali Drama, rich in content and sentiment, shows a tale of struggle and hope. Director duo Nandita Roy and Shiboprasad Mukherjee have been successful in bringing about the essence of the emotions the protagonist delivers in this heart-touching Bengali film. That, coupled with attention to detail – characteristic of Roy and Mukherjee, helps it connect to the audience and forge an emotional connect with them.

The premise is quite simple yet beautifully depicted. Arjun Mullick, a radio jockey (played by Shiboprasad) is loved by listeners across the city and enjoys his ordinary professional and family life. His habit of smoking contributes to his laryngeal cancer, which reaches the fourth stage by the time it is detected. He coughs blood and the doctor advises him to stop smoking. However, his voice box needs to be removed immediately.  To a person who is passionate about his work and earns a living with his voice, this comes as a rude shock. 

The diagnosis is followed by a deep struggle that, in a breath of fresh air, encompasses hope within it too.  The film beautifully brings out the five stages of grief, as described in the Kübler-Ross model. We see Arjun passing through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. His wife Pritha (Paoli Dam) and his son Tukai stand beside him despite frustration getting the best of him. When Arjun is not able to communicate with his loved ones, he starts pushing them away and finds his dark room, his safe place.  His desperate need to speak makes him go to a speech therapist Romila (Jaya Ahsan) who pushes him and makes him try speaking again though his esophageal voice. It is here that the role of an RJ and a speech therapist is shown through the lens of human-to-human connection via an early episode in the film where RJ Arjun connects a mother to her child who was about to commit suicide. Thus begins the incredible journey of Arjun leaning to speak and Romila finding her redemption as well.

The narrative is efficiently taken forward by the haunting music, given by Anupam Roy, that adds much more meaning to the storyline and gives justice to its tagline – Sound of Silence. Add to that the amazing cinematography, dialogues, screenplay and the pace of the film. At no point does the audience lose the grip of the film. The characters have been portrayed in such a manner that the best of the actors, including Jaya Ahsan, Paoli Dam and Chitra Sen, comes to the fore.

While tragedy forms a large part of Konttho, it is a story of bringing a smile to your face through the story of human triumph against all obstacles. A film dealing with such sordid emotions could get melodramatic easily. But,  the directors have managed to cut out the unnecessary melodrama and instead present a poetic narrative to the audience.

Directors: Shiboprosad Mukherjee, Nandita Roy

Cast: Paoli Dam, Shiboprosad Mukherjee, Jaya Ahsan, Chitra Sen

Rating: 4/5