hindi cinema rarely takes up the murder mystery premise maybe the genre waited to be cracked by the deftly disingenuous dibakar banerjee to get to the bottom of that mystery of why the murder mystery never became popular we must analyse one of the best whodunits in bollywooddetective byomkesh bakshydbb is a stubbornly placid tale of an iconic detective who seems to know more about kolkata and its underworld than any authority of or on the metropolis in the 1940sread alsoapurva asrani says its a massive win for priyanka that she didnt end up like sushant singh rajputafter priyanka chopra jonas opened up about being pushed to a corner in bollywood in a podcast national awardwinning film editor and writer apurva asrani said that is a massive win that the indian actress didnt end up like late actors sushant singh rajput or parveen babi apurva took tothe films writersurmi juvekar and dibakar bannerjee and not sharadindu badhopadhyay who penned the original detective novels lend a gripping flow to the narrative by bending the plot into shapes which are not recognizable or definable by the rules of the genre at least not the way weve perceived the murder mystery in bollywood beforesmells sights and specially sounds emerge from the storytelling with a casual flair for making the obvious look subtle and the innocuous dangerous wickedly misleading and yet resolutely clearheaded even as the detectivehero and his reluctant assistant ajit banerjee anand tiwari gambol from one suspect to another to piece together a mystery that has no reference point and certainly no history this is a film that requires us to abandon all attempts to be oneup on the narrativewe have no choice but to go with the writers whimsical flow from the seeming ebbing and swelling of the narrative tide dibakar seems to derive a huge amount of unprecedented narrative power the film moves across a luscious labyrinth of sensuous experiences kolkatas grime and sweat is captured in crumbling guest houses and rickety warehouses where crime is a desirable reality only because the other option is ennuithe narrative creates a feverish aura of frisson and power play in the way the characters appear to respond to the sociopolitical and economic reality of kolkata in the 1940s it would be an insult to the film to say the period is created with unhampered pitchperfection because not for even one shot do we feel the hand of the art director in shaping the kolkata of the era gonebydibakars old calcutta of trams and selfimportant bustle emerges not from cinematic pulls and pressures but from its own volition to create a world where the characters do not seem to pose in the clothes and mannerisms of the time they just seem to be there from long before the dibakar banerjee school of filmmaking came into beingprovidentially sushant singh rajput seems to intuitively comprehend what the director and his brilliantly articulate cinematographer nikos andritsakis have set out to do sushant doesnt simply get into