lll SMOKING BARRELS

Genre: Drama, Crime
Rating: 2.5/5
130 minutes
Director: Sanjib Dey

It’s been widely publicised as India’s first multilingual film — English, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Manipuri and Nagamese — in English subtitles wherever necessary.
‘lll Smoking Barrels’ is an anthology of three stories, all based in ‘Far East India’ but disparate — by director Sanjib Dey, who’s written and scripted them too.  The first  (Child: The Beginning) deals with the insurgency problem which has plagued that region — bordering no less than five countries, we are rightly reminded — for decades now. Anurag Dutta (Indraneil Sengupta) is driving in Manipur, when after a brief halt, he finds a teenager Janice (debutante Shiny Gogoi) has holed up in his car, and brandishing a pistol, orders him to drive on. How her coarse and harsh talk, the result of being kept in captivity and assaulted, turns into sociable conversation, forms the crux of the first part. Sengupta is restrained while Gogoi seems unnecessarily loud.
The second (Boy: The Middle) deals with the rampant drug problem. Donnie (Siddharth Boro), coming from an impoverished family, with a mother who is ill, becomes a drug-carrier.
Dey reserves the best for the last — Man: The End.  Subrat Dutta (‘Talash’) is Mukhtar, a grasscutter and a daily wage-earner who goes home drunk every night. Elephant poaching gangs take advantage and employ him, paying him Rs 10000 per tusker. His wife passes away during delivery and after a hunt goes awry his mute friend Ikram (Nalneesh Neel) helps him with the infant.
Compassion is visible throughout the last part which has some powerful performances from the two, besides evocative direction from first-time feature director, Assamese  Sanjib Dey. Anil Akki’s cinematography brings out the vivid landscape of the neglected regions of the Far East. Exhibited at 10 Film Festivals, the film would have worked better had the first two parts been as captivating as the third.