Chotushkone

Srijit Mukherji's 2014 Bengali film brings together four directors assembled by an unknown producer. They are to make four short films with death as the common theme, but the four are old friends and the accounts between them open as the meeting goes on. The structure rests on nested narratives. Each director's story is shown as a separate section, and those sections work as keys to the main narrative; who tells what says what they are hiding. The presence of real directors such as Aparna Sen and Goutam Ghose as performers strengthens the film's self-referential side. Parambrata Chatterjee plays the young director. Who it's for: those who like Bengali cinema and thrillers built around filmmaking. Who it's not for: viewers expecting linear narrative; the film keeps folding four separate fictions into the main story.