The director said that 'Mrityupathojatri' is an experimental movie.
To mould himself into the lead character in Saumya Sengupta's Bengali film 'Mrityupathojatri' (Who is going to die), which follows the last 12 hours of a death row convict's life, actor Rahul Arunoday Banerjee had stopped talking to anyone at home for 15 days before shooting started.
Banerjee also went through study materials given to him by his director and talked to a number of prison officials to get into the psyche of a man who is destined to die by hanging.
"In most cases, people don't know when they will die. But here, the man knows that his life will come to an end after 12 hours. It is difficult to comprehend," Banerjee told PTI. The character knows there is neither romance nor honour in such death and there is none to give him emotional support during the last hours of his life.
"I stopped talking in my house 15 days before we started filming. My director Soumya is very well-researched. He provided me with a lot of study materials," he said.
The director said that 'Mrityupathojatri' is an experimental movie.
The film is fictional, but some books on real-life jail convicts and discussions with advocates in the pre-production stage helped Sengupta develop the narrative and the script.
"I wanted to show the audience what the last 12 hours of a death row convict can be. I think the audience needs to know how much guilt a person has to go through at this time, emotional turmoil and fear of death," Sengupta said.
To delve deep into the mind of a man who is going to be hanged, the director talked to death row convicts and police personnel including IPS officers who had dealt with such men in Alipore and Dumdum Correctional Homes.
He also went through jail manuals, IPC sections, jurisdiction process and several capital punishment cases in independent India.
Sengupta said, "If films can be made about love, if films can be about life, then why not a film about death?" 'Mrityupathojatri' is his first feature film. Earlier, he had made a few short films.
Kan Singh Sodha, the producer of the film, said, "Mrityupathojatri is very close to my heart as it makes me ponder about life, the stress we go through and how everything goes in vain in the end.
'Mrityupathojatri' is now running in theatres.