Doob: No Bed of Roses, a Farooki-Irrfan masterpiece

Javed Hasan (Irrfan Khan) is a celebrity filmmaker from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and as far as one can see, he has everything a middle-aged man can want in life: fame, money and a happy family. What is, however, not apparent are the complications and hardships of retaining these relationships.

Mostafa Sarwar Farooki's "Doob: No Bed of Roses" narrates the life stories of the members of a family revealing a shocking truth.

Released in 2017, Doob was surrounded by controversies due to its alleged similarities to the life of the legendary writer and filmmaker  – the late Humayun Ahmed himself! This caused a setback in the film's release in Bangladesh initially but once it received its "no-objection" certificate from the Ministry of Information, Doob became a box office hit. 

It has recently started to make headlines after being added to Netflix's list of contents as well as topping Bangladeshi film charts on the global streaming platform on the first day.  

The film's opening shot is a salient tableau of two young sharee-clad women, whose faces are burdened with discontent. The next scene is a flashback of them as children, conversing with each other over lunch at school. Little Nitu (Parno Mittra) asks little Saberi (Nusrat Imrose Tisha) why Javed, her father, always casts her in his films. To this, Saberi promises her friend that she will ask him to cast Nitu next time. The meaning of this exchange unfolds later in the movie as the narrative progresses further.

In another scope of time, Javed, a doting father of two - Nitu and Ahir - is struggling to face the fact that the best days of his married life are behind him. While he struggles to face the reality of his long-term marriage's probable demise, rumours of an affair with his next film's heroine, Nitu - who also happens to be the childhood friend of his daughter, Saberi - has started to galvanize Javed's family and keeps the media on its tippy toes. 

As the film moves forward, the audience is faced with the existential question: Why doesn't happiness last forever and whether loneliness is a preexisting human condition.

The strains of Javed's extramarital relationship, upon being proven true, further aggravates the fragility between him and his wife, Maya (Rokeya Prachy), which later has an especially devastating effect on Saberi - fracturing their father-daughter bond forever. This is where Farooki's expertise comes into play as his nuanced screenplay steers clear of melodrama and clichés, instead portraying the drama-rich scenes with body language and gesture of his actors' ensemble. 

It is difficult to translate the works of an extramarital relationship followed by a gut-wrenching separation into words, let alone a movie - and not just that between a husband and his wife, but also between the father and his children. But in Farooki's translation, nothing got lost. 

By the last leg of the film, Javed marries his much younger lover and has a child with her mirroring the life story of Humayun Ahmed. Most people viewing this relationship from the other side may think that Javed is happy with his new family but we can never tell for certain if ghosts from his past still haunt him; neither does Farooki hint at any emotion regarding this. Instead, he leaves it to the audience to ponder over the narrative.

By the time Doob reaches climax, you will be able to perceive the jetsam and flotsam of life and how a daughter's love for her father collides with her frustration toward her mother who has long lost the habit of "being in the driver's seat". 

As if someone's reaching through your ribcage and wringing your heart, you will feel the misery of the father who longs for his children to call him "baba". At the end, no one wins this catastrophic battle. Not even Nitu, who reigns over their lush new apartment and basks in the glory of her husband's stardom, subconsciously pondering whether she ever had a place in Javed's heart.

Farooki curated Doob with dexterity and susceptibility, supplemented by Pavel Areen's poignant score - which strikes a delicate balance between tradition and contemporary. 

Debut cinematographer Sheikh Rajibul Islam's contemplative usage of camera angles propelled the film further towards success as he gave the audience a ring-sided view of the most intimate moments of the distraught family, as the camera peeked in from behind the curtains, through the windows and atop the balconies, and between the gaps of tree branches. 

The background score of Doob fell in place with the premises of the scenes incredibly, as Chirkutt's "Ahare Jibon" engulfed a large part of the film with a blend of hard-to-distinguish emotions.

Doob was Irrfan's first and last collaboration with the Bangladeshi film industry, and with the award-winning writer/director Farooki. As Javed Hasan, Irrfan approached his role with empathy, charisma and finesse. Prachi, one of the senior and celebrated actors in Bangladesh, dripped with immaculateness as Maya. Tisha carried Saberi's role with sheer perfection as the happy turned vexed turned devastated daughter who was truly loved by her father. 

Doob was nominated for five awards at the 2017 Filmfare Awards East and the same year, Tisha bagged the award for "Best Film Actress" at Meril-Prothom Alo Awards. The film has won several other international awards and got selected for several international film competitions. Doob is now available on Netflix and it is among the top trending movies in Bangladesh for this month.

Actions speak louder than words and Farooki's undeniably skillful direction ability proves that in Doob. It is not just a film. Rather, it is an analogy of sorts that delicately touches upon the more sensitive aspects of a deeply embedded relationship which is a tough grind even when put into words.