jyry73

It is a very difficult task to capture life and philosophy of a character like Lalon fakir in couple of hours of celluloid time. Gautom Ghose took that challenge and did a commendable job in capturing not only Lalon fakir's character but also essence of Baul culture in "Moner Manush". Cinematography is lyrical, bringing the best of rural Bengal. Presence of only minimum necessary numbers of characters in scenes gives a sense of serenity which helps to focus more on main characters of story. Presenting the Baul songs in Gayaki style blended well with overall ambiance of the movie. Except the title "Hey o re hey o" which seems out of place and unnecessary. The voice of Laitf Shah is quite in discord with Prasenjit's voice but the protagonist does well to express songs with his acting to divert viewers' attention from the mismatch of voice.

Asad, Prasenjit and Chanchal have excelled in acting. In the first half of the movie, while navigating through Lalon's childhood, screenplay is very weak and jumpy. Other than Asad and on some occasions young Lalon, most actors from first half of the movie are very ordinary. It is disheartening to see veterans like Hasan Imam, Laila Hasan can not get in to their characters. It is as much a weakness of actors as of the director. In the second half of the movie screenplay gets more compact and acting gets better which make up more than enough for the weakness in the first half. Quality of makeup was also found wanting.

Overall it is a very good movie. Even after weeks of watching it keeps echoing inside.