The city of Calcutta – 1962. A city so vibrant, so alive, so stylish, it was referred to as 'The Paris of the East'. The exotic backdrop serves as the perfect locale for the tender, immortal love story about to unfold. A young girl, Lolita, orphaned at an early age, is sent to live with her uncle's family, where destiny introduces her to a young boy, Shekhar, a budding musician, the son of an affluent businessman. Together, through childhood and adolescence, Shekhar and Lolita share joys and sorrows, fond memories and bittersweet experiences… and unknown to them, a relationship of deep friendship and trust takes place that metamorphoses into love. But greed, deception and malicious intent are waiting to plague Lolita's and Shekhar's innocent love. "Parineeta is a beautiful story, beautifully told. Pradeep Sarkar has taken the liberty of shifting the setting of his directorial debut from novelist Saratchandra Chatterjee's Calcutta of 1913 to the Calcutta of the 1960s. But he lives up to the challenge of unfurling the pages of the classic as vivid visuals on screen, without blunting the emotional subtleties of its story and characters. The complexities of the characters are elicited in simple but interesting ways. While a great deal of money and effort is lavished on recreating Calcutta of the 1960s, the dialogues are sparse, albeit spicy. The brisk pacing leaves no room for ennui." Dinesh Raheja
Production: Vinod Chopra Productions, Bombay; Apocalypse Filmworks Pvt. Ltd., Bombay.
World Sales: UTV Software Communications Ltd.
German Distributor: Rapid Eye Movies
Screenplay: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Pradeep Sarkar
Cinematographer: N. Nataraja Subramanian
Composer: Shantanu Moitra
Cast: Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Raima Sen, Diya Mirza, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Rekha
Format, screen ratio: 35mm, Cinemascope
Running time: 127 Minutes, 24 frames/sec.
Language: Hindi
