While production houses continue to mine disparate art forms for content, the question of how to transpose the art of one medium onto another often evades their grasp. Such empty regurgitation without engagement with the source art form exists only to provide exoticizing spectacles that, more often or not, supplant or even trample the source art form which cannot compete with the film in terms of scale, clout, or funding. Measly scraps in the form of credits acknowledgements are the best they can hope for, as these films seldom attempt to deepen our appreciation for the art form, only exploiting it as a plausible holding structure to ground their extravagances.
Kajolrekha, however, does more than just acknowledge its source material, which, in this case, is a 400-year-old Bengali folk ballad from the region of Eastern Mymensingh in Bangladesh (collected in the Maimansingha Gitika). The opening scene itself features a musical theatre performance that acts as a prelude to the main narrative, and unlike some lesser directors, Giassudin Selim does not think that filming other art forms is something inherently “uncinematic.” Cinema, in his hands, becomes an essayistic medium to understand this art form, as his camera shifts between the dances of the roving narrator and his retinue of musicians. By laying bare the rules of his source medium, Selim primes us to appreciate the sequences and his cinema better, as a fairytale ballad doesn’t necessarily follow the same narrative rules as a novel, or even classical cinema.
The main narrative of Kajolrekha concerns the travails of Dhwaneshwer, who was born in the distinguished household of a merchant (Iresh Zaker). His weakness for gambling loses him his possessions and prestige and, if it wasn’t for the timely intervention of his servant, possibly his 13-year-old daughter, Kajolrekha (Sadia Ayman). His fortunes change when a saint gives him a sacred bird, after which he regains his wealth while acquiring a new bunch of slaves as well. Naturally, this also increases his pressure to find a suitable bridegroom for his daughter, though he is unsatisfied with the options. Of course, he opts for the sacred parrot’s counsel instead of his daughter’s, who in turn informs him of his daughter’s marriage to a dead prince (Sariful Razz) in a temple. Disregarding the sound advice of his wife, he leaves his daughter in the temple to tend to the duties necessary to revive the prince, only for a newly purchased slave (Rafiath Rashid Mithila) — pejoratively named Konkon Dashi — to usurp Kajolrekha’s place as his wife when the prince is revived. Kajolrekha (played as an adult by Mondira Chakraborty), however, cannot defend herself, as she is condemned to silence by the mandates of the parrot, and the film follows her quiet suffering and the romance that develops between her and the prince.
A cursory glance at the plot itself points to the greater role of predestination over agency, and this might not sit well with viewers more accustomed to the novelistic machinations of character development. The opening scene and Selim’s subsequent handling of his material, however, remind us that a fairytale ballad is no novel, or even a standard narrative. Incident and its associated emotion take precedence over character, which is why Selim’s visuals embrace the amor fati of his ur-text. The lush verdure of the Sundarbans marshlands serves as a gorgeous backdrop for the proceedings, but the film is much more than a mere collage of pretty pictures anchored by song and narration. Vertical pans and circular tracks tinge the narrative with eerie predestination, trapping and circling his characters amidst the gridwork of their bamboo houses and the engulfing canopies of his forests. His characters might obey the dictates of fate, but they never do so silently. Words collapse into a cathartic outcry in the form of song, sending a ripple across the fabric of fate.
True to the roots of his ballads, the actors employ an array of stylized gestures befitting their character’s (or archetype’s) status and emotions, with the people of nobler bearing emoting and carrying out their tasks differently than their lower counterparts. The slave’s ascent to nobility cannot conceal her lowly origins, and this emerges as a major plot point in the film’s narrative machinery. Songs themselves are a privilege, apart from the omniscient narrator, only granted to those of noble blood, with the slaves either scheming or airing out their concerns to the nobles through mere speech. While Selim’s respect and love for the medium does translate to sympathy for the main characters, allowing us to bask in the agonizing romanticism brought about by Kajolrekha’s plight, it’s hard not to chafe at his treatment of slaves and uncritical examination of inherent nobility. Though it is indeed admirable that he did not clunkily distort his characters for politically correct respectability, one finds it hard to feel whole-heartedly for Kajolrekha or the prince without ignoring the implicit violence at play here. After all, an art form grows not only by a thoughtful appreciation of its ideas, but also by interrogating its biases and conventions that we normally take for granted.
Published as part of IFFR 2025 — Dispatch 3.
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