Michael Madhusudan Dutt was a revolutionary writer who changed Bengali literature forever. His greatest work, Meghnadbadh Kabya, is considered the first and most important epic in the Bengali language. Even though it is based on the famous story of the Ramayana, Dutt did something very bold: he changed the perspective entirely.
Instead of showing Rama as a god, he looked at the "demon" king Ravana and his son Meghnad as human beings. He turned them into "tragic heroes"—people with real feelings, families, and struggles. By doing this, Dutt challenged the old ideas of who is "good" and who is "evil."
Now, for the first time in history, this massive literary feat has been brought to the screen by filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak. The film follows the final days of Meghnad, the crown prince of Lanka, as he prepares for a ritual to gain immortality. However, Avikunthak doesn't frame this as a typical heroic quest. Instead, he offers a somber meditation on fate. We witness the internal collapse of a kingdom through the eyes of those destined to lose, bridging the gap between an ancient text and the political anxieties of our modern world.
Avikunthak is widely recognized as an iconoclastic film artist who operates entirely outside the boundaries of mainstream Indian cinema. His work is deeply rooted in Indian religion, ritual, and epistemology, yet it utilizes a rigorous formal visual language aware of Western avant-garde masters like Andrei Tarkovsky and Samuel Beckett. As a practitioner of what is often called "Cinema of Prayoga," his films explore Indian philosophy and existentialism through unorthodox cinematography and editing, blending the mythical, metaphysical, and mundane.
In the film, Avikunthak has done something that many thought was impossible. Turning such a complex and poetic book into a film is a huge challenge, and here we have the film which is the result of seven long years of hard work.
The film was shot in 12 different locations across India, giving it a very large and beautiful look. As we watch, we see the world of the epic come to life in a way that feels both ancient and new. Avikunthak doesn't just direct the film; he acts like an anthropologist, studying how these old stories still affect our culture today. Just as he explored the Bhagavad Gita in his 2024 film Devastated, he uses this film to ask deep questions about the ethics and politics of our ancient myths.
Most "mythological" films today focus on big battles and expensive special effects. But Avikunthak takes a different path. His film is quiet, slow, and thoughtful. He cares more about the themes of loyalty, betrayal, and morality than the spectacle of war. Even though the film is in Bengali, its message is universal. It speaks to anyone who has ever wondered about the "other side" of a story.
With The Killing of Meghnad, Avikunthak has established a new milestone in his career. He has carved out a unique signature in his filmmaking—one that balances self-consciously beautiful imagery with profound intellectual difficulty. It reminds us that these ancient tragedies are not just stories from the past—they are mirrors that show us who we are today.
