Tolly Folly Ep 3 - Aandhi - Nayak

[00:00:12] Welcome everyone to Tolly Folly Episode 3 for now the final episode in our mini-series on Bengali cinema of Atumkumar and Suchitra Sen. Today we're talking about Andi from 1975, directed and written by Gulzar and Nayak from 1966, directed and written by Ray. With me

[00:00:33] today as ever are co-hosts Amrita. Hi! And Sujoy. Hello everyone. How excited are we to be talking about these films? I'm more than nervous. I can't wait to talk about these two films. There's so much to talk about these two films. All week we've been emailing like,

[00:00:53] oh my god, oh my god. So, Sujoy, would you be willing to recap why we chose these two films for our mini-series? So when we were floating off the idea to cover Utumkumar and Suchitra movies, we started with Oknipurika and then we also did Chotismolaka and Chomapte because

[00:01:13] that was the theme of sort of... We did Chotismolaka because it was a remake of Oknipurika and then Chomapte because it had the common theme of child marriage. And the second episode was about the love chemistry of Utumkumar and So to I think conclude this mini-series

[00:01:32] in a way we thought that we should do two movies that were separate like Utumkumar's movie and Suchitra Sen movie. Completely different. And also the fact that we had done a color

[00:01:48] movie of Utumkumar in Chotismolaka, Andi would be a good movie to go and revisit. So I think that was the broad idea what brought us to Nayok and Andi in this movie. Also, them being

[00:02:03] a movie of the 60s and the 70s take us back to an era of how Indian cinema and political scene in India were of that era. And it's kind of interesting to look that in contrast

[00:02:19] with how things are now for the better or worse. I don't know if it is better or not, but we'll talk about that. I hadn't thought about this, but the movies that we've chosen for just these three episodes cover more than 20 years of filmmaking by these two leads.

[00:02:35] It's also like one of the last movies that Suchitra Sen did before she basically disappeared from the public eye. And it was one of the most renowned ones in her illustrious career

[00:02:50] of 60 plus movies that she did. Amrit, are you willing to do the epic task of a plot summary and political context of Andi? Yes. So as Beth said, Andi is a 1975 film and it's

[00:03:06] directed by Gulzar. And the set up is classic Gulzar. So an estranged married couple meet unexpectedly and they remember how they met and what went wrong. And they confront the unresolved feelings that they still have for each other. In this particular case,

[00:03:24] Gulzar was inspired by Indira Gandhi, who was then the Prime Minister of India and whose own interfaith marriage to a Parsi for Rose Gandhi. And her subsequent estrangement from him had been a topic of hot gossip in India for decades. And Gulzar,

[00:03:43] for a while, he tried to pretend like this wasn't based on Mrs. Gandhi because she was in power at the time and she didn't really appreciate the gossipy turn her life had taken.

[00:03:55] And it wasn't until a couple of years later that he finally admitted it. But what happened was in 1975, shortly after his film released, it coincided with Mrs. Gandhi's emergency, which for those of you who don't know, it suspended all civil liberties and censored

[00:04:19] the press and there were tons of human rights abuses. And basically Mrs. Gandhi was ruling by decree. Effectively it was and it remains the closest India has come to an open dictatorship. And if her ego hadn't compelled her to believe her own press,

[00:04:41] India would have ceased to be a democracy at the time. However, the emergency was eventually repealed. Elections were held and while the film was banned, or she made, you know, sure the censor board banned the film while she was in power, but eventually

[00:04:57] after the elections were held and she was kicked out of office, the opposition party that won the elections actually had it streamed on TV, which was an especially bitch move to pull. But you know, and the ban actually proved to have a Streezand effect. So everybody

[00:05:23] knew more about this film than any of Guza's other films. I know Guza has a reputation among the more arty crowd, but honestly, Andy was probably his most successful film in that everybody knew about it and everybody actually watched it because they wanted to

[00:05:39] know more about Mrs. Gandhi and her private life, even if Guza really didn't have any special idea of what was happening in Mrs. Gandhi's life. And it was entirely a story that he had written, but the public still wanted to see it. I will also say that Mrs.

[00:05:59] Gandhi, you know, for all her faults, she was a towering presence. I mean, she is what Prime Minister Modi tries to aspire to in many ways. She commanded a certain presence and she commanded a certain respect, even from those that despised her.

[00:06:17] It also doesn't surprise me that Guza tried to emulate it and tried to say, no, we are not definitely not inspired by her, but when it is so obvious that it is her, you know,

[00:06:27] they had to do reshoots later so that it was obvious that she wasn't her. So that scene where she sat in front of the photo of Indira Gandhi and she's saying, she's my idol, I aspire to be her. That was done post when it was ready for re-release.

[00:06:45] So this movie actually became a critical and commercial success for Guza, Sanjeev Kumar and Surya Chitra Sen. Whereas all the other films that Guza did, especially with Sanjeev Kumar, he's done a number of films and all of them might have been critical

[00:07:00] successes, but none of them were commercially successful to the extent that Andhi was. And at some point we need to talk about the parallels between this film and Guza's own life because as much as he, as much as the world understands this film to be directly

[00:07:19] correlated between Mrs. Gandhi's personal life and the cinematic Arthi Devi's life, I think there's more to be said about the similarities between Guzaar and Sanjeev Kumar in this film. I think Andhi was also being co-shot in the same locations with Monsom, which came out

[00:07:44] in the same year and Monsom got the release because Andhi ran into trouble with the release. Monsom came out earlier and these two movies shared the same writers and while Monsom inspired from a book, but it also shares that whole theme about estranged couples and

[00:08:05] troubled marriages. I don't know how that really draws in person with his real life story, but as you said their marriage was definitely going through some trouble with Guzaar and Raqi. Around this time apparently, I haven't read the interview myself, but

[00:08:28] somewhere Meghna Guzaar apparently wrote that there are direct lines in this film that were lifted from real life because Raqi and Guzaar were definitely going through a rough patch and the thing that happened was after they got married, Guzaar wanted

[00:08:47] Raqi to basically become a stay at home mom, especially after she had their daughter. And Raqi had been working from a very young age and she thought she could compromise, but apparently later on she realized that no, she really enjoyed working and she's always

[00:09:06] being kind of vague about it, but I understand and I might be wrong, but I understand that she was kind of flirting with alcoholism at this point because she was just so desperate for some kind of creative outlet. And she would basically, I mean she said in various

[00:09:27] interviews that she kind of lived for the days when they would go on outdoors and she accompanied Guzaar on his shoots to Kashmir for instance where Monsom and portions of Andi were shot and that really gave her a lot of mental relief because otherwise she

[00:09:45] just felt sort of confined in her relationship with Guzaar. And Meghna Guzaar apparently said that, you know that scene that you said about the toothpaste? I had treated about this particular scene where A.K. Hangal who plays Brinda Kaka

[00:10:05] is massaging Sanjeev Kumar's character and as he's writing his poetry and Aarti enters the room and she starts laughing when J.K. says that he's writing poetry and she says, And I am 100% sure that that's something that Raqi must have said to him because

[00:10:33] that sounds like Raqi first of all but secondly Meghna Guzaar was talking about like how you know about all these skirmishes that she had witnessed between her parents and this is other line in the film where Aarti is really mad at her husband and she says,

[00:10:54] And that is apparently a line that Raqi said to Guzaar in real life. And when they were in Kashmir and they were shooting for this film, they had all these songs that

[00:11:10] were set in the ruins of I don't know some sort of dilapidated ruins in the middle of the forest. And while they were shooting that Raqi and Guzaar were basically dealing with their deteriorating relationship. So the whole thing is a metaphor in the film for

[00:11:27] their ruined relationship. But also it's a metaphor for what was happening in real life because as soon as they got back from shooting that sequence, Raqi and Guzaar separated and never reconciled. If he's anything like the J.K. character in the film I don't blame her. I don't

[00:11:50] blame her anyway but you know. You and I had both brought up the idea of how this film depicts working women and to me it really seemed like a great early entry into can women really have it all?

[00:12:02] Well I just find it ironic that a man who refuses his wife to work would make a film about how a woman can have it all. But actually when you think about it the movie doesn't

[00:12:18] say that the woman can have it all. No, definitely does not have it all. And the movie actually paints her as not only a bad wife but also a bad mother. So the Wiki article plot summary says at the end she wins the election and lives happily

[00:12:38] ever after. And she flies away in that helicopter. And as their child is riding the tell-all of their boarding school. I would also live happily ever after if I didn't have to live with J.K. You are not kidding.

[00:12:57] Another thing is that Guzaar has a weird problem in naming characters like Sanjeev Kumar's name is never known. He's just known as J.K. throughout the movie. And the Arthidevi's father is known as K. Bose. Nobody knows what the K is responsible for.

[00:13:17] I just thought of him as like just kidding the entire time. You had also highlighted the idea of the performances in this film. This film is held up very often as the pinnacle of their acting both Sanjeev Kumar and Sujitha

[00:13:37] Sanz acting in Hindi. Everyone loved her performance and she won an award for it and I just wanted to see what you guys thought of it. I thought it was what was expected of a towering presence of an act, presence in the movie.

[00:13:59] Sujitha Sanz did that role perfectly and even though there are some diction problems like her Hindi definitely has that Bengali twang to it. I thought that worked in a way and they kind of explained it that even though Rehman is

[00:14:15] speaking quite fluent Hindi in his perfect diction she has a Bengali twang because she's a Bose apparently. But I think she has that you know because she comes from this how should I say it? She's the Bhodramahila right.

[00:14:33] So there is some sort of a distance between even her political party bros. She's not really mingling with them. Everybody looks up to her. Everybody is looking up to her and she maintains that you know when she enters a room everybody

[00:14:47] is like nervous. We have to please her with ABC and I think that is conveyed very effortlessly even from the opening scene. You know you have the drum rolling as she enters and she's like climbing down the stairs. You can tell like Sujitha Sanz is in the room

[00:15:06] and she definitely fits the role of Arthi. Yes she is a boss. She is. You know in Bengali movies certainly if you need a woman to stand strong but also be flexible and she brings that into this Hindi role beautifully I thought.

[00:15:25] So I asked Twitter what people thought of her Hindi film performances. I got really different responses. Some people said they found her very stiff and other people said they found her kind of looser because they thought she wasn't as concerned with her persona

[00:15:39] in Hindi films because the bulk of them obviously are Bengali. At this point she's super duper well established elsewhere and maybe the stakes for her felt low. I found her marvelous. I thought she had sort of a casualness at times when it was called for.

[00:15:56] It was simultaneously glamorous but not glamorous at different moments. I thought she was great and I'm not a particular fan of Sanjeev Kumar but I thought he was really good in this too

[00:16:08] and while there are some developments in his character that felt out of the blue to me I thought he expressed them really well. I think like we have spoken about the elegant suffering aspect of Sujitha Sanz

[00:16:21] and how she does it so well alongside Uttam Kumar in our previous episodes and I think we also talked about how expressive her eyes are and she does the melodramatic meltdown so well but here the element that Gulzar went for is just emotiveness

[00:16:42] and so much sorrow and longiness for estranged partners who have been in love and haven't seen for a span of nine years and them coming together and just the deep sorrow in both those characters of Aarti and JK Sujitha Sen and Sanjeev Kumar just played that so well.

[00:17:01] And I think again like the music has a lot of role to play in that as well but despite that Sanjeev Kumar and Sujitha Sen are just top notch and I mean Sanjeev Kumar played a lot of roles as an old person

[00:17:18] and sadly he never lived to the age of even 50 years old and that's like very very sad. I just don't understand Sujitha Sen's old person makeup. No, oh it's bad. She's dressed like the Indian corpse bride and I'm just like why?

[00:17:36] Like she just like leapfrogged over middle age and just went straight for like ancient crone. She's got that white lipstick like I don't even know it's not even white it's like beige like the color of death on her lips and I'm just like...

[00:17:53] They managed to really do a lot to age her up which I have to say is unconvincing as I found that it did make her non-made up youthful. It worked for the flashback really well

[00:18:07] because I did believe that she was young enough to be running around the hillsides and singing love songs which is something I don't think I've ever seen her do before.

[00:18:16] Also the aging is like it doesn't really add up like you could age that much in nine years, you know? No. Sujitha you had mentioned the idea of politics then and now that the film made you think about.

[00:18:30] So Gulzar explores the many sort of divisiveness and all the plots and ploys that politicians play during the day of the 1970s like the opposition would employ the press and so it's kind of like a funny expose of sorts

[00:18:52] which was probably not as taken for granted as we are now because we read about bad politicians and their policies and all their scandals so blatantly on newspapers right now and we have furthermore scandals that we can talk about all day long.

[00:19:12] So it's kind of looking back at the politics that is being portrayed in Andi it looks so innocent in comparison. That's just what I wanted to point out like how politicians would have these rallies and the song that was that Salam ki ji e aali janab aaye hain.

[00:19:38] Ye paatsa loka hi saab dena hain. That was great. That's such a great play on words of how politicians only visit their public once in five years to gather votes. But that's like a story that will probably be the future generation

[00:19:56] would just shrug off like we know that. That's worse things have happened since you know. Can we talk a little bit about the sort of speed of some of the plot points in this film? I'm well aware that a lot of Gauzar's talents are lost on me

[00:20:17] because I don't understand Hindi well enough to understand the poetry of what of his words. But as someone who structures a screenplay, I feel like there's a couple issues in this which for me

[00:20:29] and I know there's a lot of this film that's so lovely that it doesn't really matter. You know again like we've seen movies before we know how to fill things in but so for me there's a couple key ones. One is her interest in politics.

[00:20:45] I felt like came out of nowhere because we know first that she has advanced university degrees but we have no inkling that she wants to go into politics until well into the flashbacks and maybe that's a subtitling issue. I think the whole flashback system is also not chronological.

[00:21:04] Sanjeev Kumar is sort of remembering different timelines at different times. Which would explain why then her being kind of snitty about him not having a fancier job that also kind of comes out of nowhere. I understand we've established that her dad is really rich

[00:21:20] but that doesn't automatically mean that she cares about that and also as he says like you knew who I was when you married me and then him turning into just a regressive misogynist piece of crap is also to me out of nowhere.

[00:21:34] And either of you provide did you get more context for that? Did it seem a little more grounded? No. It started appearing all of a sudden like he would just barge into the room and he's like calling her to sit next to him

[00:21:48] and throwing a whole tantrum about it. Like don't try to be the husband. I'm the husband. I wear the pants in the house. And I won't look after my own child for a few hours. How dare you ask me to be a parent?

[00:22:03] Also, I want to know if both of you were convinced by A. their reconciliation and B. Her speech at the end of the film which is in the now portion of the film where she says don't vote for me.

[00:22:17] I'm going to go back to my family and then she wins the election and flies off in a helicopter. Like sitting now in 2020, I definitely think that was a very well planned out, you know. Election strategy. Agree. Agree. Yeah. Because she's been doing it for so long,

[00:22:38] she knows how the public sentiments can be tweaked. And I definitely think, but I guess the Guzard plays on the knifes of the audience to make you know, Artie look like the Devi that she is. But this is probably when people will start throwing tomatoes on us.

[00:22:58] Well, I mean you and I are safely in other countries. But yeah, what I really liked about on the visit revisiting this time was the points where she is trying to familiarize herself back into the environment of being back in the life of JK.

[00:23:24] And she's trying to, you know, the first time she visits her ex-house or what she used to call her house, she tries to gauge who's decorating what. And she also finds some hesitance in what should I call him? She asks Brindagaka.

[00:23:44] Because she's lost that habit of calling her husband. So she asked Brindagaka what do you call him? So, Sabji called him. I can't call him Sabji. That was beautiful. There are some really, like really well thought out scenes which I really, really enjoyed.

[00:24:01] I feel like that's really a feature of Guzard's writing for films in that he structures these moments that are pretty great, you know, and they relate really well to his audience. But as Beth was saying, like if you look at the overall structure

[00:24:19] and how he strings it all together, he really finds it difficult. And he was just starting off to make his own movies. He's been more into writing poetry and lyrics for songs. Like movie direction is totally another ball game, I guess.

[00:24:37] To be honest, I only ever thought of like one Guzard movie that I think is good as a movie on its own merits. And that's the one with Hema Malini and Jitendra. Khushboo? Khushboo, that's it. Are there any other thoughts we want to discuss about Andi?

[00:24:56] Of course the music. Yeah, we should talk about the music. The music is great. No, talk. You talk, you talk. So what's your favorite song of the soundtrack? Oh, it's Derebina. What else would I say?

[00:25:16] I mean, I love all the songs except for like Salam Kijiye is okay. But yeah, I mean, I hadn't seen the movie in a very long time and I always like whenever I listen Derebina sounds like a bit more, you know, it's a sad song.

[00:25:32] So I often listen to Ismore Sejaate Hain Aur Tum Aage Ho More Than Derebina. Derebina's picturization within the movies universe is just so beautiful. And yeah, I like it's been overplayed for a reason and like, yeah, it's my favorite. Khushboo's voice in that is just incredible.

[00:25:58] What about you, Beth? Mine is the street kawali. I love koalas and films to sort of like aesthetically, musically. I love them. I feel like you don't see them picturized on non-stars very often.

[00:26:15] And so to turn the turn the crowd into the stars of the song is a really cool device. And I thought it was really effective to have the idea that the public is the one narrating what happens to a politician

[00:26:30] despite the machinations and all that we've seen behind the scenes of politics in this film, both funny and also in 2020 desperately unfunny to give the public an actual voice in this, you know, in this key feature of a Hindi film I thought was really clever.

[00:26:45] And it's just really fun and watching them like watching them walk along and doing that. I don't know what this is called. I've always wanted to know the special clap you do during a koali right? This is the singer the singers are doing.

[00:26:56] Yeah, I thought that was so clever and very, very fun. Also taunting at the politician. Do you know how much I want to do that right now? We all do. We all do. Here's something that I found interesting.

[00:27:13] I don't know if people know that the tune of Therabina is another, like Arti Berman composes his songs mostly in Bengali and they find a new life in Hindi. So there's lots of songs like from Anamika. My wife, Bheegi, which is Monipora Rubirai.

[00:27:35] And Therabina is also a Bengali song which was composed earlier as a Durga Puja song. It was called Jete Jete Pottho Holo Deri. And Gujar like that music and wrote the lyrics around the tune. Wow. Everything comes back to Tally Folly. Bengali films right? Yeah, so brown.

[00:27:59] With that, I'm going to move us into Nayak, which is a movie that I love so much that I'm incoherent about it. So I'm asking Sujoy to do a plot summary and to kind of kick off with some of his thoughts about this movie

[00:28:15] that clearly Amrita and I also live. The first time I watched Nayak was when I was quite little and not really able to understand this movie

[00:28:26] and I discarded it as a very boring, very pretentious, even though I did not know what was the meaning of being pretentious was. It's a feeling. Yeah, I'm not interested. Somebody just made it for somebody who just smokes cigarettes in the corner

[00:28:44] and drinks wine all day. This is not for me. And I was probably like 10 or 11 or whatever. And then you revisited it a couple of years later. And then Nayak. Nayak or the hero is a 1966 film directed and written by Shoto Jitra starring Uttam Kumar in perhaps

[00:29:04] biographical role of a matinee idol by the name Arundham. He's on a train from Calcutta to Delhi to receive a national award. And in this train he has to interact with several passengers in the carriage.

[00:29:18] Among them is Miss Oditi Shankutta played by Sharma Latagore, a reporter and editor for a woman's magazine called Adonika. It is through her interactions with him and his interactions with her that we see the story of Arundham Mukherjee

[00:29:36] unveil in flashbacks and nightmares and get to know the making of a hero. Before we go any further, I just want to point out that I love that he's going to get a national award.

[00:29:47] Like even in the onset of this film there has to be this like, oh mainstream guy but like, oh I roll. I guess I'll get on the train and go to Delhi. National award. And he does say, uh-uh, I don't give a damn about awards you know.

[00:30:01] Yeah. And Uttam Kumar is the first person to get the national film award for best actor two years after this. Oh was he? I did not know that. The very first one. Well I don't know for what movie he got it but it was entirely deserved.

[00:30:15] Uh, he got it for Chiri Akana and Anthony Feringi. Oh what? So really he got it for Nayak but the award didn't exist then so they put it for these other two. Oh lord.

[00:30:31] Alright anyways, Sujoy tell us some of what struck you about this now that you're old and wise enough to appreciate it. Where do I start? Like there's something so monumental about Duree and Uttam Kumar coming together right.

[00:30:47] They are totally two different, you know, leaders of Indian cinema in a way and them coming together in a way

[00:30:57] and sharing those sensibilities in this movie is it makes this movie so timeless in a way like it encapsulates the image of star and stardom which is still very much relevant

[00:31:09] and we are still having conversations about what makes a star and you know beyond all the noise of the nepotism debate and all that. And it's so relevant and it's so well made, it's so stylish the sensibilities of what Shatya Jitrai brought on the table

[00:31:31] coinciding with the stardom and the star power and the screen presence of Uttam Kumar and the other actors that share the screen with him just makes Nayak like timeless

[00:31:43] and it's like I have no doubts that this is Uttam Kumar's best work that he's done and it's probably one of my favorites that Ray has done as well. Same, so I went out and got the criteria and DVD of this.

[00:31:58] There are essays that come in a book with it one by Pico Ayarwood that I want to quote really quickly because he talks about how this film somehow stirs glamour and introspection together.

[00:32:09] I was reminded by what you were saying about Uttam and Ray coming together in this and those are the two great tastes that taste great together in this film.

[00:32:20] And Ray talks about how, I mean obviously we've all I think read about how he says he really wouldn't have done this without Uttam Kumar signing on

[00:32:28] and it is very much inspired by him but that people accused him of selling out when this film was announced because he was going to work with Uttam. I hope everyone who said that has egg on their faces forever because this film is magic.

[00:32:42] Yeah, I mean it didn't really do well when it came out. The box office numbers weren't that great compared to what Uttam Kumar's movies are thought of to make. But over the years it's definitely become a monster of its own and quite rightly so you know.

[00:33:04] As for selling out, the whole idea of peeling away the layers of heroism and exposing the humor underneath that star is as commercial as it can get and it's as artistic as it can get and he marries those two elements really well.

[00:33:24] The whole idea of selling out is such a snooty, a long way to look at things. It's almost commenting at the things that are being portrayed in the movie as well. In the flashback when the theater guru Shankar Das says cinema is not art.

[00:33:44] It's like a mass produced consumer product and once you will get three flops you will be out of the game and he considers like music and literature and painting to be art and cinema is not.

[00:33:57] It's kind of like that like Ray, you only make movies with poor people and you should not be making just because you're making a movie with Uttam Kumar it means you're selling out. Yeah, it's beautiful in that way. But it's not just that one guy.

[00:34:15] It's like from the very first scene like you know everyone in this movie keeps dissing Uttam for working in the movies. Everyone that he meets has some sort of value judgment to make about like how he sold out

[00:34:30] and how he you know barely works for a living and his life is so easy and he has so much money and how he must be like totally full of vices. But at the same time they all want something from him

[00:34:42] and I think that's what Ray does so beautifully you know. He brings out the hypocrisy of society at large when it comes to cinema. On the one hand everyone consumes it and everyone wants to consume him.

[00:34:56] Like he is the commodity that everyone in this film is trying to consume but at the same time they all give him grief and they all look at him in the face and tell him that he's workless

[00:35:08] and he has you know terrible habits and they look down upon him and his work but at the same time they can't get enough of him. And Ray really brings about all the different ways that that works in society

[00:35:25] you know whether it's his friends from way back or the people that he's working with right now or you know his romantic relationships or even just chance met people on the train. Everybody wants a piece of him and everyone keeps telling him how he should feel bad

[00:35:43] that they want a piece of him. It's incredibly interesting and this is actually like you know that you guys were saying that this is one of your favorite Ray films. This is absolutely my favorite Ray film because it has everything. It is funny, it is cutting.

[00:35:59] It's so funny though. It's so funny. It is incredible. He never gets enough credit for the humor in his films I think. Right. I mean the emotions in this one are that I had while watching it are all over the place but I kept coming back to laughing.

[00:36:16] Yep. But it's also really emotional and you feel for like all the pain that he's going through and Uttam is so amazing in this and I'll talk about that later but because you can't stop me.

[00:36:30] But you have like a real sense of like the emotions in this character and you get, I mean you feel a sense of disgust at the way the people are behaving in this film. You get you know the charm when he is interacting with Shyamala.

[00:36:51] I mean it's just hot eyes all over the place. It's just got everything in it you know. I love this film so much and I would recommend it to anybody irrespective of what kind of cinema they like.

[00:37:04] I have not seen a better movie about celebrity or sort of self-concept or fame or many things on those kind of pallets. There's no movie better than this. And just like you know films about films and filmmaking. That's a favorite sub-genre for me.

[00:37:25] And this is definitely in there in the top five, top three you know. Can we talk just a little bit to kind of dig into some of the finer moments? The opening scene where he's in his house, he's getting ready for the day.

[00:37:43] He's you know getting dressed, he's packing and his assistant is kind of in and out. All these elements of being a movie star come up so appearance is there. His heroine calls him and wants to know if she should come meet him at the train station.

[00:37:56] He's like, he's like, ugh. The specter of the press, the watchable eyes of the public. The expectations of a hero to behave heroically. Addiction and alcohol are in there. The Hindi film producer has come to have breakfast with him to try to get him to sign a film.

[00:38:17] Am I right that the Hindi film producer speaking in Hindi and... Yeah, he's kind of like a Marwari producer I think. And his Hindi and Bengali gets mixed in between. It's funny. That was so funny. The quickness with which he has to do everything.

[00:38:35] Like he does sit down to have breakfast but it's kind of cursory. He's smoking all the time. He's very glamorous even at breakfast. You see the shoes. Oh my God. What are those shoes?

[00:38:45] I was talking with Rachel Dwyer about this and neither of us are sure what those are supposed to connote. Because to me that kind of spectator type shoe is very 20s. Like great Gatsby, you know Al Capone sort of thing.

[00:38:56] So I don't know what we're supposed to make of those shoes but they're very prominent. They visually stand out because of the high contrast. I think I read somewhere that Rey was very much inspired by Fellini and this look of Uttam wearing the black glasses

[00:39:10] is directly a reference to Marcello Mastrani's in 8 and a half. Oh, I see that. But that's a movie stars in sunglasses as old as time. So I've seen this movie a bunch of different times right?

[00:39:26] But this is the first time I've seen this movie since I think, I can't believe I'm seeing this. But Jabhari Met Sajal came out and there's a scene in it where Shah Rukh is getting dressed in the mirror.

[00:39:42] I don't know if you guys remember it because I didn't remember until like Justin Rao did one of his remixes on Twitter and I was watching that and suddenly like I see him. Okay, I get the common theme, the superstar in the train check.

[00:39:58] Right? And it was very like you know like the thousand yards stare and the tying of the tie and I mean how and that first look at Uttam's face you know how the camera just sort of follows him around the room

[00:40:13] and then cuts to all these different things and then finally focuses on Uttam's face and it is marvelous. He gets the full hero's slow reveal you know. Even before that when the starting credits roll and the whole title sequence is happening,

[00:40:32] his hair is the backdrop where the fonts appear and it starts to peel away slowly and we get to realize oh it is the back of his hair he's getting ready for something you know.

[00:40:44] It's so like Ray was in advertising and so his typography is definitely top notch. You can see it in the posters of so many movies especially this one and Charulata and Devi. So yeah the whole starting sequence is just brilliant and the way Uttam Kumar is being revealed

[00:41:06] in many layers like his shoes, he wears a shirt and all of that is yeah a star has entered the room you know. Great, Amrita Unleash. About what in particular because I could talk about so many different things.

[00:41:21] Talk about the, so this is a favorite scene of mine too that you've chosen. The scene where they pulled up at a station they don't get out of the train he and Charmilla are at a dining car table. Talk about that.

[00:41:36] Okay so in the film Charmilla and Uttam are sitting at, sitting in the dining car and he's chosen her out because they have this moment of connection you know. They spar for a bit and then they have this brief moment of connection

[00:41:55] and he decides to just sort of come and sit with her even though he knows that she's a journalist and she wants an interview that he doesn't want to give. And he's just in a really disturbed, in a disturbed place emotionally

[00:42:10] and he just wants to talk to somebody and she's the only person that he can think of so he sits there and he says I'm safe with you because you're not interested in me or my work so I can just talk.

[00:42:22] Yeah because her magazine is too good for him. Yeah basically. We've already established that but yeah she doesn't, Adunika doesn't cover movies you know. It's beneath her. There's a moment like at their first meeting and she immediately starts sparring with him for no good reason

[00:42:44] and she does this thing where she's like can I have your autograph and then she's like it's not for me it's for my cousin. He's like oh you're one of those people and like don't do that you know

[00:42:57] like if you're listening to this then you want a favor from celebrities. Don't diss them and then ask them for an autograph or a picture. That's just rude but everybody in the movies really.

[00:43:09] She realizes that once she gets back she was like why did I open my mouth like that and the woman next to her says what happened why don't you like her, like him

[00:43:20] and she's like it's unbelievable that he, have you seen that XYZ movie that he was in? He plays the tennis. He is the first in the class. He's a leading progressive. He's a brilliant lover. How can one person be all of that? It's suck the buddy.

[00:43:42] And then her friend says yeah but when he does it I don't mind. Yeah exactly. But in that scene right before Shamla Aditi is her character and Aditi walks away like there's a brief moment where he looks up at her

[00:44:03] with this expression and it's a fleeting expression where he's just like good lord and he just like looks at her and it is so charming and it is so funny and it cracks me up every single time when he makes that face.

[00:44:16] One of the key things about him is that he gives as good as he gets. Yes. Right? He sasses everyone back in that way that you're like on the surface this seems like a perfectly polite statement but it's actually not.

[00:44:30] Which is I think such a great piece of armor that someone like him would have to have. Yeah. I don't know enough about the as we've said the lack of gossip about vintage Bengali films

[00:44:41] is sad to us but you know maybe he was really like that I don't know but it's so again it's so funny like and when someone says you know all of our Indian film industries just make more and more but not better

[00:44:54] and then he says yep that's why we have family planning and this person has a child who's in the car with them. That's something that I've seen Shahrukh do you know he does that with the person a lot. Yeah.

[00:45:08] But in this particular scene you know he chooses to talk to Aditi for some reason and she well it starts off with her being shady. He just had a nightmare so he's trying to reconcile with what the fuck is happening with me you know. Yeah.

[00:45:26] And Aditi like you know acts very shady and starts taking notes and then eventually you know I think they both get on the same page and they're like yeah this is an interview but they're having this conversation when the train pulls into a station

[00:45:41] and they're having a pretty intense conversation you know he's opening up to her about things that he's never talked to anybody about and as she's listening to him her opinion about him and his life is changing and you can see that on her face right. Yeah.

[00:45:58] We've talked so much about how great he is she is also extremely good in this movie and you see I she's an actor I like anyway but I thought she was phenomenal in this and she too shows this through her through her face and through her gestures

[00:46:12] and how she's holding her body all these changes in her concept of him as a as a human just as an individual person. Yeah. So her range of emotions from starting from apathy and she has a certain dislike for this superstar that is taking everybody's attention

[00:46:31] you know nobody else is like all the attention is being sucked by this one guy present in the room and but as he tells his story he she sympathetically understands where he's coming from

[00:46:45] and all the troubles that he has and I think it also shows the maturity of the oddity character and you know at a time when he is almost ready to reveal it all she holds him back and like I don't want to know it's beyond my you know

[00:47:02] it's beyond my moral compass in a way. Well that's because like you know like she sees him first as this fake idol and then as he's talking he becomes human to her

[00:47:16] and in his humanity I think like she becomes like she becomes a fan of the real are in them rather than like the movie star are in them and that's what we see the journey and when they're at this dining car it's an old school dining saloon

[00:47:35] so it has these big picture windows and they're sitting right by the window and the train pulls into a station and his fans throng the train because they know he's on it and they find him sitting right by the window very conveniently

[00:47:52] and they're all like you know hammering on the glass and they're trying to get his attention and they're trying to get a good look at him and he is very blasé about the whole thing

[00:48:03] while she is completely flustered and she's like I'm not used to this kind of attention I don't know what people will be thinking about me if they see me sitting here with you and talking

[00:48:14] and he kind of needles her a little bit as she gets to see the kind of life that he needs like he has to live on a daily basis and until then she's been like oh your life is very easy

[00:48:29] and then suddenly she's just sort of confronted by his celebrity and she doesn't know how to handle it and it completely takes her back and makes her feel incredibly uncomfortable and he enjoys that he enjoys the fact that she is uncomfortable

[00:48:42] and it's sort of like you know that's how he gets his jolly really throughout the film where he kind of turns the tables on people and makes them a little bit uncomfortable and he does it but he doesn't do it in a mean way to her

[00:48:57] I think he genuinely likes her from the beginning and that whole scene where you see Shyamala and Uttam framed against this window and right outside the window is this crowd of people hammering on the glass

[00:49:15] it's just picturized in just this perfect way that Charlotte shows what celebrities like yeah and it's horrible yes I mean and it feels again feels very modern to now when we look at scenes of you know people outside Sharks house and things like that

[00:49:39] it just seems if he were to go out there they would be grabbing at him and you know oh it's awful even with that big window in between it's awful it also kind of reminds me of you know that scene in like by chance when

[00:49:58] Ritik's car just breaks down or something and some kids come to him and he's playing with them like it's second nature to them to interact with the public like he's so detached with them in a way like these are two definitely separate universes that they exist

[00:50:14] like you cannot intersect those there is a divide and I guess that's what it's trying to show that's also another thing you know like throughout the film Arindam keeps meeting like the new like successful Arindam

[00:50:29] keeps meeting all these strangers who react to him as if they know him and they just start talking to him and he usually has his mind on something else and he's in the middle of doing something else

[00:50:42] but he sort of effortlessly carries on a conversation with them about like whatever it is that's happening with them and you see that as being like a celebrity skill as well he's realized that comes with the job in a way yeah

[00:51:00] I love his interactions with the two children we meet on the train so there's a I guess sort of young teenage girl in the compartment who's in his compartment who's ill and not as ill as her parents think she is but she's just she's quiet the entire time

[00:51:18] but again her eyes and the way she watches him and she is a fan of his but she doesn't say anything to him but he interacts with her in a way that I think is very charming

[00:51:29] like the moment he comes in he kind of puts his hand on her forehead to see like how's your temperature she watches him she is the one who witnesses his nightmares and she's the one who kind of witnesses him coming in and out of this room

[00:51:44] that represent these kind of points on his mental journey I think as he leaves and enters his compartment and then there's the little girl he meets in the hallway of the train where the first time he meets her they're very cute together

[00:51:57] and she's what four or five or something and then the second time he's completely plastered on I don't know if it's alcohol or sleeping pills or both but he's in a bad shape and it you know looks it and she runs away from him

[00:52:10] and that is a moment where he realizes God I gotta get my life together and it's very touching when the little girl runs away that's the point you've gone too far now yeah so like him having been drunk enough to punch someone in a nightclub

[00:52:27] that's not the moment where he realizes my life's kind of gotten out of control it's when a little girl runs away from him yeah that scene though when he like narrates to the Hindi producer I love that So like he's narrating it in such a cinematic way

[00:52:48] like he's so dramatic and you know that he's such a seasoned actor he views his life as scenes in a movie and it's just brilliant you know yeah but that like it seems like that and also like the scenes where he is sort of sparring with Sharmila

[00:53:05] and he's calling her the conscience in the village play it seems like that that really like to me you know like when I think of Uttam like those are the kind of scenes that I think of because it's so natural

[00:53:24] I really don't get the sense that he's acting I feel like that might just be Uttam interacting with these people and Ray just had a camera trained on him you know it's just so natural and so charming and just Uttam like it couldn't have been anybody else

[00:53:45] yeah so the whole part of the Orindam Mukherjee persona it has to be informed by Uttam Kumar's real life stardom like there is no other way that you can't separate the two and that's why it is kind of like a biographical depiction even though some I don't know

[00:54:04] some of these stories might have been exaggerated or some of them might never have happened but in a way we do want to believe that you know this is how stardom is in that context and Uttam Kumar plays it so beautifully one of my favorite scenes though

[00:54:21] is like the initial sparring between Sharmila and Uttam Kumar and he keeps talking about something called Bajar Tanostho Heja that means our shops will shut down if we reveal too much you know he says we are creatures of light and shadow

[00:54:44] don't paint us as creatures of flesh and blood otherwise Bajar Tanostho Heja which is such a brilliant line and he learns it through so many shameful lessons that he's learned from his mentors you know if you do that your shop will shut

[00:54:59] if you do that your shop will shut so he's so much driven by the box office in a way and Sharmila comments at that I didn't know your box office was so fragile of public opinion in that opening sequence the assistant is saying

[00:55:18] here's the numbers for your latest film and it hasn't been doing very well and Uttam says I'm in it isn't that enough and the guy goes not this time buddy and then he later says damn the political public

[00:55:34] which is a thought that he has in his own house but he doesn't really project that he's careful not to project that in public interactions that we see people talk I think in general more about Ray working with Uttam Kumar in this movie

[00:55:49] but we don't talk so much about Uttam Kumar wanting agreeing to do this movie I really wonder what his experience of working on this film was and it would be so interesting to dig into newspapers and see if he ever spoke about it

[00:56:02] but if this was invasive it was in a way he must not have minded he too has a theater background just like the after he plays in the film like he pop who wouldn't want to work with Ray I just wonder what this film meant to him

[00:56:15] it's just magnificent I hope he was proud of it I feel like it was but also I feel like this movie is tailor made for an actor's narcissistic streak because it's really just providing him a canvas to showcase all the tricks in his book

[00:56:34] but also to sort of examine himself as a cultural object I mean what actor wouldn't want that what actor wouldn't eat that up with a spoon you see Shahrukh Khan and I keep coming back to Shahrukh Khan and we'll come to that at a later point

[00:56:51] but you see Shahrukh doing that in multiple movies it's an impulse I think that every big star has at some point Uttam just got to do it with Ray and just made the definitive article I think on an emotional level

[00:57:11] we talk about the peeling away the layers of heroism and it's also evident in the physical way that is visually represented he washes his face and there is little to no makeup and there's a lot of close-ups where you actually see the spots on his face

[00:57:26] and you see the real him you don't get to see that much of no makeup Uttam in any other movie where there are like tight close-ups of him and he's like emoting and that has definitely some sort of a subconscious reach on the audience

[00:57:43] we are getting to see a person reveal his secrets what drives him, what insecurities he has and it's done beautifully both by Ray and Uttam Kumar and I don't think either of them had any other alternatives so if you travel across India

[00:58:06] and if you had to pick somebody else who would be this? like the whole persona of Uttam Kumar as a star who is so sophisticated and yet interacting this very poised way I find myself at loss of words

[00:58:27] and I'm not able to not find anybody who can wear those shoes now it's so different because of the access of cameras the access of self broadcasting and all that it's very hard to conceive of this film nowadays

[00:58:46] if we did it, it would have to be Shah Rukh I will hear no other argument but he kind of already did it in fan so I doubt you know and I'm glad he did, I love that film as well

[00:58:56] even with the attractiveness of the role to a mech star there's some dangers with it as well and I wonder who would have done it because it requires the actor not to lose themselves in self indulgence and that requires a certain kind of director

[00:59:17] and it requires a certain kind of actor and this was just perfect because Uttam both has that range but also has the ability to reign it in and Ray by all accounts was very careful with his actors and he could calibrate his performances to an inch

[00:59:40] so it just really worked out like magic with the two of them even if we get Shah Rukh and Hindi I don't know what director would work for that film India Salih I will kill myself so a couple years ago I got to see A Hard Day's Night

[01:00:02] in the theatre with the new restored criterion version of that and this film kept coming to mind for me when I watched A Hard Day's Night because the manic celebrity of The Beatles in 1964 is a pretty good parallel I think in some ways

[01:00:19] there's a big difference between rock and roll and acting in film, even matinee, idol acting in this approximate era but there's so many similarities between the two films to me that that, to me is the image I am always calling to mind

[01:00:32] when I think of what if we took this and did it somewhere else I feel like it kind of happened and it was in Britain Well you know who I keep thinking about? Tom Cruise Sujoy and I are like, ohhhh No because Tom Cruise is a fine actor

[01:00:51] he was just made one movie in which he was actually able to showcase it but he really does have that range it's just that he just throws it away so that he can make the 900th Mission Impossible movie But he has been... I'm not complaining about that

[01:01:09] I love Mission Impossible movies and I will not hear anything against it But he has been super famous since he was 21, 22 years old and he's been super famous for like 30 odd years and he's remained super famous for 30 odd years across all the changes that have occurred

[01:01:29] in international filmmaking and I bet he has a few skeletons in his closet and we all know some of the skeletons already but I bet he would have a lot to say and emote about celebrity

[01:01:48] One of the themes in this film that I hadn't really paid attention to before this watch is advertising and Sujoy was saying Ray does come from the world of advertising and he talks about it much more directly in other films but we have the advertising executive

[01:02:04] who is an international businessman who has some conversations and that the advertising executive is willing to pimp out his wife to get an account and I don't think that we see what happens with that I wasn't sure of what had been agreed upon exactly

[01:02:23] by the end of those conversations it's a counterpoint to how celebrities advertise themselves and have to be concerned with image and also that Charmille's character is also concerned about the image of the thing she creates she wants it to be a modern woman

[01:02:40] she wants it for the modern woman she doesn't want to dirty it with cinema so that idea of commodification and what we sell about ourselves runs through the film and is made really poignant by that precipice that we see some of those characters being willing to teeter along

[01:02:57] including the wife herself who says to her husband Mr. Mukherjee is on this train and he said he would talk to you about getting me into film and that's what I want and her husband seems pretty repulsed by that which is super hypocritical

[01:03:13] there is an overarching theme of everybody's transactional in a way everybody's talking about the bottom line so I have a question for you guys talking about Charmille and Utam at the end of the movie spoilers but at the end of the movie Charmille and Utam have arrived

[01:03:39] at this place of understanding and mutual respect for each other and they're clearly attracted to each other as well because who wouldn't be she takes off her glasses they're just gorgeous together and they look at each other and he says well I guess I won't see you again

[01:03:58] and she says well I guess not but I'll remember this time in my memory do you think he tries to find her afterwards? I think it depends on whether his films he gets those three flops in a row three flops in a row

[01:04:16] that's mentioned over and over again that number and that sequence and he says to her in that exchange she says something like you won't be travelling in trams versus the common public and then he says I might I might so I feel like it kind of depends

[01:04:35] if his films are still successful other things demanding his attention he might forget about her but if he doesn't he might really hold on to this idea of someone who was a decent person who dropped the transactional aspect of interacting with him

[01:04:53] and just saw him as a human I'm gonna cry it's so sad well in my fanfic he definitely goes after her and he definitely finds her through her education ministry uncle and um they have cute babies yes they have very cute babies and they're living very happily

[01:05:16] in Calcutta right now in their bodyguards flat with so many posters of all in them all over the house and now she's thrown them all away and now there's like Marks and Tagore and Mao and they post all the intellectuals and they all come and they are like

[01:05:36] if he can play a leading progressive in a film he can become one in real life there you go oh can we talk about his friend a little bit Biresh the political friend his college friend that was another arc that stood out to me this time

[01:05:50] that I haven't felt the weight of before um that he's got this friend from college who wanted to go into politics and he used to kind of come along with his friend to rallies and things like that and then there's one rally that turns violent

[01:06:02] and he gets bonked on the head with a brick and he doesn't see his friend again for years and then this political friend shows up um and asks Arndam to drive him somewhere and it turns out he's snookered Arndam into arriving at a rally

[01:06:18] where workers have been striking for what is it 24 days or something and he's like they want to it will mean a lot to them to see you they're your public too and he refuses to do it and he says

[01:06:30] I'll give you any amount of money you want but I can't do this that was heartbreaking I think it also relates to the transactional thing that we really know it's not like earlier he gets a speech about how you celebrities or how you people

[01:06:44] in the arts live in this creative bubble totally detached from what the reality and what the real struggle is for the person on the street because you are more enamored by fiction rather than what is factual and then later in the day he just

[01:07:04] shows up after so many years and he's like you shouldn't be asking where I'm taking you that kind of yeah it's also kind of a commentary by Ray I think because people keep kept on complaining of how apolitical his movies are and Ray kind of says that

[01:07:28] my politics is being apolitical by being apolitical and by the things that I depict in my movies that is my politics and I think that is being also depicted through how or in them feels about being associated with any sort of politics he doesn't want that so I

[01:07:48] really hated that whole Burech character because I was like that's a mean thing to do to your friend like that's not very friendly at all but also I don't think Ray's movies are apolitical at all I think they're incredibly political they just I mean apolitical

[01:08:04] in a way that it's not clearly left or right no it's not he doesn't do speech making you know it's not a Manoj Kumar movie but you wash your mouth out with soap right now so in a Manoj Kumar movie Uttam would have walked out of that car

[01:08:22] and given a heroic speech in the rain while like a half naked woman was like dancing in the background for no good reason no but like Ray's movies are a critique of the society in which he lived or the society out of which the present society was born

[01:08:44] so I and that's pretty political in you know it's just not you know a certain kind of politics it's absolutely political so I don't get a lot of people who are just like well your films are apolitical that's rubbish it's just not it's not loud politics

[01:09:00] which I think a lot of people think equates to no politics but that's rubbish what else would we like to say about this amazing film can we talk about how pretty Shyamala and Uttam are they're so pretty together I'm trying to remember what their other films together are

[01:09:20] and I know there's at least one in Hindi right yeah it is terrible there's actually two because I think they also did Kitab together which is a Gujarat film actually I like this movie as a road trip train trip movie because the containment factor

[01:09:42] is so so important in it and it I was trying to think of other train films that I like and I can think of train sequences but that's not the same thing the burning train the burning train did you enjoy that movie

[01:09:58] but even that is not as much in the train as it's on the train you know one of the things that's not missing from this film because I don't actively miss it but is not in here as one of the movie stars you know weapons

[01:10:14] of delight is a song sequence and while he does not sing and dance in the Hindi hero sort of way Uttam Kumar does song sequences all the time and we don't get to see that aspect of his talents in this film but it would have been

[01:10:30] super forced it would have made sense but the scene where he's drunk and they're standing kitty corner to each other outside the toilet and they're talking to each other and he's sent for her in a very imperious way and there's definitely like

[01:10:50] you know the dirty old uncle who's been creeping on the advertising executive's wife who's giving them these dirty looks and it's like oh like I know what's going on here and the two of them are talking and she's looking at him with so much affection

[01:11:08] and he's looking at her as if he's been parched for affection his entire life and also you know if you look this movie came out in 1966 and there's repeated mentions of how he lost his parents when he was a little kid so if you look at the timeline

[01:11:28] his parents probably died during the Bengal famine hmm that makes like the most you know sense historically speaking so this is definitely a man who has grown up without the permanence of family or has felt unconditional love in his life and then he meets this one

[01:11:50] in this midst of all this transactional relationships and she not only refuses to let him humiliate himself but she refuses to let him hurt himself so at the end where you know they've had a conversation and he's like fine like you know you can do whatever

[01:12:08] you want like I don't care and she says fine I'll leave but I leave after you because she doesn't want him to be alone and there's that split second of things that just make me love Uttam especially in this movie because there's that split second

[01:12:24] where he realizes that she's looking out for him and that hasn't happened in likely forever or like or since Shankar Dutt died basically and it registers on his face and he checks himself before he sort of flounces off like a drunken fool but it is so cute

[01:12:48] and that's the kind of charm like you know songs in films they're used for very specific reasons and one of the reasons is charm and it is to portray the kind of deepening emotions between the two characters and that scene while it was doing all these other things

[01:13:08] while it was exposing Arindam in so many different ways and it was sort of plumbing the depths of his character and how low he's fallen and all of that it also manages to establish this connection between those two characters and that's why Satyajit Ray is a master

[01:13:26] I'd also like to point out like what we were talking about Shankar Dutt briefly there and the whole idea of where his guilt comes from and he starts recapping going into the flashback and the first guilt that he thinks of

[01:13:42] is a consequence and Shankar Dutt doesn't give him that hand to pull him out so he thinks that he's wronged him in some way because he was the one guiding voice throughout his adult years you know when Shankar Dutt dies on the last day of Durga Puja

[01:13:58] and he's lifting him to the Shoshan right to burn him off and he's like I've lost all my relatives but I'd never felt anything for them this was the first time I felt some aspect of loss and yet at the funeral as Shankar Dutt burns in the background

[01:14:16] he makes the decision to work in films his life changes from the ashes of Shankar Dutt and that guilt has always been there and it's so beautifully done the way that the scene shifts from them lifting the Durga Idol and it moves to him shouldering his corpse

[01:14:42] and then that scene where he's lit by the funeral pyre as he says Shankar Dutt must have been wrong like Shankar Dutt must have been wrong in order to convince himself to do what Shankar Dutt didn't want him to do it is just yeah it's an incredible sequence

[01:15:00] but also again I'm really mad at Shankar Dutt because Shankar Dutt does not get to tell a vulnerable young man what to do with his life that's just wrong and then the other father figure in his life which is Mukunda Lahiri yeah that's kind of like

[01:15:18] a race comment on how 60s how he saw 60s Bengali acting was and probably what kind of movies were being made at that time with all the like Uptam says he reads all the lines and sort of utters them in the same mannerism in every film he does

[01:15:40] there is no sort of characterization to his acting and even with the first movie that he did with Mukunda he knew that he was wrong like Mukunda was wrong and he was right and his friend says you will progress a lot you know you'll do well

[01:15:58] I wonder who that's supposed to be that must be a jab at at least a handful of particular performances or performers because he I know it's not Choby Biswas but he has like that is a role that that actor would play

[01:16:16] I feel but maybe I don't know enough about Bengali character actors of the 40s Choby Biswas has also worked with Ray right? No it's not him at all but it's that generation and I just don't know those stars well enough but again tell us the gossip from

[01:16:34] 60 years ago we wanted that Going back to Caligata and digging out pages of telegraph from like 1960s Any closing thoughts about this film? I mean obviously everyone should see it if you haven't seen it see it there are parts of the world where you can

[01:16:54] rent this on the criterion restored version on Amazon it's four bucks to rent it please watch it if you haven't please please please please You can watch it on YouTube for free with subs Do that As a quick follow up the next

[01:17:10] film that these two do together and the only film they do after this together is Churya Khanna either of you have any thoughts on that one? Please avoid Oh No I actually quite liked it as much as I can remember I haven't seen it in a while but

[01:17:26] it would be interesting to revisit that especially since Amrita has so strong feelings about it My strong feelings are mainly about that one sequence where he puts on yellow face yeah he pretends to be Japanese it just ruined the entire film for me I just couldn't

[01:17:42] get past it and my closing thoughts on like Nyok is like this is a movie that is made in the 60s and with like really minimum shoestring budget and amount of technical achievement that it has you know done in presenting the indoor space of a

[01:18:02] train carriage the whole background is a a back projection and it was like it still looks like we are watching it on a much better resolution TV in our living rooms you know and so many years after when it has been remastered it still holds up

[01:18:22] it's so well done it's so well lit the camera work by one of the best the pioneers one of the pioneers of Indian cinematography Shubhratamitra and the art direction by Banshi Chandragut it's just stellar and all of that come together in Ray's vision yeah this

[01:18:44] movie is a work of art from its technical stuff to its actors to its direction to everything if you want to watch just one Satyajit Ray movie or if you want to watch just one Uttabh Kumar movie or even if you want to watch just

[01:19:02] one Shamla Tagore movie like this is the movie that you should watch because everybody is on top of their game here and it is a truly enjoyable film like it's not even like cause I feel like a lot of people approach movies like this

[01:19:18] like the movie called art cinema as a home work or as a chore but honestly this is just good cinema if you like cinema then Nayak is a movie that you will love also it would be unfair if we didn't ask this question what would

[01:19:34] be the one Suchit Rasena movie if we were to recommend to people who are totally unaware of her work like my choice is clear it will be Chawapau that is a good choice for me I think it's going to be Satpake Banda how do you pronounce that?

[01:19:54] Satpake Banda. Thank you that is a towering performance from her about a marriage that goes terribly terribly wrong it's phenomenal and everyone should watch that that is true yeah I would be happy with either one of those I think if you want to watch something

[01:20:10] fun and frothy then go with Sujoy's Choice if you want to watch something that is truly emotional go with Beth. Isn't that always the case? I think I am insulted I am not sure I mean I am the Uttam guy and you

[01:20:28] are the Shomitru guy right? It's true it's true yeah next mini series I'm going to demand better representation of my favorite it does feel like the series finale right we have built up our way through these three episodes and this does feel like the

[01:20:44] series finale we are talking about some like two really monumental movies yeah we hope that these conversations have peaked your interest in watching some of these films if you've never seen them or if you haven't seen them for a long time to give them another visit because

[01:20:58] they're all pretty marvelous even if just for performances by these two amazing artists who are cornerstones of Bengali cinema this has been the final episode in our limited mini series Talifali on the classic Bengali cinema of Uttam Kumar and Sujitra Zen Sujoy is on

[01:21:16] Twitter and Instagram at 9E3K do check out his Instagram for some great pictures of London for a little bit of travel when we can't go anywhere Amrita is on Twitter at Amrita IQ and YouTube at Amrita by the Book where she talks about books and reading

[01:21:32] do listen she's great and I am on Twitter at Beth Loves Bali and I am happy to tweet with anyone about Bengali cinema at any time thank you all for listening