Thanks to Banerjee, there is a lot for his man -- and, indeed, for us -- to drink in: this sumptuous period adaptation fondly recreates 1940s Calcutta right down to the tram signs and the posters for Jane Russell movies, and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! Is a gorgeous, gorgeous film. Yet for all its stylishness and period grandeur it is not as intelligent a film as it yearns to be, the plot isn’t cunning enough and the conveniently-unravelled puzzle never quite sucks the viewer in. It is, in short, a mystery movie that doesn’t mystify.
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy is good, but there's no real anchor in the film on which I can pin its success, and perhaps that is a marker that its success isn't all that successful. Welcome to the World of Calcutta in 1943 - a city plunged in war, hate and crime. People living in fear and shadows. Only one man is in search of the truth.
Monogamous animals use two methods to 'hedge their bets' on mate choice. Advantages and disadvantages of serial monogamy. Monogamy may evolve when the cost of acquiring mates is very high, when females have the ability to restrict male behavior, or when offspring survival requires more intensive care than can be provided by a single animal. This puts a real premium on Choosing an inappopriate mate could have catastrophic fitness costs for an animal. The major cost of monogamy is that each individual makes their entire reproductive investment dependent on the fitness of their mate.
There is nothing at all wrong with a slowly seared whodunnit, one that simmers long and hard before coming to the boil, one that makes you think. Like, for example,.
But the narrative must intrigue and entice and seduce, taking turns obscuring the viewer’s vision and lifting the blindfold while doing the same (in differing degree) to its protagonists. Even laboriously slow mysteries should make us hunger for the next page, the mere promise of the next clue.
Byomkesh stumbles considerably because of its simplistic plotting, with an original story which ups the stakes considerably for Saradindu Bandhyopadhyay’s terrific character without giving him enough to deduce. Ambition is both driver and culprit. There is certainly bigger game afoot here than in the classic television show or one of the new Bangla movies, but saving the world pales in comparison to pocketing a statuette when the latter is told intricately enough.
All the intricacy in this new film lies in the exquisite art design, the sexy anachronistic soundtrack, and the period detailing; the plot is basic, largely guessable and tragically, never something to marvel at. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Why?