Economists term it the 'demonstration effect'. And if you've spent some time at the rural, feudal hinterlands of this country, you can tell how an incredulous fascination to outdo the neighbour, over hosting grand social functions, acquiring pompous assets or procuring patronage from those higher in social order, inevitably heralds the decline of the decadent, landed rich.

Ghosh sets his peculiar, passionate period piece (that some could perceive prurient) within one such household, where the debauched man of the house (Shroff, phenomenally proficient) is obsessed with two things.

One is, bearing an heir. For which he would go to any ridiculous lengths, including a pandit reciting tales of valour from sacred texts while he is having sex with his second wife (Khan).

Two, wrangling for himself a 'Rai Bahadur', a pre-independence Indian 'knighthood' the British bestowed on her most loyal subjects. For this too, he would go to any ridiculous lengths, including hiring a potter (Bachchan, hardly significant screen-time) to sculpt the face of Queen Victoria on the body of Goddess Durga - for the family's annual pooja idol.

Within these two obscure obsessions play out a reasonably captivating, complex drama suffused with the strongest sexual overtones that I've seen in recent memory. Every sub-plot - whether concerning the zamindar's frustrated first wife (Roopa Ganguly, absolutely brilliant), the wily priests, the sculptor and his creation, appear as flights of erotic fantasy, some quite contrived, and indulgently so.

What's most apparent is the film's ambition to reach out to international festival audiences, with an unnecessary British diarist who butts in with his two-bit narrations.

What's also apparent; as with most of Ghosh's works, is the deliberately slackened pace - not that you quite want to christen the film, Antar the drag-on!

For what fairly competently holds your attention and this film together, is an unusual premise, almost expertly executed, adeptly enacted. Quite interesting!

Rating: 3/5