In India, Henrik Ibsen’s works have inspired a range of theatrical and cinematic reinterpretations that engage with local realities while retaining the emotional and intellectual power of the originals. This paper examines two such cinematic reworkings: Tamal Dasgupta's Bhalo Meye Kharap Meye (Good Girl Bad Girl, 2019), a film primarily based on the noted Bengali author Suchitra Bhattacharya's novel of the same title but also loosely inspired by A Doll's House and K. P. Kumaran's Aakasha Gopuram (Castle in the Air, 2008), an adaptation of The Master Builder, and explores how they reimagine Ibsen's concerns for contemporary Indian audiences.
In Bhalo Meye Kharap Meye, Nora's quest for selfhood is transformed into a critique of urban patriarchy, sexual violence, and the commodification of women's suffering in modern Kolkata. Through the character of Urmi, the film revisits the spirit of Nora's rebellion while grounding it in social realities specific to contemporary Bengal. In contrast, Aakasha Gopuram turns away from social realism toward questions of ambition, guilt, desire, and artistic obsession, offering a psychologically driven interpretation of The Master Builder.
Drawing on adaptation studies and postcolonial theory, the paper argues that these films are not straightforward translations of Ibsen but creative acts of cultural reinterpretation. They demonstrate how a playwright introduced to India through colonial channels has been appropriated, transformed, and localised by regional filmmakers. Ultimately, these cinematic adaptations reveal the continuing relevance of Ibsen in India, where his works provide a powerful means of exploring questions of gender, identity, power, and human aspiration in a postcolonial context.
Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman is Professor of English and Director of the Kazi Nazrul Islam and Abbasuddin Ahmed Research & Study Centre at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), Dhaka. He graduated from the Department of English at the University of Dhaka and earned both his MPhil and PhD in Ibsen Studies from the University of Oslo, Norway. Throughout his academic career, he has held several leadership positions, including Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, Head of the English Discipline, Director of the Institutional Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), and Director of the Fine Arts Institute at Khulna University.
Ahsanuzzaman has directed seven student theatre productions, including adaptations of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (2006), A Doll's House (2017), and Hedda Gabler (2025), as well as Shakespeare's Hamlet. His recent scholarly publications in Ibsen and performance studies include “Artifact as Digihistory: Re-viewing Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh Through Ibsen's Brand” (Springer Nature, 2023) and “Constructing a New Identity Space for Women in Post-colony: Sambhu Mitra's Production of A Doll's House” (Routledge, 2023).
His latest publication is a creative work titled Ibsen Encounters Tagore: A Brechtian Play, published in The Business Standard on 20 March to commemorate Ibsen's 198th birthday. He is currently organizing the Ibsen-Fosse Festival Bangladesh 2026, to be held on 30 September, which will feature the first-ever staging of a Jon Fosse play in Bangladesh. The production, Suzannah, has been translated into Bangla by Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman and Subah Binte Ahsan, and is being directed by Ahsanuzzaman.
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