After falling in love with Sonar Pahar, which touched me with its quiet emotional strength, I was eager to watch Ei Raat Tomar Amar. I missed it in the theatre, but thankfully caught it on Prime Video—and what a quietly powerful experience it turned out to be.

Parambrata Chattopadhyay once again proves that he’s not just a storyteller—he’s a listener of silences. This film unfolds like a conversation that you’re both afraid of and drawn to. It doesn’t scream, it doesn’t explain—it simply exists, letting the audience step into its quiet storm.

Sure, the film is not the run-of-the-mill fare. Its pace is slower than the current norm—deliberate, almost meditative. But perhaps that’s what makes it so engulfed in the Bengali sensibility. Even when death is inevitable, the nuances of life—the kind of life endured, shared, and still clung to by this elderly couple—leave you quietly enchanted. You’re never watching the end of something; you’re actually witnessing the echoes of a life deeply lived. In fact this film in true sense of term this has reshaped the emotional grammar of Bengali cinema with its tender intergenerational bond.

What sets the film apart is not just the subject, but how it is told. Parambrata has taken on the trope of the lonely Bengali elderly couple—a theme explored by many before him—but has infused it with a kind of astute restraint that feels fresh and real. His use of visual symbols is particularly striking. A mouse, caught in a rat trap at the very beginning, becomes a powerful metaphor of entrapment, of inevitability…until it is quietly released by the end. It’s simple, yet deeply layered. Just like the film.

Talking about the casting I can say that it is nothing short of a masterstroke. Aparna Sen and Anjan Dutt are not just actors; they are institutions. And Parambrata builds his entire film upon them, wisely stepping back as a director to let them carry the emotional weight. He appears in a few scenes as the estranged son—enough to establish the distance and the ache—but he knows this isn’t his space to dominate.

And what a performance Anjan Dutt delivers. What presence! This is an out-and-out Anjan Dutt film. A masterclass in film acting. He doesn’t play the character—he himself is the character. Subtle, measured, heart-wrenchingly real. With every pause, every line delivered half-swallowed in emotion, he holds the audience in quiet captivation. This is acting that doesn’t reach for applause, but stays with you long after the lights are out.

A big shoutout to Indraadip Dasgupta for doing a fabulous job as music composer. What truly stood out was how effortlessly he brought in the legendary Anjan Dutt to lend his voice to a Rabindra Sangeet—now that’s something you don’t come across every day, and it was done so beautifully.

The brilliance of Parambrata’s direction lies also in what he chooses not to do. No flashbacks. No convenient visual aids to take us into the past. Just dialogue. Just two people talking through a single night about life, love, estrangement, regret—and yet, the tapestry of a 50-year marriage is effortlessly conjured. The film carries just the right kind of emotion—it tugs at your heart without ever slipping into overt sentimentality. Everything is presented with restraint, nothing is overdone. That kind of restraint in visual storytelling is quite rare. It is truly daring. And it really worked. And that’s exactly where Parambrata shines through as a filmmaker—he knows when to hold back and how to let a moment breathe.

@Parambrata Chatterjee thank you for giving us this. Thank you for trusting your audience and to let your story breathe in and burn it slowly, and to let us feel without spoon-feeding us the meaning. You’ve made a film that is mature, quiet, controlled, and confident—at an age when even senior filmmakers sometimes falter. Ei Raat Tomar Amar does not rush to please. It holds space. It trusts the audience. And in doing so, it gives us something precious. Something very Bengali, very human, and very, very beautiful.