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Upperstall Review

Synopsis


  
Kailase Kelenkari

 

Bengali, Thriller, 2008, Color
Cast And Crew

Starring
Sabyasachi Chakraborty , Parambrato Chatterjee , Bibhu Bhattacharya , Biplab Chatterjee , Tom Alter , Dipankar De , Haradhan Bannerjee
Directed by
Sandip Ray
Story
Satyajit Ray
Screenplay
Sandip Ray
Music
Sandip Ray

Synopsis

Feluda and his two companions, the young Topshe and the good old Jatayu, a writer of detective novels with funny names, take off for the famous Ellora Caves to nab a notorious antique thief who goes by the name of Chattaraj. It all begins with a plane crash that kills everyone on board including a white man who was carrying the head of the famous Goddess Yakshi from the Rajrani temple in Bhubaneshwar. This ‘head’ goes missing and while they are scouting for this ‘head’ that must be saved and handed over to the powers-that-be at all costs, Feluda uncovers a diabolic plan to rob another famous antique from the Kailash temple at the caves of Ellora near Aurangabad. They find Chattaraj has preceded them to the same place. With his fund of encyclopaedic historical and architectural information, Feluda manages to outwit him and hand him over to the local police but only after the evil man has thrown an innocent but curious Bengali professor to his death.

Upperstall Review

Can there be a thriller without suspense? Sandip Ray’s new film Kailase Kelenkari, adapted from a novel of the same name from Satyajit Ray’s famous Feluda series, proves there can indeed be such a kind of thriller. The film is a detective-action thriller centred on Feluda’s razor-sharp intelligence and ready wit that helps him solve many a major crime with national and international implications. Kailase Kelenkari deals with the theft of antiques from ancient temples and architectural heritage sites and selling them off clandestinely to international buyers. The film opens dramatically enough to hook the viewer with the plane crash followed by an endless chain of actions and reactions from the detective on the one hand and his opponent on the other, racing against each in a battle of wits and ego with Feluda understandably carrying home the trophy of success. But a good detective thriller should have a water-tight plot, grip the viewer and should not make him question the logic of events even if they are illogical. Alfred Hitchcock was a master at this. Here in Kailase Kelenkari, too many questions get raised about the logic of several incidents. Why did the Indian professor from Michigan follow Chattaraj into the caves in the dead of night? How do Feluda and his companions talk about secrecy in the presence of the hotel bearer? Who commissioned Feluda to solve the mystery of the missing ‘head’ and the anticipated theft at the Kailash temple in the first place? Did he venture out on his own out of some patriotic fervour? And worse, what really kills whatever positive elements in the film is the lack of suspense. In Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) for instance, one gets to know the killer halfway through the film. But this does not take away from the thrills, the actions and the suspense even with the hero sitting with his fractured leg near the window right through the film. North by Northwest (1959) is a textbook case in thrills, chases and suspense. Will Sandip Ray please take a page out of these films before embarking on his next Feluda film? Another problem the film faces is that there are more detectives in this film than criminals of which, one comes across the one and only Chattaraj thus reducing his effectiveness as a strong adversary to Feluda. Feluda himself is too verbose and vocal which works very well in a literary work but not cinematically. He is forever spilling out historical and archeological facts on the Ellora Caves and the Kailash temple, which makes the film far more ‘talkie’ than necessary. Feluda spells out some of his strategies in solving the crime rather than these being treated visually, a much-needed element in a thriller. The car chases are too many, too long drawn-out and amateurish as are the fight sequences shot in the dark. One other major drawback of the film is the shooting of the commercial in the temple complex shown towards the closure before the climax. Obviously, this was put in conditionally to satisfy one of the sponsors of the film, a noted jewellery house in Kolkata. But it stands out like a sore thumb and is shot very amateurishly with the intended sarcasm falling flat on its face. Sad that a serious filmmaker like Sandip Ray is forced to accept sponsorship from a jewellery house and make such a cheap compromise. On the positive side, the histrionic work of the main actors is a big plus for Kailase Kelenkari. Sabyasachi Chakraborty as Feluda (Prodosh Mitter) carries on brilliantly from where Soumitra Chatterjee, who portrayed the detective in the Feluda films directed by the senior Ray, left off. But there are lines on his face that clearly belie his physical dexterity in the fight scenes. Parambrato Chatterjee as Topshe comes out with a seamless, natural performance as do Biplab Chattopadhyay as a small-time detective and Dipankar De as Chattaraj/Rakshit. Haradhan Bandopadhyay as Feluda’s generous uncle and Tom Alter as the foreign buyer are also good in their brief roles. I have always wondered why the character of Jatayu, both in the original literary novels and in the film, needs to be caricaturized to look like a buffoon. Is it to throw in relief the magical intelligence of Feluda? Or is it to spike the intriguing happenings with some humour? Never mind the reason but the effect fails to carry the argument forward. Sandip Ray’s screenplay is crisp and terse enough though as mentioned earlier the dialogue element could have been edited and trimmed. Special mention must be made of the cinematography in its capturing of the visual beauty of Ellora Caves in all its splendour be it day or night. The music credited to Sandip Ray keeps rising and falling with the changing moods of the film but has generously borrowed from Satyajit Ray’s original compositions. However, critics need not bother Sandip Ray because the first week’s box office collections have created a record by the standards of Bengali cinema. By the end of the first week, the film has fetched about Rs 45 lakhs from multiplexes, stand-alone theatres and Nandan whihch has made the producers increase the number of prints in the second week from 12 to 15. After all, one must grant it to Kailase Kelenkari because all said and done, it does offer ‘wholesome family entertainment’ with all the masalas put together. This is something not easily seen in Bengali films today.

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