आगंतुक

Simple and eloquent. The Stranger may be too charming for many of today's hipsters. A bit corny perhaps, but corn tastes great when it's cooked properly. The acting alone is worth the price of admission. If this was Ray's swan song, I'm sure he's resting in peace. Bravo, maestro!

What a beautiful film, full of subtleties and ironies. It requires one to contemplate the nature of identity and what one really wants in life. How well do we know our relatives; and, more importantly, how well do we know ourselves? The film beautifully portrays a wide range of emotions with sensitivity as well as hummer. It also includes a mesmerizing indigenous dance performance which contrasts the middle-class world of the protagonists, awakening them to another world. The "stranger" or the long-lost uncle is a marvel, evoking laughter and tears. All in all, delightful throughout. For some reason foreign cinema continues to go unrecognized, while American studios continue to invest inaction movies that only insult intelligence to an already overly ridiculed nation. Watch it you will enjoy it immensely.

This remarkable film is in many ways a self portrait of Satyajit Ray because he was none other than an anthropologist and philosopher in the true sense of playful, childlike wonder. This is the the story of how how a life of curiousity and wonder have to survive in this cruel and foolish world which judges everything in materialistic terms. The philosopher is always and everywhere a stranger,though full of joy, simplicity and wonder at Being which is fervently demonstrated in the 'cosmic magician' sequence. Only those with the child in them alive will understand!

Enchanting film that carefully builds on its music and bakground and mysticism. The characters all are "agantuk" (outsiders) in their own way, and none so much as the man who prides himself on being most conventional until his world is turned upside down. On the surface, this is a marvelous essay on trust and identity and spirituality. Dig further, it is this and much more.

It is possible and dangerous to read too much into a director's final film as being a "swan song" or a "culmination," and it seems to be an easy "insight" by those unable to come up with something better. But here we have a veritable summation and a compelling final statement of a brilliant career.

Whenever I watch an S. Ray film, I always feel lost trying to find a main theme or thrust in the story. Here we have several: ancient custom vs. technology, self-discovery, mystery/doubt, etc. But they all co-mingle in this extraordinarily complex character (based on Ray himself no doubt, hence the high level of insight). His was a cinema of life, scattered and bewildering, yet sublimely beautiful.

Still, Ray remains one of the few great directors from his era who never quite mastered the use of colour. Indeed, the lingering shots of images lacks the power of say the chandelier in "Jalsaghar," and the regret and sorrow on the faces of the family doesn't come anywhere close to the final scenes of "Pather."

On top of this we have Ray trying most explicitly to be philosophical. Some of Manmohan's laments on civilisation resemble passages from "Notes From Underground," and we even have the husband talking about having to "put two and two together," but these themes seem to be mentioned for the sake of mentioning them. Ray, like Manmohan, was an anthropologist, not a philosopher. Still, there are some deeply touching moments in this overall capably and thoughtfully made film.

3 out of 5 - Some strong elements