Athhoi Movie Review : Too much of Anirban weakens the plot

Director Arna Mukhopadhyay’s Athhoi, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, follows narrator Anagra Chatterjee, aka, Gogo (Anirban Bhattacharya, whose character is roughly based on Iago). Gogo grew up with the protagonist Atthoi (Arna Mukhopadhyay) – a young orphan from a lower caste (Lodha) who grows up to become a doctor under the patronage of Gogo’s father. The two boys, in two separate incidents, lost their mothers when they were young, and it affected them in different ways. While studying medicine, Athhoi falls in love with Diyamona (Sohini Sarkar), the daughter of his academic mentor, and she decides to come and help with the village school and create a health center and hospital for the locals. However, her beauty attracts a lot of men around her, which she is unaware of, but noted by both Athhoi and Gogo. This is used in the film to develop the plot.

The film is divided into several parts akin to theatrical acts. The director adapts the story to local settings and present times, which is reflected by the news about Palestine that Athhoi watches, or the smartphones used to record videos. The cinematography (Soumik Halder) is beautifully done, while set designs use symbols and props continually to bring in an almost theatrical feel in certain key scenes, using color schemes to define mood (like Gogo’s room in the film is vibrantly red in contrast to Athhoi’s house that has shades of blue, grey and white). This binary is stated continually throughout the film, pitting Athhoi and Gogo against each other as mirror images, which is quite interesting to note.

The music is interestingly done, with words from the Shakespearean play used lyrically. The song, Bohu Bohu Din Pore, by Durnibar Saha and Ikkshita Mukherjee is a soft, sweet, slow number.

As Athhoi, Arna Mukhopadhyay could have made far more of an impact had there been more screen time for him, but the intrigue is somehow lessened with the presence of Anirban Bhattacharya as Gogo, who is the perfect devil’s advocate (and also the creative director of the film). His obsession with the protagonist is perhaps another fascinating thing about him, where he both admires and despises Athhoi (but it isn’t very clear why). But there is perhaps a bit too much of him in the film that takes attention away from the plot.

Sohini Sarkar’s role is mostly confined to tears and silence, while in a short but surprisingly impactful role, Ditipriya Roy once again proves her mettle as an actor. However, the plot itself tends to lose its reasoning from time to time, and the story goes from a tale of jealousy and revenge to more like a morality play, with motives and reasoning pushed away for the sake of dramatic closure. This is perhaps why, despite good performances and well-designed sets, the film fails to tug at heartstrings, despite the multiple opportunities for it, and becomes more of a stoic interpretation of the Shakespearean classic.