Lokkhi Chele (2023)

Lokkhi Chele (transl. Good boy) is a 2022 Indian Bengali language drama film written and directed by Kaushik Ganguly.[1] The film is produced by Nandita Roy and Shiboprosad Mukherjee under the banner of Windows Production.[2] The film stars Ujaan Ganguly as the protagonist.

The plot revolves around Amir Hussain, Lokkhi Chele Shibnath Dutta and Gayatri Chatterjee, three young doctors who stood against the socio-religious dogmas and superstitions prevalent in the rural areas and is hell bent on bringing in a sea of changes among the villagers. In a recent interview, Bangla actor Parambrata Chatterjee (pan-India audience will know him for his turns in ‘Kahaani’, ‘Aranyak’) pointed out that cinema from West Bengal desperately needs good writers. That Bangla cinema has been in a state of perpetual limbo for the past decade has been a subject of many articles, many discussions, and many rant pieces. I personally have written half-a-dozen of them. But this came as an eye-opener. Chatterjee is, by all definitions of the term, an insider. What he says holds merit. He went on to say that the Bangla film industry lacks a scientific approach towards a script. Apparently, a script once written is generally inspected by script doctors. This is how it’s done all over. The role of a script doctor is to critically evaluate the script and focus on the loopholes and not to read it and laud the filmmaker who wrote it. That lack of ‘scientific approach’ (and a script doctor) is painfully evident in Kaushik Ganguly’s ‘Lokkhi Chele’, Tollwood’s latest reason for patting itself on its back (and slinking back into mediocrity).