Ray - 1 Story That Sears, Others That Steer A Little Clear

A new anthology has been released on Netflix. How quickly and easily does one suspect it of conforming to the usual standard of being only partially successful in living up to its promise, of several bite-sized pieces of cinematic storytelling failing to assemble together for a cohesive experience or conveying a shared theme with the same level of consistency. But surely, there would be promise, wouldn't it, in what this anthology sets out ambitiously to do - to traverse and then adapt the hitherto still-uncharted realm of short fiction written by arguably the greatest filmmaker that this country had ever produced. Previously, we have had to sit and also flick with boredom through anthologies conceived on Lust, Horror, Marriage and even the present lock-down scenario; at least, with Ray, we will be reminded, even by the weakest or most offensively bad installment in the series, that one of these days, we ought to be visiting the nearest bookshop and perhaps start reading these little-known stories for ourselves. 

This writer will confess to the same ignorance. I have read only two of the four stories that have been adapted for the streaming screen by the three directors at the helm of this anthology and perhaps, for better or for worse, being both lightly familiar and still largely fresh to his fiction, which is, of course, nothing to be proud of. That is also why I found this collection of stories both admirable in their overarching ambition and also mildly disappointing in how, like any other anthology in this burgeoning streaming platform, it is marred, to some extent, by the same problem of inconsistency. From the little that I have read, though, one can deduce that these stories are to be admired for their light, almost simple prose, for their subtle realism and their dry wit and most crucially in their neutral deconstruction of human incongruities. Considering these qualities, then, there is one episode that hits the mark on every level, another that fits a story with agreeable neatness into a modern context and two that fail quite embarrassingly due to some fundamental flaw or the other. 

The failures, then, first. Mr. Srijit Mukherji's Baharupiya is supposed to be the most intriguing of the four stories chosen. It is a tale of a literal human chameleon, using his skill of disguise relentlessly, turned here into an unexpected yarn of revenge. And true to that last part, Mr. Mukherji buttons down all the fantastical possibilities of the story and seems to be more interested in transforming his downbeat protagonist - a failure of an office clerk who moonlights as a make-up artist and then resorts to the latter as a way of striking back at an exaggeratedly hostile world - as an overly vain anti-hero who eventually deserves or warrants none of our sympathy or feeling. 

Mr. Kay Kay Menon, normally an actor gifted at playing the many shades of grey morality, here too feels straitjacketed with a character who goes from complaining affectedly about how life treats him unfairly to a bitter, burnt-out shell of false nobility. This is less of the actor's fault, however; Mr. Menon's gaunt, almost hunched frame and bespectacled face lined with misgiving are convincing to behold on their own without the prosthetic disguises that he puts on unnecessarily out of malice rather than artistic curiosity. The fault here must be of the director and the writer Mr. Siraj Ahmed, to orchestrate not only his futile acts of revenge but also his brutal catharsis with amateurish clumsiness without ever investing us in both the character and narrative. The dialogue jars in its stilted fashion, the supporting cast are mostly dispensable and one-note; there is an over-reliance on tawdry pulp rather than actual realism for the sake of cheap shock value. And most unforgivably, the decision to film the story in Calcutta holds merely decorative purpose without ever playing any part of importance in the proceedings.

Dialogue, on the other hand, is the least of the problems of the other disappointing episode in this quartet. Spotlight, directed by Mr. Vasan Bala, starts off most interestingly and sets up, again, a fantastic confrontation between religion and cinema, both favourite themes of the cinematic storyteller. At least its characters - a starlet, ironically, of limited histrionic ability and his street-wise manager and friend - talk like how a starlet and a streetwise manager should talk; one of the few redeeming qualities in this installment seems to be the fast-talking repartee between these unlikely friends, the preening, entitled film prince and the knowing aide. And Mr. Bala has an interestingly whimsical aesthetic to his storytelling, something faintly reminiscent of Mr. Terry Gilliam's fantasies that also approach the profundity of satire. 

The story plays fast and loose with the original narrative and throws in a cinephile's vocabulary of references to Mr. Ray's films, especially his unique "entertainments" but too much loose creativity becomes its own detriment. Again, it is hard to believe in this story or feel anything beyond cynicism for any of its characters. The narrative beats are too forcefully audacious and the jokes at film producers, self-entitlement, mediocrity and even shallow religion are too obvious, as if Mr. Bala is always conscious of drawing attention to his whimsical aesthetic. And casting Mr. Harshvardhan Kapoor, a boy better at playing straight, even surly lads on the screen, as this twisted and showy starlet beggars belief. By being woefully unable to convey more than a single expression, Mr. Kapoor only ends up inhibiting his character's skin too close for comfort. 

Mr. Mukherji's other film in this ensemble, Forget Me Not, happens to be one of the few stories that I had read and it fares better than these two films, thanks to a smooth use of its actors and its earnest effort in fleshing out its central character with just the right amount of backstory without interrupting its forward flow. A shrewd, smartly dressed and successful businessman, spoken highly for his elephant's memory, is accosted by a woman who claims that they had not only met before but had also been in a tempestuous affair as well. Unfortunately, this young and preening Big Shot cannot quite remember this particular episode of his life and slowly, his life begins to unravel with disastrous consequences. 

Mr. Mukherji's hand is more assured here. This is essentially a high-strung melodrama pretending to be a psychological thriller but at least we find it a more believable kind of melodrama than usually served to us. There is something particularly convincing about this inscrutably successful man and the skeletons that he has hidden carefully in his closet and there is something even more lifelike about the urban relationships, both normal and affected, that he shares with people both at home and work. Mr. Ali Fazal deserves more than generous applause for playing this casually condescending but vulnerable businessman with both ease and despair. Even as the film ends with an explanation of incidents that is too long-winded, it is at least truer in spirit to the disorientation conveyed by Mr. Ray in the original story. 

The best, as they say, is to be reserved for the last. I find myself smiling with a twinkle in my eyes thinking of Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa. Mr. Abhishek Chaubey is a director of rare skill and real storytelling ability and also, most important, a director who is fond of language and its indispensability in storytelling. All these abilities come to the fore and more than that, this is also a testament to his skill in understanding his source material. This is easily the finest film that I found in this anthology, the crowning jewel of this mostly odd collection and the reasons are too many to put down here. 

The story itself is simplicity, more admirably loyal to Mr. Ray's story of two strangers in a train who seem to have met in a train before as well but to that, the makers have added a rich intricacy that gains on new meanings, both poetic and gently amusing. Mr. Chaubey's normal skill for realism is complemented adequately by his unexpected gift of visual idiom; reality, imagination, dreams and nightmares blend together seamlessly held in place by a visual aesthetic that feels naturally, unhurriedly evocative and the verses of Urdu ghazals either quoted eloquently in conversation or playing as background music. That is what I meant when I said that this is a film fond of language, of the rich tapestry of Urdu and its bejewelled intricacies. The film takes you in unexpected directions even as the denouement is clearly in sight and while in the other films, there was always a sense of apprehension or cynicism, what makes this the most perfect of adaptations is how, even with its imaginative and artistic detours, it still retains and even enriches the wisdom, humanism and self-deception of Mr. Ray's prose. 

None of this also could have been possible without the splendid actors that Mr. Chaubey has picked to populate this beautifully crafted canvas of humour and self-discovery. Mr. Gajraj Rao as a former wrestler and journalist now fallen on hard times is frequently a guileless pleasure for the audience, filling his amiable failure of a man with an irresistible spirit of tenderness and fellow-feeling; he is, however, matched and even surpassed by the flawless Mr. Manoj Bajpayee, as his fellow passenger - a celebrated ghazal singer who wears his wistful heart on the sleeves of his elaborately stitched kurtas. Blustery, easily unsettled, full of both endearing innocence and sly guilt, both hope and despair, here's a character to fall in love with essayed by an actor of such genius ability that he is, today, one of the few performers in this country's cinema who convey convincingly humanity in all its flaws and virtues, in its numerous paradoxes and incongruities.