Netflix ‘Ray’ Review: A Whimsical, Entertaining Homage To Satyajit Ray That Makes Space For Female Characters!
When I watched my first Satyajit Ray films, I barely understood anything about the simplistic brilliance of his technical filmmaking. I’d like to think that’s still a work in progress. What I did understand and what made me respect the auteur’s work as a writer and storyteller was the internal journey of his complex characters. These were simple, realistic, humane stories of ordinary people and even in them, there was hidden an extraordinary story. It sounds quite pompous, but isn’t it true? Don’t we all think we’re heroes of our own stories? This year being Ray’s birth centennial, it is only apt that an homage to him be paid by adapting his stories to our times. After all, the human experience in it purest essence, is timeless. This occasion, coupled with the love Netflix has for anthologies, brought us Ray, a contemporary retelling of four Satyajit Ray short stories. Created by Sayantan Mukherjee, the films are directed by Srijit Mukherji, Abhishek Chaubey and Vasan Bala, and star Ali Fazal, Kay Kay Menon, Manoj Bajpayee and Harshvardhan Kapoor in lead roles.
The four stories are Forget Me Not, Bahrupiya, Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa and Spotlight which are retellings of Bipin Chowdhury’r Smritibhrom, Bahurupi, Barin Bhowmik-er Byaram (Barin Bhowmick’s Ailment) and Spotlight.
The additional cast includes Gajraj Rao, Shweta Basu Prasad, Shruthy Menon, Anindita Bose, Neeraj Purohit, Radhika Madan, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, Rajesh Sharma, Bidita Bag, Kharaj Mukherjee, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Loveleen Mishra, Manoj Pahwa and Raghuvir Yadav. Ray is written by Siraj Ahmed and Niren Bhatt, with cinematography by Swapnil Sonawane, Arkodeb Mukherjee, Anuj Rakesh Dhawan, Eeshit Narain and editing by Nitin Baid, Pranoy Dasgupta, Manas Mittal and Prerna Saigal.
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According to me, there could be three mindsets with which someone might watch Ray. The first is of the hardcore Satyajit Ray fans, the purists who revere the auteur’s work like it is untouchable and will probably never be satisfied with any other rendition of it, but will still be hung up on why the makers didn’t try hard enough or couldn’t get the nuances just right. The second is of the moderates, who have seen and respect Ray’s work but are open to looking at the anthology’s films as independent works too, that are united by the common thread of being individualistic spins on Ray’s stories rather than just recreations of his style.
And the third and most common is the mindset of the larger audience, regular folk who just want to watch the newest thing on Netflix, and get entertained. They don’t know about Ray’s intricate camerawork or the deeply nuanced ways in which he brought out the the complexity of human emotions. They probably won’t get the oodles of cinema references that are lovingly embedded in Spotlight either, which made the know-it-alls and movie buffs chuckle knowingly. They might not even know that most of these stories, such as Forget Me Not, originally did not have female characters in such prominence. They just want to watch Ray, and have a good time.
As someone who teetered between the second and third mindsets when she watched Ray, let me tell you, Ray is delightful, whimsical, and quite entertaining. In fact, not since Lust Stories, the first anthology that Netflix put forth for its Indian audience, have I actually enjoyed watching an anthology so completely. I do have a feeling Satyajit Ray purists might not particularly dig all the stories, but well….
Forget Me Not
Director: Srijit Mukherji
Cast: Ali Fazal, Shweta Basu Prasad, Anindita Bose, Shruthy Menon and more.
I might be reflecting the hubris of the protagonist when I say that I partially guessed what the big twist at the end might be. Ali Fazal’s character, Ipsit Nair, reminded me a lot of the men I’ve encountered in corporate culture. Their respect for other human beings is limited only to how much of use they can be to them, and they’re so engrossed in their own heads that they barely care two hoots about the lives of the people around them. I assumed that the women in his life too, belonged to the category of ‘use-and-throw’ people. Having not read the original story, and in hindsight finding out that the original did not have any female characters in relevant roles made me appreciate the upgrade it got, which felt organic.
Forget Me Not is a classic cautionary tale, much like the running theme of Ray is, that humans should not get too carried away with playing God because fortunes can be reversed any time. Fazal is incredibly measured in his performance as the man with the memory of a computer who has started to feel his invincibility chip away. He talked to me about how he focused on getting it right for the choreographed long shots, and their hard work has paid off. Swapnil Sonawane, with his camera, makes Forget Me Not look haunting. The women in this story are the real mystery, with Shweta, Shruthy and Anindita playing their parts well. I do think we should’ve gotten a little more information about Ipsit’s past and a glimpse of his eventual descent into madness.
Also Read: Netflix’s Ray: Ali Fazal, Shweta Basu Prasad, Shruthy Menon On ‘Forget Me Not’, Humans Playing God, And The Dark Spin On A Satyajit Ray Classic
Bahrupiya
Director: Srijit Mukherji
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Rajesh Sharma, Bidita Bag and more.
Bahrupiya instantly transported me to this very old fantasy story vibe, being set in Kolkata, showing bits of the city, its people, old office spaces and more. And perhaps that’s what made the magical realism so believable, when Kay Kay Menon’s character transforms via prosthetics and makeup after studying the tome his grandmother left him, full of secrets that were almost alchemical in that his soul also transformed in the process. Another exploration that was interesting was the power dynamic between him and the women in his life, how he reveres some but also demeans them, which I suppose was again not present in the original.
Bahrupiya is a story of a lonely, troubled man, who is given power that pushes him when he is already at the edge of a moral abyss. It’s a very interesting character, pitiful, almost unhinged with that light of good still burning, albeit sputtering in the wind. And Kay Kay Menon takes on this character with scary precision. His look reminded me so much of Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, and every second of watching him in action gave me chills. The conversations between the godman and Menon’s character were intense and some of my favourite scene in this episode.
Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Gajraj Rao and more.
Alright, we’re now coming to the two stories that absolutely had my heart. And this one tops the list! I want to say it is the magic of Manoj Bajpayee’s Musafir Ali, a ghazal singer who is hiding an embarrassing secret, and Gajraj Rao’s Baig, a former wrestler and now sports journalist who he meets on the train. But there’s so, so much more to Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa, not the least being Ghulam Ali’s beautiful ghazal (a favourite) woven into the story, as he sings about ‘chori’, which is the running theme of this story. Or is it conscience and repentance? Hmmm!
The story is cyclical; it begins on a train and ends on a train journey between these two characters, who have an interesting exchange of fates that reminded me so much of the Elder Wand’s history from Harry Potter. Only this one is less bloody and it isn’t the theft of a wand, but a beautiful gold Swiss pocket watch. The wheels of time and fortune both change unexpectedly, and cyclically and it’s just another one of those many layers that enrich this charming story.
I love the writing of this one; it’s beautiful, subtle and has a dream-like quality, as if it were a folklore. And quite unpredictable. It also made me laugh the most, and equal credits to the writer and the actors for evoking this lightness. The jugalbandi between Bajpayee and Rao is amazing, and the two cameos from veteran actors you’re going to see in the course of the story just complement them and elevate the appeal. I wish I could talk more and more about these, particularly the final scenes which have a nice, meta nod to Satyajit Ray. But this is a journey you gotta experience sans spoilers!
Spotlight
Director: Vasan Bala
Cast: Harshvardhan Kapoor, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor and Radhika Madan
In Spotlight, we see Harshvardhan Kapoor play Vik, an actor who is an international sensation, all because of his ‘one look’. That is, until, his confidence in his ‘look’ is ‘shook’ by the arrival of a godwoman called ‘Didi’, who also has ‘the divine look’. It’s an interesting tussle of vanities, a typical ‘mine is more powerful than yours’. And the ending isn’t very definitive, leaving room for you to wonder if it was all a game of self-perception and confidence or, in keeping with the theme of magical realism, there’s really something called a ‘divine look’!
Vasan Bala has such a unique voice, and if you didn’t love his Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, we can’t be friends yo! He brings that unique zing to Spotlight too, where he finds a way to not just tell a story about human insecurities and comment on the country’s political climate but also appease his cinema fanboy side. Spotlight is rife with meta references and nods to cinema. A Daniel Day Lewis reference here, a Martin Scorsese reference there (on Harshvardhan’s t-shirt!). I loved the jibes at the pretentious existentialism of that certain class of people, with usage of ‘Kafkaesque’ and ‘Lynchian’ adopted by the custodians of art and literature, who probably don’t know what it means but go ahead and use it to sound all-knowing. It cracked me up! There are nods to the master, Satyajit Ray himself; the film Vik is shooting is called Chiriyaghar, perhaps a reference to Ray’s Chiriyakhana (The Zoo)? Even the dialogues and scenes are a nostalgia trigger for Ray’s films!
But the best of all is how Didi’s character is written! Didi is a mystery, like most religious godmen and godwomen’s personas are. And then to have Radhika Madan revealed as this young woman who loved Bollywood, talks like a millennial and is actually unlike all that you’d think someone like her could be? In that brief role, Madan enchanted me! A huge shout out to Harshvardhan Kapoor as well, for playing his part to perfection. And Chandan Roy Sanyal is always, always a delight to watch!
Also Read: Sherni Review: Vidya Balan Starrer Isn’t About The Roar, But Silent Resilience. Did It Have To Be This Silent Though?
Verdict
The thing about classics is that everybody puts them on a pedestal, tries to compare every new work to that classic and dismisses it for not holding a candle to it. But in all this pretentious behaviour, they rarely take that classic down from the pedestal and actually go through it. That’s how inaccessible and off-putting they become (so much that Vasan Bala could probably incorporate a joke about this in his next work)! I don’t think a lot of the younger generation who claims to whisper Satyajit Ray’s name with the same reverence have even watched or taken the time to completely understand his works. And those that have, constantly live in the fear of their own work never being good enough. But isn’t cinema subjective to each and every person?
And, well, if everyone could replicate the Ray effect, would it be so special and rare then?
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What I enjoyed about Netflix’s Ray is how the filmmakers took these stories, and put their own touch to it, and in overt and covert ways, depicted the influence of Satyajit Ray on their brand of cinema. The most important thing for any ‘content’ today is that it be entertaining from a standalone perspective, which Ray absolutely is. The cast, especially the four leads, have done a remarkable job of playing these complex characters. I love the sometimes dark, sometimes playful tone of these stories, and the weaving in of magical realism which adds a certain charm to them, as if they’re all happening in this one separate universe, where one pen writes all their fates. Ray’s pen.
Ray is definitely a must-watch, whether or not you’ve watched Satyajit Ray films or simply love fascinating stories about the human experience. The series is currently streaming on Netflix.
