A Fortaleza de Ouro

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.

A brilliant adaptation of Ray's own novel. An Indian road trip movie from 70's. The story is solid. Background music is awesome and the locations are fantastic. This film is 💯% perfect in every category. The acting performances are mind blowing, specially the iconic actor 'Soumitra Chatterjee' and the child actor 'Kushal Chakraborty'. This film proves how much versatility Satyajit Ray had. The legend director and the legend actor, together they made this film an 'Evergreen Movie'.

"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 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.

Satyajt Ray has always been revered at home and abroad as a true maestro but (especially in the West) it has been his serious cinema that have been the focus of all adulation and admiration. It is little known outside of his native Bengali community his equal brilliance at writing short stories and novels for children, including the creation of two of Bengali modern literature's most loved characters - Feluda and Professor Shonku.It is in this first screen adaption of one of his popular Feluda stories - Sonar Kella, that we see how far the man's creative dexterity really extended. I remember seeing this film when very young and till date it remains evergreen in my memory, so much so that when I think back on the very many memorable moments from it, my subconscious extracts images from how it appeared on the cinema screen, rather than on TV - this in-spite of numerous repeat viewings on broadcast,video and now DVD. That is saying a lot for the indelible first impressions that this movie made on me.Like most great directors, Ray was blessed with a special empathy and "connect" that enabled him to extract remarkably natural performances from children, even very young ones - this is never more manifest in any of his other movies(with the notable exception of his first - The Song of the Road), especially in the scene when a child actor, playing a bit part, recounts his experiences while being mistakenly kidnapped and held captive instead of the main protagonist - completely mindblowingly natural. Apart from the great background score (composed by ray himself),technical polish,perfect casting,great performances,superb editing and cinematography, this film stands out for the outstanding,larger than life portrayal of the state of Rajasthan(almost like a character) and it's unique natural beauty and romanticism,characterized by deserts,camels,forts,peacocks,steam engines,mystery men and vibrant colours. This lent the movie a Hollywood summer blockbuster action/adventure sheen, which has never before or since been achieved in Bengali cinema. Brilliant!!!