I stumbled upon works of Ray very late , may be in around 2008 , I had already touched my thirties and had my own likes , dislikes and interest when it comes to creative thing ,specially cinema. I took special interest creative things like plays, literature etc since childhood since I was in schools but somehow avoided Satyajit Ray from my domain.
In child hood we followed Bhanendra Nath Saikia, Jahnu Baruah and whatsoever were available from Assam. Thanks to Sunday noon award-winning movies in noon shows we had the luck to watch some of the best cinema from south. We liked south Indian cinema for their diverse plot and technical brilliance .
Our groups icons were Shyam Bengal, Mani Ratnam , little bit of Gobind Nihlani.
I kept asking myself - Why I missed Satyajit Ray in childhood? There may be many reasons ..the scenes from Pather Panchali frequented in TV . They looked very depressing . May be I thought his cinema would be dealing with poverty and sadness Or May be regionalism in Assam is to blame but still then I liked few of the Aparna Sens movie so it was not really hundred percent regionalism to blame for it.
In my twenties I thought I upgraded my creative taste .. got hooked by French/ Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski . I also ventured into the Iranian movie , classic new wave French cinema and all ..my affinity to deeper subject made me watch many good but depressing cinema specially from Eastern Europe. I was sad seeing all those nihilism filled vibes.
Seeing my complex taste, One of my friend who was also a movie/crime novel buff and Arthur Conan Doyle fan recommend me Feluda. I never explored that genre till I was around 30. I liked it very much . I liked it a lot and helped my to go out of the nihilistic genre. Then read his other stuff like short stories , memoirs (chelebela) all was full with life wit and humour and depth.
Then my friend had shown me one short documentary he made on Sukumar Ray and I loved it. So I decided to watch Apus tribology. I was thirty two or three then. It was around 2010 , Satyajit Ray dead for about 18 years.
And found how brilliant. My earlier vibes that he tells sad stories about poor people was completely wrong. May be then only I matured as a movie buff (just before my retirement as a hardcore world cinema lover. Off course story vs plot or Ghatak vs Ray or other academic discourse like that will continue, that is a healthy sign it seems.
He was both movie maker, a writer , illustrator , writer for children (but adults liked them too). I decided to explore more and found his illustration, book cover design , music interest , writing for children and found them highly inspiring and then only acknowledged what a genius he was.
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Well it was too late ..he left much earlier then that and after that with inclusion of modern life , professional pressure could not persuade my interest of looking into great world cinematic happening all around the world.
Not only me the world changed drastically after that (from my thirties till date until pandemic struct the structure of everything.)
I had no time for cinema or OTT platform since last nine years . But when I saw advertisement of Ray in Netflix to commemorate 100 years of the master I thought yes! let’s try this new stuff called OTT which many people talks about but I never got any time for all those luxury.
Watched few world cinema in it but my primary objective was -Ray.
Watched all the episodes that have been played now and here is my feeling
Netflix has made it keeping their target audience in mind. Their cast , location, language used, light and all process of storytelling reflects that.
In contrast most of the Rays works looked real. Most of them looked through middle class Bengali characters who are plotted in unique condition which was made into a unique story for all.
Over the years the taste, language and body language of people has changes. As told by friends from film fraternity language of cinema has also changed drastically.
May be keeping the target audience bin mind Netflix intentionally did it like this.
Because uniqueness of the stories , fast paced story telling new generation will like it. I to enjoyed few episodes and moment s of many episodes and of course the plot woven by the master. Still the difference is the character seemed to be about 'someone' in the OTT sphere. Whereas in most of the Rays movie and in writing the characters looked all the real person somewhere existing in person.
Till now most interesting episode is Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa ... Manoj Bajpai and most of the other characters and the dialogue were fluid the best episode so far.
In Bahurupiya Kay Kay was in his usual best , but I think maker tried to overdo many thing but still Kay Kay and the story manged to keep everything intact
Spotlight was average ….and the first show -Forget me not was not good at all .
Let’s hope in forthcoming episodes if any they try to make it more real and interesting .
