Ray: Throwing A New light On Ray’s Creative World
Ray, an anthology based on Satyajit Ray‘s stories is released on Netflix recently. It’s being considered as a tribute to the great filmmaker in his birth centenary year. Here our ‘Rapid Reviewer’ Nilotpal Sen reviews the series. Nilotpal is a marketing executive by profession and a movie critic by love and passion.
Based on short stories written by Satyajit Ray, this anthology is a collection of four films created by Sayantan Mukherjee. Two of them are helmed by Srijit Mukherji , the other two directed by Abhishek Chaubey and Vasan Bala respectively.
Forget me not –
Ali Fazal perhaps in his career best role. However this one is the most bollywood-ish episode of all. The making is good, but the execution got messed up at the end. Expected the story to end well, but it got predictable and a little trimmed run time could have been better. Call back to Drishyam was a nice touch but not so subtle, as it should have been. Overall, watchable.
Bahurupiya:
Credit to the DoP for elevating this one, which I didnt like at all. Kaykay Menon being legendary as ever, was good. Rajesh Sharma does great as well with his part. This was the darkest episode of all but for some reason the final sequence didn’t leave that impact as I would’ve wanted it to. Indrashish’s complex wasn’t projected well enough and perhaps the one hour time was too short for this story to be told, as it could have been done with much more nuances. Dibyendu Bhattacharya was excellent in his role, and could have been used more. Thoroughly disappointed with Srijit, as he couldn’t get over his Vinci Da hangover.
Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa
– I absolutely loved this one. I have always said and I reiterate here that Manoj Bajpayee is the current torch bearer of Indian OTT scene. But it’s not just Manoj Bajpayee, we are treated with loved by all cutest Gajraj Rao opposite to him. It was a spectacle to watch them both in single frame exchanging dialogues that were beautifully written and directed by Abhishek Chaubey like we are watching a play. The way the train has been used is mindblowing, and the dream sequences are terrific, which even Ray would have been proud of. My favourite of the lot.
Spotlight:
This was not great, but a surprise for sure. Radhika Madan deserves more good roles, she is great in her small screen time. I can see Harshvardhan Kapoor growing as an actor with each film. He is very convincing as a narcissistic actor who is having a crisis. The chemistry between him and Chandan Roy Sanyal is terrific. This is probably the best way this story could have been improvised in today’s times, and this one is my second best after Hungama.
Overall it was fun to watch. And talking of justice to Ray‘s works, it depends on whether you have a mindset that classic stories shouldn’t be messed with or you think that literatures are meant to be upgraded for every generation.
