Jibon Theke Neya


Jibon Theke Neya is a 1970 Bengali-language East-Pakistani film directed by Zahir Raihan. It has been described as an example of "national cinema", using discrete local traditions to build a representation of the Bangladeshi national identity.

Plot

The film narrates the story of a middle-class family headed by an autocratic elder sister. Other members include her two younger brothers and her husband. But nobody in the family has a say in any matter of the household and everything is decided by Apa. Her husband is not allowed to sing inside the house, her brothers are not allowed to marry and she abuses the servants day and night. To end her autocratic rule, Dulabhai marries Anis off to a lady named Sathi without informing Apa. Apa's sword of oppression comes down on her. Meanwhile, Farooq falls for Sathi's younger sister Bithi and marries her. Sathi and Bithi's elder brother Mr. Anwar is a political activist, who is imprisoned due to his involvement in the freedom movement. On the other hand, under the leadership of Sathi and Bithi, everyone in the house becomes united. The family members paste posters on the wall against Apa's dictatorship. The bunch of keys that symbolizes the control of the household goes to the two sisters. Losing her power, Apa starts conspiring against the sisters. Both Sathi and Bithi conceive two children. Sathi gives birth to a stillborn child. The doctor fears that she may not tolerate the grief. So Bithi's baby is placed in her lap. Thinking it is her own kid, Sathi begins to nurture it. Apa starts a dispute between the two sisters. Tactically, she poisons Bithi and puts the blame on Sathi. Although Bithi recovers, Sathi is arrested on the charge of poisoning. When the case comes up in the court, Dulabhai proves that Apa is the main culprit. In the end, the autocratic elder sister is placed behind the bars. Mr. Anwar is released, and he along with his sisters and their husbands go to the Shaheed Minar to pay tribute to the martyred.

Cast

Production

The film was originally titled Tinjon meye o ek peyala bish. At the request of film producer Anis Dosani, Zaheer Raihan took over the responsibility of making the film. Zaheer Raihan decided that in the story of the film, one sister will poison another sister. Writer Amjad Hossain could not accept this story because he thought that making a film with such a story would not be popular with audiences. However, instead of writing the story as per the words of Zaheer Raihan, Amjad Hossain continued to write the story as his own. Amjad Hossain later said in an interview with Prothom Alo that he could not write the story as directed by the director as he could not continue making a documentary film about Amanullah Asaduzzaman due to government objections.
Shooting for the film began on 1 February 1970, but some scenes were recorded a year earlier. Pakistan's military government had repeatedly tried to stop the film. The government threatened the film's director and actor Razzak. The director also received death threats for this film. Film maker Alamgir Kabir attributed the film's uneven production quality to threats to ban it and to the haste with which it was made. Filming was compressed into about 25 shooting days, as little as a third of what was typical in Pakistan at that time.

Music

Khan Ataur Rahman was the music director of this film. Although the use of Tagore songs was banned by the information minister of Pakistan, Khwaja Shahabuddin, in 1967, a song by Rabindranath Tagore has been used in the film in defiance of that ban.

Release

The film was not released on the scheduled date due to government restrictions. As the film was not released, the people of East Pakistan staged protests and demonstrations in various places. So the government cleared the film and released it. The government banned the film after it was released. The military junta later lifted the ban on the film in the face of protests. The film was shown in East Pakistani cinemas for about six months. The film was also screened in Kolkata, capital of Indian Bengal in 1971.

Reception

Critical reception

Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha praised the film. Exactly one month after the release of the film, film journalist Ahmed Zaman Chowdhury wrote in the weekly Chitrali magazine, "Zahir has the ease of editing a film, but lacks overall skills. As a result, there is not always an equation of how long a shot will last. So the application ends before it is spread." According to Bidhan Biberu, the film was able to represent the then Bengali society of Pakistan. Criticizing the film, Alamgir Kabir said that the character of the elder sister in the film is arranged in the style of Ayub Khan and the family shown in the film is compared with the politics of Pakistan at that time. However, according to him, such a family is not realistic in the true sense. He noted that many scenes showed in the film were not perfect.