The Renaissance Man. Review on Satyajit Ray

This is my 25th review and I would like to dedicate it to my greatest idol, someone whom I have looked up to and admired all my life – Satyajit Ray. It is impossible to sum up the life and works of a multifaceted genius like him in a single review or even in a few books or documentaries, but here is my humble attempt. It is more a review about my perception of him and his films.

The magic of celluloid has fascinated me all my life. Like most kids, I was into cartoons and children’s films and even today like watching them. When I was in my early teens, my parents bought me videocassettes of three Bengali films namely ‘Goopy Gayne Bagha Bayne(GGBB)’, ‘Hirok Rajar Deshe (HRD)’ and ‘Pather Panchali’. Prior to that, I had not watched as many Bengali films and from what little I had watched, I did not find them as interesting.

But, to my surprise, I was captivated by the above three films for the first time. Of course, back then I did not understand much about film making, or shots and scripts in general, but in many ways, that was my introduction to a whole new world of films, the world of Satyajit Ray. While GGBBand HRD were loaded with humour, good music, sarcasm and kept me amused through out, Pather Panchali touched my heart.

Over the years, Satyajit Ray’s films have never ceased to amaze me. He is perhaps the only director of whom I have watched every single movie, many of them multiple times. Filmmakers like him are not born often and indeed we are lucky that a genius like him happened to be born in India. Movies made by Ray are like the rays of the sun, which will remain shinning, ever so bright.

Ray was fondly called “Manik”da – which means jewel in Bengali and truly lived upto the name. In his adloscence, he was very interested in Western Classical music and keenly studied it. After majoring in Economics from Calcutta, he also studied fine arts at Shantiniketan.

Years later he utilized his brilliant skills in artwork and music in various aspects of his movies when he became a filmmaker.  He composed the music of most of his films and his artwork illustrations can be seen in quite a number of his movies as well. We’ve often heard of the saying “Jack of all trades – master of none”, but the genius of Ray belies this phrase. Besides being a great director, he wrote the screenplay of almost all his films. Ray was a gifted writer and has authored many books and short stories, some of which have been made into films by him and his son.

One such collection includes ‘The Adventures of Feluda’. Perhaps talent was in his blood. Ray’s father and grandfather were acclaimed writers and illustrators of their own right. Ray’s father, Sukumar Ray wrote some of the most humorous passages that one could ever come across in Bengali literature (e.g: Abol Tabol - termed as the famous Nonsense Fantasy Rhymes), some of which were later translated by Satyajit Ray. Unfortunately,

I can’t read or write Bengali, and hence have missed out on some of the fascinating works that I have only heard about from friends and family. Ray was always passionate about cinema from childhood, and would take notes of movies he watched. His first job was that of a graphics illustrator in an advertising agency. While working there, he met reknowned French director Renoir, who is said to have inspired him to make his own movies some day.

Around that time, he was requested to compile illustrations for a children’s book edition of Pather Panchali,a novel written by Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay. Ray sketched page after page of the entire story in a ship while on a trip back to India from London. Thus the seeds of making Pather Panchali were sown, in the form of a storyboard, and the rest is history. After Pather Panchali was released, he resigned from his job at the ad agency plunged full time into film making.

Ray followed up Pather Panchali with Aparajito,which was a continuation of the story of Apu and his family. The film focused mainly on Apu’s childhood and adolescent years and the hardships that he faced. Ray then took a break from Apu and went on to make Paras Pathar, a comedy followed by Jalsaghar, starring one of the stalwarts of Bengali cinema, *Chabbi Biswas, who played the main protagonist of the film – that of an aging zamindar who chose to live his life in past glory.

Ray then returned back to complete the final instalment of Apu trilogy - Apur Sansar. This was the first time he worked with an actor named Soumitra Chatterjee, who would go on to be an integral part of most of Ray’s films in the future. This film also saw the introduction of another actress who went on to heights of popularity in both Bengali and Hindi cinema, *Sharmila Tagore. *She played the role of Apu’s wife in the film. It was another poignant film, which followed the ups and down’s of Apu’s adult life but ultimately ended with a ray of hope.

I have watched this movie several times. It’s a film that has always mesmerized me. In the ‘60s Ray continued to enthrall the world with films like Devi, which shed light on blind superstitions of the Indian society, Teen Kanya (a compilation of three short films- based on stories by Rabindranath Tagore, Postmaster, Monhihara and Samapti).

Postmaster explored the touching relationship that develops between a postmaster and a little girl in a village. Monihara was Ray’s first attempt at the horror genre, and Sampati was the story of a childish bride, who finally realizes her love for her husband. Ray then experimented with color for the first time in Kanchanjengha- starring Chabbi Biswas in a pivotal role.

The film dealt with the relationships of seemingly perfect family on vacation in Darjeeling. Like all Ray’s films, each character in this film is extremely well etched out. In fact, the location itself was like one of the characters of the movie. This is one of my favorite films from the master filmmaker.

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