The Puppet’s Tale

Shashi, an urbane doctor, returns to his native village, a place seemingly mired in a backward way of life, for a short visit. As he becomes closely involved with the villagers, Shashi’s short stay threatens to become permanent.

Bengal, late 1930s. Fresh from completing his medical studies in Calcutta, the urbane and ambitious Shashi returns to his native village for what he believes will be a brief visit before departing for London. Yet, in these insular wetlands, he feels like an outsider, disoriented by the feudal customs and superstitions that shape daily life. As Shashi becomes entangled in the lives of the villagers, both professionally and personally, his temporary stay begins to take on an unsettling permanence.

Adapted from Marxist writer Manik Bandopadhyay’s 1936 novel of the same name, Suman Mukhopadhyay’s The Puppet’s Tale is a deeply felt period drama about a sensitive individual caught between the pull of ambition and the weight of his social circumstance. Shashi imagines himself as a rational actor, unbound by the perceived backwardness of his village, and through his journey, the film interrogates a deeply modern dilemma: are we agents of history, or merely its subjects?

Capturing the textures of rural Bengal with a painterly eye and an acute sensitivity to human complexity, Mukhopadhyay offers a work that feels both timeless and urgently relevant. The Puppet’s Tale is not just a story of one man’s struggle but a meditation on the universal challenges of connection, transformation, and finding meaning in a world fraught with contradictions.

– Vanja Kaludjercic

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