Dosar (The Companion) (Dir.: Rituparno Ghosh; Cast: Konkona Sensharma, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chandrayee Ghosh, Pallavi Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee et al.)
Koushik (Prosenjit Chatterjee), on the way back from a short (supposedly official) trip with Mita, his married colleague with whom he is having an extra-marital affair, meets an accident. While the accident claims Mita’s life, it only severely injures Koushik. Koushik is admitted to a hospital with critical injuries.
And it is under these circumstances that Kaberi (Konkona Sensharma), Koushik’s wife, discovers about the affair. Rituparno, the modern maestro of human relationship dramas, lays out this intriguing stage in his 2006 film, Dosar. A woman caught in the situation of having to care for her fatally injured husband while having to deal with her recently-acquired knowledge of her husband’s affair.
Rituparno’s forte was always the chamber drama centred around a few individuals and Dosar is a fine specimen from that category of work produced in the Bengali cinema universe in the last decade. Dosar is shot entirely in black-and-white. And the stark duo-tone along with the sparingly used soundtrack aids the poignant character of the treatment greatly, allowing the viewers to immerse themselves in the state of affairs easily, without being distracted by unnecessary frills.
Konkona Sensharma, indubitably one of (if not) the most natural actors of her generation puts in a searing account of the protagonist while a bed-ridden Prosenjit glows away silently in all glory. Saswata Chatterjee, in a minor role, is wonderful too.?And a special mention must be made of Parambrata and Pallavi, whose own subplot gives the film an added dimension.
A perceptive take on conjugal relationships and its troughs, Dosar deserves to be watched as much for its pathos-filled treatment of a delicate theme as for the numbingly masterful acts by the two lead actors.
