Director: Subhankar Chattopadhyay
Cast: Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ankush Hazra, Anirban Chakrabarti
Ratings: 4 stars
To battle against the barriers caused due to the lockdown, director Subhankar Chattopadhyay along with actors Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ankush Hazra and Anirban Chakrabarti created a new web-series, Case Jaundice. The five episodes web-series was shot inside the spheres of their respective living rooms, therefore the shot-counter-shot editing technique had been used for an entire period of five episodes.
Lawyers Mr Sen and Mr Das in a comical courtroom debate on moral, social, political issues, in the presence of a judge, who hears their side of the story. While sometimes he comes up with a conclusion, other times he is unable to decide whether or not the issue ends with his judgment.
The web-series has been shot inside the premises of the living rooms of the actors. That's why there are only mid-shots of all the actors in three separate frames. There are no long shots to give us a complete glimpse of the cinematic space. Actors Parambrata and Ankush Hazra sometimes address the camera directly to aesthetically suggest that the two lawyers are addressing each other.
Parambrata and Anukush hardly move from their respective positions and run the show purely on expressions. Meanwhile, Anirban Chakrabarti deserves special credit for his ability to maintain his eye contact with the speakers despite their physical absence from the space where he is shooting his part of the script. When Ankush talks he looks towards his right, but when Param delivers his dialogue or strongly delivers his point of view, he looks towards his left.
Case Jaundice was created at a time when the government had imposed lockdown and asked us all to maintain social distancing. All kinds of cinematic shoots at locations were halted until further orders. Hence, this web-series was an experiment which was co-ordinated via phone calls and zoom meetings, since the idea of gathering risked spreading of the deadly coronavirus.
At a time, when most of us are craving for new content, this might be a creative concept which we can accept. On humanitarian grounds, this web-series attempts to keep us all entertained under such troubling circumstances.
