By Sujoy Dhar, IANS

"Seven Islands and a Metro", a hard-hitting yet lyrical take on Mumbai captured over three monsoons by a woman director, has left filmmakers and academics stunned here.

The documentary, by Madhursree Dutta, is India's first commercially released non-feature film.

Dutta's "Seven Islands and a Metro" is a trenchant yet lyrical visual treat. It became a talking point in the film and academic circles, leaving Aparna Sen, other filmmakers, and economists like Amiya Bagchi fascinated during its special screening in Kolkata' state-run Nandan theatre Friday.

"For me this film is quite a revelation. It is extremely rich with imageries, sounds, humour, poetry and in its manner of projecting history," said eminent filmmaker Aparna Sen after the screening.

"This film on Mumbai is a metaphor for all cities. A city is a place of migrants. I am fascinated by the film and I hope to use it in academics," said Amiya Bagchi.

"Seven Islands and a Metro" is structured around imaginary debates between Ismat Chugtai and Sadat Hasan Manto, the two legendary writers who lived in this metropolis, over the art of chronicling these multi-layered overlapping cities.

Shot mainly during the monsoon (over three years) the film portrays some extremely beautiful yet ruthlessly violent features of Mumbai that generally are not part of popular narratives.

How does the city look like from the point of view of the men who hang from perches high up on skyscrapers to clean the glass windows? How does a monsoon evening sky look like from the point of view of an aspiring migrant entering the city by train?

"The hypnotism of Bollywood, the aspiration of a mega-metropolis, the possibilities in a multi-cultural city encourages a horde of single women from the sub-continent to jump into the adventure that is living in Mumbai," Dutta told IANS.

The viewers get a bicycle ride through the deserted lanes of south Mumbai at the dead of the night with coffee vendors. A young migrant who drives a bulldozer for a living makes a candid confession that he razed his own nest as a call of duty.

The Portuguese, the Pathare Prabhu community, the Parsees, the Bohra Muslims, the Kolis - all profess undying love for the metaphor of Bombay and Bombay Duck, a kind of fish. Yet the same Bombay Duck turns into the centre of fierce contests over space in Mumbai.

The film is a tribute to the spirit of Bombay, which is fascinating and scary at the same time.

As a stunt woman from Bollywood (who worked in "Sholay", "Mard", "Sita aur Gita" and other films) sums up: "Hume muhn chhupane ka 2,000 milta hai aur muhn dikhane ka 1,000. (We get Rs.2000 for hiding our face and Rs.1000 for showing it).

According to Dutta, the film's characters came alive because they are all ordinary Mumbai denizens who want to talk.

"The film is 100 percent script based but in the course of shooting we got more than we bargained for. Perhaps that is what cinema offers, it gives more than you want," she said.

"People are lonely and they are dying to speak," she said to a query by Aparna Sen on the interesting yet ordinary men and women who people Dutta's film.

"I like its structure and despite being a documentary it came across to me as a feature film. It is very dramatic," Aparna Sen said.

"The film is powerful and yet it is so non-judgmental," she added.

"The film shook me from inside," said eminent playwright-turned-filmmaker Suman Mukhopadhayay.