The Elephant God

With very little frills, the story is more than wonderful. The characters of Feluda, Topesh and Jatayu have been vividly portrayed and Utpal Dutt played his role just too well. The alternate humorous and serious scenes kept up the goodness of the story.

A point worth noting is the intelligent way of revealing the mystery at the end of the story which did not appear throughout the film. There was no main mystery and the watchers knew from the very first scene that Maganlal Meghraj (Utpal Dutt) was the villain. Yet there were shots which were kept unexplained. However, the watchers made no attempt to put they grey matter into work as they, most naturally, assumed those scenes to be insignificant --- a bit of smoke that Meghraj noticed behind the curtains, the hiding of a diamond in Jatayu's story, the Lucknow Station on the radio and a lot more.

The brilliant climax was unexpected and still stands out of the other ordinary films.

The sequel of 'Sonar Kella'. And much better in art and camera. I mentioned earlier that Ray was an admirer of Benares' geometry and loved shooting there. You will find another set of cooler shots of the alleys of the city, which itself is a metaphor to a detective story. Contrary to the previous film, we will get to know about all the guilts at the end of this movie. And, the best villain played by the great Utpal Dutt. Someone told me West Anderson was inspired by the symmetrical shots here, to use later in his movies.

Feluda, The Bengali Sherlock Holmes comes alive on screen again in this highly entertaining film. Based on the book and characters written by Ray himself he did a great job in creating a good follow up to the highly successful and intriguing 'Sonar Kella – The Golden fort '. Just like in the previous movie this one also contains a bunch of colorful characters played by the Crème de la crème of Bengali cinema most notably Mr. Utpal Dutta who plays a shady businessman involved in smuggling antiquities. This one is about a theft of a very valuable antique gold statue. So in comes Feluda accompanied by his faithful Topshe and the very hilarious Jatayu (Santosh Dutta at his comic best) and he is asked to investigate the theft by the owner and if possible retrieve the invaluable statue. The entire movie is set in the holy city of Varanasi and we get to witness a lot of the religious ceremonies associated with Hinduism and how the crime has intertwined itself with it. A lot of suspense and some very funny segments(especially the one with Jatayu and the knife thrower) make this movie totally worth the watch. It may not be a Sonar Kella but it definitely is in a class of its own. I recommend this film very highly. You will not be disappointed.

It's another masterpiece from Satyajit & Saumitra combo...2nd making of detective feluda series...

I read some Feluda stories in my childhood. Since then I haven't ventured towards the book of the ace sleuth written by Ray that have endeared him to millions across the globe. I have seen several films of the detective though, two directed by Satyajit Ray himself, and quite a few directed by his son Sandip Ray. Among the multiplicity of themes that Ray explored in his films and in his writings, one often finds a thematic recurrence interspersed among his works. The core theme in JOYBABA FELUNATH - about a thriving business involving smuggling of heritage art objects from India to the West was also seen in his book KAILASHE KELENKARI, which has been made into a film by Sandip Ray. The penchant of Ray to showcase rare skills such as jugglery (Phatikchand) is again seen in this film in the spine-chilling act of a skilled marksman aiming at humans - it was filmed on 'Jatayu.' JOYBABA .. is an engaging, suspenseful film from the master filmmaker. The film has the Hindu holy city of Benaras as the backdrop. Apart from a fine performance by Soumitro Chatterjee in the role of Feluda, the film was elevated several notches by the terrific performance of Utpal Dutta as Maganlal Meghraj - rarely has Utpal Dutta looked so menacing as a villain, his act in Bollywood films playing the evil man was mostly comical. The pivotal child character in the film, endearing called Captain Spark, brought out the child that used to reside in Ray who was enchanted by magic, mysterious occurrences & other aspects of the supernatural, besides his love of adventure. Rating; 4 out of 5