Joi Baba Felunath

With very little frills, the story is more than wonderful. The characters of Feluda, Topesh and Jatayu have been vividly portrayed and Utpal Dutt played his role just too well. The alternate humorous and serious scenes kept up the goodness of the story.

A point worth noting is the intelligent way of revealing the mystery at the end of the story which did not appear throughout the film. There was no main mystery and the watchers knew from the very first scene that Maganlal Meghraj (Utpal Dutt) was the villain. Yet there were shots which were kept unexplained. However, the watchers made no attempt to put they grey matter into work as they, most naturally, assumed those scenes to be insignificant --- a bit of smoke that Meghraj noticed behind the curtains, the hiding of a diamond in Jatayu's story, the Lucknow Station on the radio and a lot more.

The brilliant climax was unexpected and still stands out of the other ordinary films.

Feluda is a Bengali Sherlock Holmes, created by Satyajit Ray himself in 1965, in hugely successful children's books, which had multiple film adaptations, two of them directed by Satyajit Ray himself, Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress) from 1974 and a sequel, this Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God) from 1979, both starring Soumitra Chatterjee, accompanied by his young cousin Tapesh, played by Siddartha Chatterjee and the comic character of the series, the crime novelist Jatayu, played by Santosh Dutta (who was actually a criminal lawyer).

Feluda is an institution of Bengali culture and Indian children's literature.

Sandip Ray, Satyajit's son, kept the series successful, making dozens of films for cinema and television. The character also originated an animated film in 2010, several radio series, since the 80s, comics, internet series, music and documentaries.

In this film, Satyajit Ray shows a more playful side, both in terms of script and set of characters, far from the realistic drama that made him famous in the West, but which is nonetheless exemplary and had a tremendous influence. A true icon of Indian culture, particularly of the Bengali community.

The way Satyajit played with light and shadow is a thing of enjoyment! And the folk music he used at perfect moments!

I read some Feluda stories in my childhood. Since then I haven't ventured towards the book of the ace sleuth written by Ray that have endeared him to millions across the globe. I have seen several films of the detective though, two directed by Satyajit Ray himself, and quite a few directed by his son Sandip Ray. Among the multiplicity of themes that Ray explored in his films and in his writings, one often finds a thematic recurrence interspersed among his works. The core theme in JOYBABA FELUNATH - about a thriving business involving smuggling of heritage art objects from India to the West was also seen in his book KAILASHE KELENKARI, which has been made into a film by Sandip Ray. The penchant of Ray to showcase rare skills such as jugglery (Phatikchand) is again seen in this film in the spine-chilling act of a skilled marksman aiming at humans - it was filmed on 'Jatayu.' JOYBABA .. is an engaging, suspenseful film from the master filmmaker. The film has the Hindu holy city of Benaras as the backdrop. Apart from a fine performance by Soumitro Chatterjee in the role of Feluda, the film was elevated several notches by the terrific performance of Utpal Dutta as Maganlal Meghraj - rarely has Utpal Dutta looked so menacing as a villain, his act in Bollywood films playing the evil man was mostly comical. The pivotal child character in the film, endearing called Captain Spark, brought out the child that used to reside in Ray who was enchanted by magic, mysterious occurrences & other aspects of the supernatural, besides his love of adventure. Rating; 4 out of 5

The movie is about a idol theft from the house of a old-time Benares family. Feluda, who is in Benares on holiday with his cousin and assistant Topshe and the inimitable Jatayu, is asked to help find the thief. The story moves along at a fast clip from the opening scenes when we see the holidaying trio arrive in rickshaws, with Jatayu having to constantly raise his folded hands to his forehead as they pass one temple after another. Ray is a master at showing the timeless beauty of this ancient city with its ghats, bazaars, havelis and gallis, and leverages this to the fullest to transform a mundane whodunit with a twist into a moody, sensuous, intensely funny and hauntingly musical piece of cinema which transcends its humble subject matter, but still delivers a darkly dreadful murder scene!