The Light: Swami Vivekananda
The Light: Swami Vivekananda (2013) is a bilingual (Bengali and Hindi) film directed by Utpal (Tutu) Sinha and produced by Tri Colour productions private limited. The film is based on the life and teaching of Swami Vivekananda. The film was a tribute to Vivekananda on the 150th anniversary of his birth. The film was dubbed in 18 languages. Deep Bhattacharya played the role of Swami Vivekananda, whom director Tutu Sinha first saw in a Bengali drama. Premankur Chattopadhyay and Gargi Roy Chowdhury played the characters of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Sarada Devi respectively. Synopsis. The eventful life  of Swami Vivekananda has been captured in this film. The film shows the transition from young Narendra Nath Datta to world preacher Swami Vivekananda. Different events from his life starting from childhood days to meeting with the mystic saint Ramakrishna Paramahamsa at Dakshineswar, Vivekananda's travel to Northern India, travel to the West (America, Europe), meeting with Sister Nivedita, and his works in India have been captured, thereby building his journey from being Narendranath to Vivekananda in bits and pieces. Production. Background. This film was director Tutu Sinha's first work in big screen, before that he mainly worked as  an ad filmmaker and television director. In an interview, Sinha told– "I have directed serials like Trishna and Rajmahal. I have also directed the serial Sadhok Bamakhyapa up to its 1000th episode. I always wanted to make a film on Swamiji." Making. The film was shot in different places of West Bengal like Kolkata and in Odisha like Rairangpur, Similipal etc. Director Tutu Sinha had to travel all over India for the research work of this film. The events of Vivekananda's life in Rajasthan was recreated in Odisha. The scenes of Vivekananda's lectures at Parliament of World's  Religions, Chicago in September 1893 was shot at Kolkata Town Hall. Casting. Mainly theatre actors and actresses were taken in this film. Soundtrack. The music launch of the film took place in January 2013 at Rotary Sadan, Kolkata. There were 14 songs in the film's music album. The music of the film was composed by Nachiketa Chakraborty and Dr. Haricharan Verma and the songs were sung by Ajay Chakraborty, Suresh Wadkar, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Nachiketa Chakraborty, Subhankar Bhaskar, and Javed Ali. Release. Both the director and the producer of the film wanted to release the film in 2012. But, because  the post-production word, they could not release it in that year. Next, they targeted to release the film on 11 January 2013, the day before Swami Vivekananda's 150th birth anniversary. But they could not release the film on that day either. Finally, the film was scheduled to release on 23 August 2013. The film's premier was organised at "Nandan", Kolkata. Many state governments have declared this movie as tax free in their states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and West Bengal. Reception. The film garnered mixed reviews from critics. "The Times of India" rated the film 3 and a  half out of 5 stars and stated the film "goes to show again that some films are still made in Tollywood, which do not get any hype, yet are good works of art in their own right." In this review, the acting of Deep Bhattacharya was highly appreciated. Washington Bangla Radio on Internet wrote in their review: "Premankur and Deep have proven in the film that theatrical experience can be a great asset for actors".