Mobaroknama: A struggle for ensuring morality in an absurd world

How does it feel when a meaningful story gets transformed into a script where there is a lack of detailing? 

Watching the recently released web series 'Mobaroknama' in Hoichoi might be able to answer the question. It feels like the story is making perfect sense, but something is still missing. 

After watching Mobaroknama by Golam Sohrab Dudul, it can be concluded that the story has many potentialities, but the script does not do enough justice to explore those. 

But the first season clearly indicated another season. On that note, the primary goal of the script is successful that is to keep the audience waiting. 

Before getting into the story, it should be mentioned that the trailer of the series was prepared in a clumsy way, which made the story predictable in the first place. 

Watching the trailer, it became evident that 'Mobaroknama' is going to be a story about a lawyer fighting for a rape victim. 

In Mobaroknama, we encounter a lawyer named Mobarok, who has left his practice as a lawyer for an incident that has left a serious mark on his life. 

Mobarok appears as a conscientious person, only with a little temper. He can not tolerate immoral action and rebels against it. Which makes the people surrounding Mobarok struggle to deal with him. 

At first, Mobarok was very much sceptical about the case at the centre of the series, Suraiya's case. Because, once, he had this bad experience of fighting for a client without knowing his client was guilty of murder in the first place. This led to the death penalty for an innocent person. The incident shook Mobarok so much that he left his job as a lawyer. 

The story advances further, with Mobarok defending his client Suraiya in court against a highly educated lawyer, Sabrina. 

The inclusion of Mobarok's previous experiences can be regarded as the crux of the story because that gave Mobarok's character more layers, which made the audience curious about Mobarok's background even after finishing the season. 

But here lies another problem: the tendency to use season one as a springboard to the next seasons became vivid in the lack of detailing in the script. Mobarok's search for clues for Suraiya's case before the last hearing, with ridiculous music dedicated to the character Mobarok, makes this tendency very clear. A latent rush is observed throughout the script in the storytelling of Abdullah Muktadir. 

The script being told in a non-linear format was a good choice. But the dialogue seemed loosely written. The different dialogues became more interesting with the improvisation of Mosharraf Karim than the dialogues themselves being engaging.

The intro music of the series Mobaroknama seemed similar to that of 'True Detective,' with characters being shown with their names and characters and different sequences running in the background. 

The editing of 'Mobaroknama' by Subhajit Singha went perfectly in line with the script. However, some jump cuts during the sequence of the last hearing could have been avoided. 

The background music of Saqi Banerjee did justice to the spirit of the story. The colour grading by Prasenjit Banerjee seemed very much natural. That is why there was no scene in the series that made the audience distracted from the storytelling process. 

The same can be said about the art direction of Abu Tariq despite some over-imposed props in the background in some sequences, like the depiction of Friedreich Nietzsche's picture in a portrait form on the wall of Mobarok's office. A two-second shot with a quotation from Nietzsche could easily express the concept. 

Cinematographer Kamrul Hasan Khosru concentrated more on what the story of 'Mobaroknama' demanded rather than any conscious effort to do something cinematic, which was essential to do justice to the story. 

The masterful performance by chameleon actor Mosharraf Karim kept the audience glued to the screen. The esteemed actor is slowly having a change in his career by choosing only meaningful stories like Mahanagar (2021-2023) and Mobaroknama, which is great news for all of us. 

Nowrin Hasan Jenny, Sabman Faria, Shahnaz Sumi, and Shilpi Sarkar were very much spontaneous in their respective roles. The portrayal of Roman by Sayeed Zaman Shaon as a rapist has to be specially mentioned. 

His acting did not let the audience fix a certain judgement on the character, making the audience more curious about the story. 

Lastly, this has to be said in the very first season of the series, a very difficult struggle of human life to be an idealist in the absurdity of real life, where people get death sentences for crimes which they did not commit only for the mastery of a lawyer, has been brought into the script. This is the point that should be explored further in the next season.          

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