What is love?. Review on Acid Symphony Movie

What is love?

It is impossible to provide a conventional definition for love. Every one has their own interpretations, tales to talk about when it comes to love. To some it is sharing, to some it is an act of always being there for their loved ones or to some it is mere sacrificing one’s love for the sake of love! Manuela of “Acid Symphony” is a brilliant instance of such a sacrifice.

She is madly in love with Victor. Victor is an aspiring artist, an extremely talented violinist and Manuela is aware of his abilities more than he himself is. For Manuela, her first and foremost love is Victor while for Victor its music which makes Manuela more passionate about Victor. She wants him to fulfill his dream… “to be remembered among the greatest violinist”… which he is unable to get forward with, due to financial constraints. But ultimately, Victor could make it big but with a certain ‘price’.

The story is based on the sacrifice of a young lady for her beloved who could perform his first show with the fifty thousand rupees that she manages to bring for him. The show was a huge success and from then onwards Victor does not look back. But Manuela ‘evaporates’ from his life from that night.

While achieving his social stratification he doesn’t remember Manuela. It is only when he has been able to reach the height of his career by winning ‘Bharat Ratna’ that her thoughts are revived in his mind. By the time he has had two broken marriages. His career is the only thing he could be proud of in his life.

Then one day he has a visitor at his door… a lady who goes by the name of Ms. Edelwiess. It takes him by surprise. The lady is young and confident… and he realises to his delight is his daughter. But ironically, she hasn’t come to live with him or be there with him. But only to fulfill her mother’s last wish.. to give him a letter that she had given to her at the time of her death. And that’s when he gets to know the “price” at which she was able to make money for Victor.

''Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while.''

The movie ends with a scene where Victor, in front of Eldelwiess, starts playing “flute”… He had promised Manuela that he would never play flute for anyone else except her .. but now that she has deceived him by making such a big sacrifice and going away from his life.. he too breaks his promise…

Acid symphony is a short film by debutante director Mr. Sumantra Chatterjee. It is a 25 minutes film in all the three languages (Hindi-Bengali-English). While the movie is not visually stimulating… it is been shot at an extremely modest budget… but the story and performances make up for more….. The cast is very good.. Mr. Ritwik who plays the character of Victor is able to bring out the helplessness, sorrow and anger very finely.. A special mention about Suvamita Chatterjee, who makes her entry in films plays the role of Edelwiess. Though she shares the screen only for few minutes, she is able to stand out.. she portrays her emotions very well as of the confident girl, who does not have any emotions for her father.

The movie won an award at the Chitrabani film festival….. and would be showcased in the Calcutta film festival very soon.

kunchu