Delupi: A rural mirror to our national crisis

Not long after the fall of Sheikh Hasina's regime, a devastating flood hit the coastal belt of Bangladesh. The lowlands drown every year, but this particular flood stirred an unusually deep sense of national unity. The whole nation came together, forming trust funds and organising relief efforts for the affected communities.

Touqir Islam — the director of Shaaticap — chose to set his first film, Delupi, around that very moment in time. The opening credits insist that all characters are fictional, but the narrative quietly pushes back on that claim. Delupi may zoom in on a handful of individuals, yet it symbolically reflects a much broader sociopolitical reality.

The film centres on a vulnerable, flood-affected union in rural Bangladesh and the way its local politics function under extreme conditions. Thematically, this is not a new story, but it has never been portrayed with such scale or seriousness on the Bangladeshi big screen.

Despite being a non-festive release with an entirely Khulna-based cast, Delupi is seeing an unusually strong turnout.

The film opens with a few actors rehearsing their lines for a local Jatra. One of them, playing Kansa — the infamous mythological tyrant — receives a phone call announcing that the government has fallen, the prime minister has eloped. The film never explicitly comments on the nature of the fallen regime, but moments like this leave subtle political fingerprints.

Shortly after, the characters find themselves engulfed by a massive flood. Existing political structures collapse. Representatives of a new party rise and begin to dominate the local sphere. Though unelected, they declare monolithic control over the union. The youth who once revolted to break free from authoritarian rule find themselves trapped again inside the same power structure revived under a different party name. 

The newly emerged party, after being questioned by the youth, tries to exclude them from the political space they reclaimed by demoralising them. 

One cannot help but draw parallels between this microcosm and the entire country. After 5 August, Bangladeshi youth were hopeful. They believed, finally, they had a chance to rebuild a corrupt political structure. But as time passed, they realised they had little to no stake in the process. What once looked like a genuine opportunity slipped out of their hands. What went wrong? Why does the same cycle repeat?

Delupi attempts to answer exactly that—only through a micro lens.

The film is thematically dense, yet it carries its weight with remarkable lightness. A sweet romantic chemistry, humour that lands well, and a tight screenplay make Delupi a very entertaining watch.  

One of the film's most effective choices is the absence of a central protagonist. The Jatra couple, the young lovers, the socially conscious youth, the unelected chairman who occupies a chair nonetheless — each contributes meaningfully to the narrative. Delupi refuses to centre any single character because the story is not about them. It is about people who have rarely, if ever, been represented in Bangladeshi cinema. 

But structurally, the film has clear shortcomings. It ends so abruptly that it feels as though the entire third act is missing. Aesthetically, it shows some signs of inexperience. Although the cinematography occasionally gestures toward auteur influences, the film still carries the texture of a student project. The sonic choices, however, are distinctly Bangladeshi, giving the film a grounded sense of regional identity.

The director's neorealistic approach to casting real people who share the same social backgrounds as their characters enriches the film's realism. The cast is the film's strongest asset. 

Most of them have never appeared on the big screen, yet they consistently steal the show.

The film was never positioned as a contender for foreign festivals, nor was it crafted with mainstream box-office ambitions in mind. Instead, it seems most attuned to the tastes and experiences of an underrepresented Bangladeshi audience. And unlike many recent Bangladeshi films that found commercial success, Delupi is not derivative. 

Those films often relied on stories that did not feel rooted in Bangladesh; they tried to recreate films using a film language that was not ours, applying techniques that have worked elsewhere. 

Delupi, to a meaningful extent, fills that gap. For better or for worse, it is our own.