What Is the Story About?
ZEE5’s Bengali series, ‘Mukti‘ is a period drama, set in the backdrop of British-ruled India of 1931. Indian inmates in Bengal’s Midnapore Central Jail are tortured and mistreated on a daily basis. Evil jailer Alfred Petty rules the jail with a cruel hand. New Deputy Jailer Ramkinkar (Ritwick Chakraborty) turns a blind eye to the atrocities, until it begins to get out of hand. Can a football match between the inmates and the white ‘sahibs’ boost the mangled dignity of the Indians?
Mukti has been written by Soumit Deb, Joydip Banerjee and Rohan Ghose. It is directed by Rohan Ghose, and produced by Pritam Chowdhury and his Fatfish Entertainment.
Performances?
Ritwick Chakraborty is charming and winsome as Ramkinkar Babu. He delivers a polished and restrained performance in both his avatars – the mild-mannered yes-man, and the impassioned patriot. Arjun Chakraborty is impressive and arresting as Dibakar, the spine of the motley gang of revolutionaries. Satyam Bhattacharya is equally impactful as the indomitable Swadhin. Ditipriya Roy looks cute as Minu.
Sudip Sarkar as Rehmat and Shaheb Chattopadhyay as Pritanjan Babu lend good support. Chitrangada Satarupa as Parva and Suhotra Mukhopadhyay as Rakhal are not convincing enough in their roles. The actors playing the Britishers are hammy, over-the-top and downright caricaturish.
Analysis
Mukti, on ZEE5, suffers from an overwhelming ‘Lagaan’ hangover. Football replaces cricket as a means to teach the mighty “gora sahibs” a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry. Only thing, the “lesson” itself takes such a long, tedious and overdrawn route to reach the intended end party that by the time it’s all over, we’re sure the protagonists themselves have forgotten what they set out to teach in the first place.
Combining a sports drama with a Legend Of Bhagat Singh kind of storyline isn’t too good an idea to begin with. Lagaan worked because its sole focus was on the cricket. Mukti makes a mish-mash of both – the snooty Britishers facing off against rookie Indians in a high stakes football match; and revolutionaries planting bombs, planning assassinations and covert missions. Sadly, the series makes a mess of both.
Interspersing the football and the patriotic fervour are endless scenes of the jailer Petty torturing Indian inmates of the jail in difficult-to-watch ways. The torture is tolerable to an extent in the first few episodes, evoking pathos and managing to unnerve the viewer. However, soon the torture, humiliation, beatings get repetitive and stale to watch. The horribly poor acting of the actors who play Petty and Bell doesn’t help matters.
Long sequences are wasted on Ramkinkar carrying out searches in the prison premises – in the barracks, the kitchen, the grounds. Laughably, there’s no clarity in the narrative on what he’s searching for. It simply seems to be a ploy to stretch the runtime, almost as if the writer has to fulfil a mandated criteria for the number of episodes and the length of each. Which by the way are too long for comfort.
The narrative also suffers from consistency issues. Swadhin is subjected to terrible blows to the legs, due to which he’s unable to stand or walk. Just a scene later, the director seems to have forgotten what happened earlier, and Swadhin is shown comfortably moving around in his cell when Ramkinkar drops in to carry out the aforementioned ‘search’. A few scenes later, Swadhin is back to nursing his injuries, unable to even stand, let alone move. A tiny thing, but quite disconcerting.
The final episode is especially rankling. The director has put together the climax in such a haphazard and hurried manner that it causes the series to lose whatever impact it has gained in the previous episodes. A shorter, crisper and tauter final product would have worked wonders in the impact Mukti makes.
The day our writers and directors learn that brevity is the most crucial aspect of powerful storytelling will be the day they’ll win the streaming world, not just in India but globally too.
Music and Other Departments?
Indraadip Dasgupta‘s musical score for Mukti is lovely to listen to. The background score tends to get too loud and boisterous at times, but is good overall. Indranath Marick’s cinematography is finely executed. His camera beautifully captures the essence of rural Bengal of the early twentieth century. Anirban Maity’s editing is fine.
Highlights?
A winsome, watchable Ritwick Chakraborty
The basic plot is good
Drawbacks?
Too long, tedious and overdrawn
Too much stuffed into one series
The British actors are terrible
Did I Enjoy It?
I found it average – it is well-intentioned but the length put me off somewhat
Will You Recommend It?
Watch only if you’re a die-hard fan of patriotic and political dramas in the guise of a sports drama. Watch it, but with a finger firmly on the fast-forward button.
Mukti Web Series Review by Binged Bureau
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