Sonar Kella

"Sonar Kella" (Golden Fortress ) , these words evoke a lot of sentiment in not only me , in any average Bengali . Lot of us grew up reading this story and knew the story by heart. So Satyajit Ray must have a tough time adapting this story for his film. But it had been done perfectly, the way only the genius like him could do. Soumitra Chatterjee , the brilliant actor he was , portrayed " Feluda" with implacable perfection . Santosh Datta made the role "Jatayu" (Lalmohan Ganguly) of his own. He was so good in his role that Satyajit Ray started to sketch "Jatayu" resembling him in his Feluda stories. Kamu Mukherjee as Mandar Bose also acted brilliantly in his evil character. But I don't know why nobody talked about Siddhartha Chatterjee in his role of Topshe. After Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath, number of Feluda films , TV series were made , but no one could compete him as "Topshe". For me, he had born for that role. The film is set on the backdrop of Rajasthan . It is present in the film in its full glory. The local music is also used by the Satyajit Ray . Rajasthan's sand, music, camels , forts and people helped this film reach a level which Bengali audience rarely got to see in films. The primary target audience of this film was kids. But Satyajit Ray , knowingly or unknowingly, somehow managed to remove the invisible boundary between Adult and Kid worlds and created a magical form of art which is acceptable to all.

This is an Indian Road Trip Movie, from the 1960's. The story is solid, and the pace is appropriate.

If you do not understand Bengali, you will definitely miss a lot of the innuendos, and the subtitles will not help you out with their literal translation! The young child is an excellent actor, and I wasn't surprised to see that he is now a very successful actor in Tollywood movies (Bollywood is the Hindi movie industry based in Bombay/Mumbai, Tollywood is the Bengali movie industry, based out of Tollygunj in Kolkata).

The cinematography works well, and does present an evocative view of India 40-45 years ago.

The DVD print isn't great for the night scenes...that is the only drag on an otherwise excellent movie.

This is an excellent film. Satyajit Ray's genius is evident in each and every scene. The characters are portrayed beautifully. Soumitra Chatterjee is superb as 'Feluda'. One of my favorites is Kamu Mukherji as Mandar Bose. The range of emotions shown and the comic touch in his actions and dialogue are excellent. The change in his facial expression when he is trying to match Mukul's face with his photograph in the train is amazing.

Of course, everyone's darling Santosh Dutta as "Jatayu" is very good too. He portrays the average Bengali babu's role to perfection. "Topshe's" role as a eager and jovial teenager is well suited too.

The transitions between scenes are very nice - they help maintain the pace of the film. The background music leaves a beautiful impression. You may need to watch the film more than once to notice the subtle connections between certain dialogues and visual clues.

The dialogues are crisp and delivery is fantastic. Unfortunately, you would need to know the Bengali language to fully enjoy their impact - the loss in translation is inevitable.

Not one moment in the film is boring - if you want to be entertained as well as intellectually stimulated - this film is for you. Needless to say, I have watched it many times and I have a copy in my personal collection.

First of all, I think I'll add a short introduction to Feluda stories. Among over two-hundred novels and stories Ray had written especially for teenagers, the detective stories of Feluda are by far the most popular. With calculated amounts of wit, suspense, action and humor, the stories are considered classics of modern Bengali literature. So it was not surprising that he would make one of them for the screen.

As a book, "Sonar Kella" is one of the all-time bestsellers. Now I have seen the film about ten times and what fascinated me is how Ray changed the whole structure of the book while making this film. The novel is a fantastic detection story with sharp plot twists. But Ray thought the concept of detection as a theme in this film will not make the viewers see it more than once. So he makes it more like a modern thriller -- he showed the crime and criminals at first and now the theme becomes how Feluda unfolds it. That's why crime and detection is not the only theme of this film. There is plenty of humor and excellent visionary of Rajasthan too. Ray primarily directed the film to his readers but also made sure it satisfies all kinds of audience.

Another point I want to make: if the viewer doesn't know Bengali and relies on subtitles, he/she misses a good percentage of its fun. That part lies on its extremely witty screenplay where often Ray literally played with the words. Among the actors, Soumitra Chatterjee is quite good as Feluda, at least he was the best for this part in that time. Santosh Dutta virtually created the character of Jatayu. It became his trademark role. And one must mention the flamboyant and passionate performance of Kamu Mukherjee as the villain Mandar Bose.

The film features all of Ray's trademark styles -- in artwork, in script, in the camera angles and original music. And it remains an all-time family classic in the history of Indian cinema.

Well those who are not aware of who Feluda the protagonist of this movie is won't be able to get the real flavor of the flick.But for a Feluda fan like me Sonar Kella is truly a masterpiece.Feluda, a private investigator is one of the most underrated detectives in the world of fiction but perhaps one of the most interesting characters of Indian novels and stories.Sonar Kella is one of his early adventures and it is the story where he and his cousin meets the brilliant Jatayu, the comic element and an author of detective stories.The greatness of the movie is that it successfully portrays the original characters so much so that you just wonder which was made earlier,the story or the movie itself,very much like The Godfather.Hardly you will come across such a successful adaptation of a novel.Soumitra Chatterjee as Feluda and Santosh Dutta as Lalmohan Ganguly(Jatayu is his pen name)are simply amazing.The supporting actors too have done a commendable job.It is not a flawless film.Still that can be forgiven as its target audience were the kids.Cinematography was brilliant,so was the selection of the locations in Rajasthan where most of the film was made.Watch it not just for its director but for its lead actors and its brilliant screenplay.Don't forget to show this to your kids.Jatayu is gonna make them laugh for sure.Good work done.