‘Chhobiwala’: A Haunting Portrait of Art, Obsession and the Price of Being Different

Global Tribune Desk:  There are films that entertain, films that provoke, and then there are films that quietly linger somewhere in the mind long after the screen goes dark. Chhobiwala – A Journey of an Artist belongs to the latter category.

Directed by Shubhrajyoti “Bappa” Basak and team  written by Shantanu Nath, Chhobiwala ventures into an unusual and unsettling world—the inner life of an artist whose relationship with his craft gradually becomes inseparable from his existence. Produced by  A4J Films associated with Matchstickx Motion Pictures presenting the film, the project takes a decidedly unconventional route for a Bengali drama. The film is co-produced by Shatadeep Saha and Sarbjit Ghosh.

At the heart of the film is Vishwakarma, played by Rahul Arunoday Banerjee, a photographer whose artistic sensibility refuses to conform to conventional notions of beauty. While photography for most is an act of preserving life, Vishwakarma develops a profound fascination with photographing the dead. What appears disturbing to the outside world becomes, to him, an artistic vocabulary—a way of confronting mortality, silence and the finality of human existence.

And therein lies the film's central conflict.

What happens when the world refuses to understand an artist's vision?

Chhobiwala doesn't offer an easy answer.

Instead, it places its protagonist between two irreconcilable worlds: the uncompromising demands of artistic expression and the practical necessities of everyday life.

That conflict becomes particularly poignant through Mala, portrayed by Debleena Dutta. Their relationship gives the narrative its emotional pulse. Mala exists in the tangible world of responsibilities, financial pressures and survival, while Vishwakarma is increasingly consumed by a world that exists primarily through his camera. Their relationship consequently becomes much more than a conventional marital equation—it becomes a collision between love and ambition, responsibility and obsession, survival and self-expression.

Debleena Dutta brings an understated emotionality to Mala, making her frustration and vulnerability feel deeply human. Rahul Banerjee, meanwhile, embraces the difficult complexity of Vishwakarma without attempting to make him conventionally likeable. His performance is strongest precisely because Vishwakarma remains an uncomfortable, enigmatic figure. He is neither an uncomplicated victim nor a romanticised “mad artist”. He is simply a man desperately attempting to remain faithful to the way he sees the world.

The supporting ensemble, including Sreelekha Mitra, Rimi Deb, Rana Basu Thakur, Arpan Bose and Shantanu Nath, adds further texture to this portrait of an artist struggling against circumstances that seem determined to diminish him.

Director Bappa and team deserves credit for choosing a premise that is inherently challenging. The film does not follow the familiar template of the struggling artist who eventually receives recognition. Instead, it asks whether recognition is even the point. Can art retain its meaning when it has no commercial value? Can an artist demand complete freedom when other people are forced to bear the consequences of that freedom?

These questions give Chhobiwala its philosophical weight.

The screenplay by Shantanu Nath occasionally allows its ideas to take precedence over conventional narrative momentum, and the film may therefore feel uneven in places. But its willingness to remain uncomfortable is also one of its greatest virtues. It does not attempt to make every character morally convenient for the audience.

Visually, the film finds an organic ally in its subject. Apu Mukherjee's cinematography understands that a film about a photographer should itself possess a strong visual consciousness. Light, darkness, stillness and the contrast between life and death acquire a significance beyond mere aesthetics. The camera becomes almost an extension of Vishwakarma's mind.

Sayantan Nag's editing maintains the intimate, character-driven nature of the narrative, while Soumya Rit’s music contributes to the film's melancholic atmosphere without overpowering its emotional core.

What ultimately makes Chhobiwala compelling is that its real subject isn't photography at all.

It is the loneliness of seeing differently.

Every artist, in some form, has encountered the question: What is the point of creating something that the world does not understand?

For Vishwakarma, however, that question becomes existential.

His art is not simply something he does. It is how he perceives reality. Asking him to abandon it is therefore almost equivalent to asking him to abandon a part of himself.

Yet the film wisely complicates this romantic notion of artistic integrity. Passion does not exist in a vacuum. Dreams have consequences. Obsession has consequences. And sometimes the people closest to an artist are the ones who quietly pay the price for that artist's refusal to compromise.

That is where Chhobiwala transcends the conventional “artist's struggle” narrative.

It becomes a meditation on love, dignity, poverty, mortality and the fragile boundary between artistic conviction and self-destruction.

The film will not necessarily appeal to audiences seeking conventional commercial entertainment. Its pace, subject and morally ambiguous protagonist demand patience. But those willing to enter Vishwakarma's strange, unsettling world may discover a film that continues to raise questions long after its conclusion.

Chhobiwala may not be a flawless film, but it is an honest and audacious one.

And perhaps that is fitting for a film about an artist.

Because sometimes the most meaningful art isn't the art that makes us comfortable.

It is the art that makes us look again.