21 years of ‘Sasurbari Zindabad’: How the Prosenjit-Rituparna starrer became a trendsetter for commercial Bengali cinema

It was that time of the 90's when Bengali mainstream cinema succumbed to its abysmal depth almost in all fields of filmmaking. From script, acting, picture quality, production values, locales to cinematography every aspect was a testimony to the sad state of Tollywood. But even at this stage if there was one thing that grabbed the attention of the harshest of critics, it was the spectacular chemistry between the reigning superstars of the decade: Prosenjit Chatterjee and Rituparna Sengupta! The pair was single-handedly carrying Tollywood upon its shoulders delivering triumphs after triumphs at the box-office that gave the much-nneded oxygen supply for the gasping industry. Then came the historic collaboration of director Haranath Chakraborty and the Prosenjit-Rituparna pair. It was the 2001 film ‘Sasurbari Zindabad’ that led to a glorious revival for Bengali cinema.

‘Sasurbari Zindabad’ brought in quite a few new trends in Bengali commercial cinema that led to the film's smashing performance.

Earlier, the average budget for a Bengali film used to be around 10 to 15 lakhs. But this film had changed the trend by investing near about 70 lakhs. A substantial amount of this budget went to the improved picture quality, technology, grandeur, sets, costumes, and shooting locales and all of these made the film more attractive. Inspired by ‘Sasurbari Zindabad’s humongous success, producers finally found the much-needed confidence and budgets of Bengali films slowly picked up.

Except a few occurrences, Cinema Scope didn’t exist in Tollywood. However, this commercial potboiler re-introduced Cinema Scope which gives a brighter, colourful and more attractive visual appeal to the cinematography. Soon, Cinema Scope became a regular feature in Bengali films.

Kaushik Sarkar, a renowned art director of Shah Rukh Khan’s one of the biggest hits ‘Yes Boss’ came onboard to revolutionize the production designing of this film. High-quality colourful sets turned it into the most glamorous Bengali film at that time. It became a trend-setter. After that, many filmmakers decided abandon the degraded production quality prevalent then in the Bengali film industry.

A team of popular fashion designers were brought in for the costumes of Prosenjit and Rituparna. The rest is history! Both of them looked their best in this film and their unbelievable chemistry had set the screen on fire. Down the decade, designer clothes have become the norm in Tollywood now.

Prosenjit and Rituparna had done a full-blown liplock scene in ‘Sasurbari Zindabad’ that lasted for nearly 30 seconds. This was one of the first such instances of a couple doing liplock in the history of mainstream Bengali cinema. Before this, the only other film for which the hit pair locked lips (in several sequences) was Rituparno Ghosh’s cult-classic ‘Utsab’, which had its festival premiere just 3 weeks before ‘Sasurbari Zindabad’ was released. However, after Sasurbari Zindabad, both Rituparna and Prosenjit engaged in quite a few intimate sequences with other heroes and heroines; but they never locked lips with each other again.