Chander Pahar (film)
Chander Pahar (released as Mountains of the Moon in the United States)[7] is a 2013 Indian Bengali-language action-adventure film based on Chander Pahar by Bengali novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, directed by Kamaleshwar Mukherjee and produced by Mahendra Soni and Shrikant Mohta under the banner of their production house Shree Venkatesh Films. It features Bengali actor Dev in the lead role as Shankar. This is the first collaboration between Dev and Mukherjee, the latter having made only two films before: Uro Chithi and Meghe Dhaka Tara.[8]
Shooting commenced on 20 April 2013.[9] The film released on 20 December 2013. The trailer was released at the Nicco park at 5 pm, on the occasion of Children’s Day on 14 November 2013. This is the first Indian film to be extensively shot in South Africa. Chander Pahar is the most successful film in Bengali cinema. Critics consider it Dev’s most memorable and recognizable work.[10] It is the first film of the Chander Pahar] franchise and was followed by Amazon Obhijaan in 2017.
Chander Pahar is the story of a young Bengali man’s adventures in Africa from 1909-1910. Shankar Ray Choudhuri is a 20-year-old man, recently completed his First Arts graduation and about to take up a job in a jute mill, a prospect he absolutely loathes.
He yearns for adventure, wildlands, forests and animals. He wants to follow the footsteps of famous explorers like Livingstone, Mungo Park, Marco Polo, all of whom he has read about and idolizes.
By a stroke of luck, he secures a job as a station master in a desolate station in Uganda Railway through a fellow villager working there and goes to Africa without a second thought. One evening Shankar is chased by a man-eating lion and luckily he reaches his cabin and locks the door. The next day he asks the head stationmaster to provide him with a Springfield bolt-action rifle and carbolic acid as a day before he encounters another hazard in Africa: the poisonous black mamba. He miffs the black mamba with his torchlight. The next day he gets these things from another fellow Indian, Tirumal Appa, who is serving the British Army.
They quickly strike a rapport and Tirumal visits him often. One day Tirumal becomes a victim of the same man-eating lion. This rages Shankar and he decides to end this peril. He poses as bait by pouring blood on himself and scatters meat chunks. He tempts the lion out of his cave and eventually shoots him down.
