In 2023, Bangladeshi movie star Arifin Shuvoo played the country’s revolutionary leader Sheikh Mujibir Rahman in Shyam Benegal’s biopic Mujib. The new Sony LIV series Jazz City sees Shuvoo as a club owner in Kolkata, only vaguely interested in Rahman and the liberation movement he helped steer.
Created, written and directed by Soumik Sen, Jazz City sets out to capture the spirit of rebellion, valour and sacrifice that led to East Pakistan’s rupture from West Pakistan in the late 1960s and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Jazz City wants to forcefully remind Bangladeshis of India’s contribution to its freedom, even though sections of Bangladesh have decisively moved on from this period and Mujibir Rahman’s legacy.
“It is the story of a nobody who found the courage to become a somebody,” the voiceover declares (The Hindi-Bengali-English show is groaning with corny aphorisms of this type). The hectic plot plonks Shuvoo’s Jimmy Roy in between a covert Indian operation to aid the rebels that includes protecting three Bangladeshi students on the run from Pakistani military officials.
Jimmy holds court at Jazz City, patronised by the city’s elite and entertained by the resident singer Pamela (Alexandra Taylor). Pamela warbles songs with strange English lyrics and catches the eye of Jazz City’s new manager Rambahadur (Sayandeep Sengupta).
Indian intelligence officer Sinha (Shantanu Ghatak) identifies the persuasive and resourceful Jimmy as the man to carry out crucial parts of their mission. Jimmy’s old flame Sheela (Sauraseni Maitra), whose heart bleeds for the refugees pouring into Kolkata, is one of the reasons Jimmy sheds his apathy and becomes fully involved in protecting the fugitive students (Samudra Singha, Arindam Sardar, Dipagra Banik). On the other side of the border, Pakistani general Hanif (Shataf Figar) frets and fumes at Mujib Rahman’s growing influence, alongside torturing hapless agitators and hunting down the students.
Creator Soumik Sen (who made the film Gulaab Gang and co-directed the series Jubilee) reaches for an old Hollywood movie feel via musings on Bengali culture in that time period and asides on the lessons of history. Sen’s adda approach to the plotting results in a rambling, muddled and repetitive series that takes 10 episodes for what could have been explored in half the duration.
Amateurish staging undercuts Sen’s grand ambition to achieve a narrative in which personal feelings intersect with professional constraints and revolutionary impulses. For a show set largely in a night club, the music is disappointing.
Some of the acting is broad to the point of being howlarious, from Shataf Figar’s fulminating Army officer to Alexandra Taylor’s vamping Pamela and Alokika Dey’s bizarre Indira Gandhi. Arifin Shuvoo, Shantanu Ghatak, Sayandeep Sengupta and Sauraseni Maitra are among the more dignified actors in a show that botches up its premise. Shuvoo is a smart choice for Jimmy, whose transformation from plaint hustler to courageous subversive is always sprinkled with suavity.
Shuvoo’s dandy presence is one of the few reasons to stick with it. That and the suggestion that Kolkata is dunked in intrigue and crawling with spooks and rebels. Among the mysterious types is a priest with a thick accent and decidedly non-Christian views on turning the other cheek.
Just 0.2% of readers pay for news. The others don’t care if it dies. You can help make a difference. Support independent journalism – join Scroll now.
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!