Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne

Bhooter raja dilo bor, jobor jobor teen bor... We have never had ghosts that are so friendly and funny. We loved their nasal intonation and the two wide-eyed out-of-tune musicians, Goopy and Bagha, who receive boons from them. We loved the kingdoms of Shundi and Halla where music stopped people in their tracks, the wily magician Borfi and, of course, the terrific Tapen Chatterjee-Rabi Ghosh combo. One of the most delightful films ever made.

Hirak Rajar Deshe

Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne was in monochrome; Hirak Rajar Deshe woke us up to the splendour of a Ray fantasy film. The colourful costumes, the fascinating courtrooms, the jewels guarded by the king’s tiger, the mogojdholai... A little more than a decade after Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Hirak Rajar Deshe also came with a coded message. It’s an allegory of contemporary politics. Hence, famine-stricken Bengal, where Goopy and Bagha use their three boons to right the wrongs of the greedy Diamond king and give a bunch of children a taste of freedom. Soumitra Chatterjee adds to the drama as the rebellious schoolteacher who leads the uprising against the dictatorship of Utpal Dutt.

Two

The 16-minute black-and-white short had its first public screening at the 14th Calcutta Film Festival on Tuesday. Two was made in 1964 as part of a trilogy of short films from India, commissioned by US Public Television. It’s about two boys, one rich and the other poor, and how their worlds collide, for which Ray didn’t use any dialogue.

The rich kid lives in a sprawling mansion and sips on Coca Cola. The poor kid in tattered clothes lives in a slum and plays the flute. Drawn by the sound of the flute, the rich kid looks out of his window one afternoon. He spots the poor boy and starts blowing his plastic trumpet. What follows is a game of one-upboyship which ends with the rich kid shooting at the poor kid’s kite with a toy rifle.

Sonar Kella

Feluda’s first screen outing is as thrilling as Ray’s storytelling in the book. The intriguing tale of little Mukul’s extraordinary powers of remembering his past life and retracing the “golden fort” is a heady mix of adventure, mystery, action, comedy and the paranormal.

The panoramic Jaisalmer is as breathtaking as Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu’s thrilling ride on train, car and camel. We discovered Soumitra Chatterjee as Feluda and Santosh Dutta as the inimitable Jatayu with his hilarious antics and one-liners.

Joi Baba Felunath

Old-world Varanasi is the setting for a new-age crime, where Feluda meets his match in the ruthless Maganlal Meghraj. The holy town with the Ganga, boats, ghats, sadhus, wrestlers, old houses and winding lanes is the perfect foil for a murder mystery revolving around a stolen Ganesha in a Bengali household.

We loved Feluda’s unmasking of Machhlibaba and the war of wit with Captain Spark. And the tension when a juggler pins Jatayu to the board with a row of knives in Maganlal’s den.