The Japanese Wife

Not your regular mainstream cinema, TJW is adapted from Kunal Basu's story of the same title. My first bangla movie, which i couldn't have missed given that the duo's (Aparna Sen -Director/Rahul Bose-Actor) earlier flick Mr. & Mrs. Iyer is to date one of my favorite movies. Happy to say I wasn't disappointed at all.

A romance drama, if i may call it so, revolves around Snehamoy (Rahul Bose), living in Sunderbans and Miyage (Japanese actress Chigusa Takaku) in Japan. Their love flourishes through letters and they get married in the same way. Restrained by their lives, they never get to meet but remain true to their feelings to the end. Moushomi Chaterjee (Snehamoy's Mashi) and Raima Sen (a widow with a child who comes to stay with them) have played their characters well.

The underlying story of long distance relationship might sound bizarre as it may, but have been well portrayed on screen. At times, with all the emotions (worry, jealousy, happy) being exchanged through letters, it almost feels like a real marriage. While sunderbans (and life of Snehamoy) with all its glory and wrath was picturesquely captured on camera, I would have loved to see more of Miyage's life (and Japan) on screen. Any which way, the connections was still there and there was no moment when i felt bored or drawn away from the script. So all in all, it was great to see a non-regular holly/bolly movie.