Scene 1 – A woman is interviewed in a moment similar to the opening scene of The Godfather, the camera focuses on her face and pulls back slowly as she describes herself being raped, while all the houses around her burn down.
Scene 4 – Taqdeer, a freezer hearse van driver gets the shock of his life when he discovers the corpse of an unclaimed and unidentified woman. He has a chequered past and tries to stay clear of the law, but destiny and manipulations far higher up the food chain will upend his simple life.
Director Syed Ahmed Shawki crafts a world, comprising of parallel storylines from the above two scenes and forces the viewer to go through the life of a blue-collar man stuck in an impossible situation.
Chanchal Choudhury as Taqdeer is mesmerizing.
His facial muscles contorting in anguish or befuddlement selling his plight more than words could.
This Bangladesh import never compromises on the bleakness of the situation – neither Taqdeer nor his assistant Montu are clever or geniuses, but rather normal people trying to deal with the cards they are dealt.
And like any noir, the cards dealt are suitably complicated. And like any noir, the ending isn’t pretty.
The complicated case is solved with our protagonist achieving a semblance of win, but at the cost of his life uprooted.
The screenplay is tightly paced with 8 episodes, each 23 mins each; The shorter runtime helps to make it a highly binge-able content. However, what makes Taqdeer stand out from the rest of the normal oeuvre of Hoichoi content is its inherent maturity in dealing with serious themes like death.
There is almost a spiritual questioning mixed with the black humor, as Taqdeer asks Montu, “We are going to cremate the body, without giving it a bath?”
For Taqdeer, there are rituals and rules which make the world run and every event changes his perspective on these rules.
Shohel Mondol as Montu is the scene-stealer of the show; He has the choicest dialogues and the most relatable in terms of attitudes.
In contrast Barua Partha as a quirky hitman works as an oddity in this world, but the resolution of his storyline feels too neat.
Similarly, the maverick reporter storylin – a crusader trying to right the wrong isn’t as interesting as Taqdeer’s storyline.
Sanjida Preeti is forced to play a character who is very much trope heavy for a character befitting a journalist.
Syed Ahmed Shawki though, ensures that you are watching a show that feels inevitable and bleak, a pervasive sense of realistic cynicism in every frame.
This helps the storytelling to sparkle even as the cinematography is focused on muted shots and nighttime scenes. The dark visuals are successful in showing the grittiness of what both, Taqdeer the show and Taqdeer the character is trying to portray.
A fascinating miniseries which should be watched by all.
Streaming on Hoichoi, and MX Player (Hindi Dubbed)
NOTE: THE VIEWS AND OPINION EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR.
Edited by Nidhi Sahani
