I first came to know about him, as a director, for his movie "Gangster". The impression of the movie was pretty tender - a fresh story, good screenplay, soothing music and crispy direction. It was neither an exceptional novel nor had rocking performances, but most of the contents were in place in right proportion for it to be qualified as a package leaving a new impression. Pritam definitely played a crucial role for this - a "Mohiner Ghoraguli" 70's masterpiece "Prithibita Naki Choto Hote Hote" was repackaged to "Na Jaane Koyi" by Bangladeshi talent James - one of the best romantic number by Abhijit "Lamha Lamha". The movie had two good discoveries - Kangana Ranawat and Shiney Ahuja. The directorial impression was in the last scene - improvised adaptation of the conclusive scene in Ridley scott's blockbuster Gladiator - where the soul of Maximus returns home across a field of grains - here a similar was depicted with a Subha Mudgal's brilliance in background, "Mujhe Maat Roko".
Later, I learnt about his two previous directorial - "Saaya" and "Murder". Saaya was a nothing-new movie,a flawless and well executed copy of Kevin Costner starrer "Dragonfly". "Murder" was not a verbatim copy of "Unfaithful", but an attempt of improvisation was visible. Putting this two previous movies before "Gangster", shows a definite betterment in the curve of his directorial career. It was prompt that as a director he was coming out of the cocoon, being set by his producers.
Next in the block was "Life in a Metro". First impression of the movie was too complex, too many layers of relations. But a second visit of the movie gave a rediscovering of the story. Characters were well portrayed with potential actors around. A good story, fast-moving screenplay and a colorful collage of relationship. Pritam was good again with bunch of rocky tunes. The real singers sharing the screen in the streets of the city as if actors don't see them - once again a nice adaptation of the same concept from "There is something about Mary". Overall with "Gangster" and "Life in a Metro" I became an admirer of Anurag for his story-writing along with his capacity of story-telling in a tight screenplay.
Meanwhile, it was refreshing to know about this director that he came with a successful background of success in TV serial direction. His directorial of "Miit" as an adaptation of Tagore's "Noukadubi" was quite impressive.
The latest from him was "Kites" with Rithik Roshan and Barbara Mori. In particular this I did not like at all. A lavish portray of across globe cross-culture characters in backdrop of Las Vegas and one casino tycoon related story without much of content in it. Only glamor did not work. I am not of opinion that Indian audience was not ready for this, rather the movie does not have contemporary ingredients in it. But Anurag has shouldered all the responsibility of Desi failure and so called success abroad.
Recently I rediscovered this director as an anchor in a popular ZeeTV bangla reality show "Ke hobe(Who will be) biggest Fan?". The show used to have a format where a celebrity used to come and the show used to discover the personality in a candid "Adda" ( a close synonym of this bengali word is "Hang-out"), and a quiz format among fans over the trivia of the celebrity. Due to the regional audience, the show was limited with Bengali living celebrities like Manna Dey, P.C. Sarkar, Soumitra Chattapadhay, Mithun Chakroborty, Rituporno Ghosh, Sourav Ganguly and a handful of them. The show was very attractive as it used to take out, in most of the cases, the inner persona of the celebrity. Obviously it also dealt with lots of sensitive discussions adding spice to it - viz. Manna Dey ranking three singers "Kishor Kumar, Md. Rafi and Manna Dey", Rituporno Ghosh revealing his latest professional status with popular TV anchor Mir (Famous for his carry catcher of Rituporno) etc. Lots of similar program attempts were made in past, but I believe this was very enjoyable because of the ace of Anurag himself. How to be frank on this kind of show, how to be easy with camera as an anchor, how to maintain Bangaliana (Bengali-ism) even being a non-resident of Bengal since birth - were all redefined. The conclusive show of the same was a self-interview. How this guy broke into Bollywood from nowhere without much of "well-known" pedigree, how he fought back from "Acute Leukemia" and even after a successful past track, how he had to reestablish himself after he got well - how he took the over all responsibility for the movie "Kites" as a director. He ended the show with a lot of inspiration and a message - key to success is a huge dream and a hunger to realize the same!
Long live Mastro!!!
