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'Shadows of Time'- German film with Bengali soul
By Saibal Chatterjee, Indo-Asian News Service

Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) In the ever-changing world of cinema, miracles do happen. Who would have ever thought that we would one day watch a German film in Bengali with Indian actors set in Kolkata and its environs? 

That is precisely what Florian Gallenberger's "Shadows Of Time" is - a classic example of a truly global mode of filmmaking.

But does the experiment work? It does to an extent one would have never regarded as possible. 

The Oscar-winning Gallenberger, who was in Goa last year as a jury member, borrows liberally from Indian cinema conventions - childhood love, forced separation, lifelong pining, narrative contrivances, emotional tugs, the works - but pitches them at a much lower frequency than typical Bollywood movies do and comes up trumps. 

Says producer Norbert Preuss: " 'Shadows Of Time' is indeed a miracle. Of the 150 people in the crew, only 10 were Germans. We drew technicians from everywhere - Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata. And the actors, too, came from different streams of Indian moviemaking. The result is absolutely remarkable." 

Funded by Bavaria Film International, the film has been picked up for all-India distribution by Bobby Bedi's Kaleidoscope Films, which also has a financial stake in the film. 

Bedi says: " 'Shadows Of Time' is a wonderful film. It has the potential of being a major box office success here."

Indian actors Irrfan Khan, Prashant Narayanan, Tanishtha Chatterjee, Tilottama Shome and Soumitra Chatterjee (in a compelling cameo) feature in the film. 

Of course, not all the performers speak their Bengali to perfection - after all, Irrfan and Narayanan aren't native Bengali speakers - but Gallenberger shows the prescience to give them characters that have their roots outside the state.

The storyline traverses several decades in the life of two carpet factory workers - a boy and a girl - who develop a deep bond of empathy and love. But it isn't enough to prevent them from drifting apart, reuniting, drifting apart again, all through the rest of their lives. 

In this discourse on the role time - past, present and future - plays in the life of humans, Gallenberger abjures the sentimentalism that one associates with such sagas and settles for an even tone that adds to the overall emotional impact of the film.

But by no stretch of the imagination is "Shadows Of Time" a perfect essay. Some of the dialogues are rather stilted and the period details go a little off the mark occasionally. It is difficult, for instance, to miss a pre-Independence era hand-pulled rickshaw with 'Kolkata' written on it - but Gallenberger gives the film enough fluidity and style not to let these minor glitches assume uncontrollable proportions.