Tintorettor Jishu

Sandip Ray has an unenviable task. For his films to be commercially successful, he requires a saleable character like Feluda, a story or some such connection of his colossus-like father Satyajit Ray, and a fickle audience who expect intellectual delicacies as well as entertainment. In this turmoil, he can only show glimpses of his cinematic sense, wry humour and old world Bengali charm--amidst an overwhelming desire for giving what sells. The net result is a thread of confusion running through the film, ending in a climax car chase scene and conclusion which resembled very bland left over watery soup.

And yet, there are areas of sheer visual delight     ( the inaugural shots of the Neogi home--the Jhargram Rajbari), the teatable discussion beside the majestic lake at Bhagwangarh, the introduction of Hong Kong etc.. There are subtle moments of Rudra( Shilajit )turning the No Smoking sign around on Somani's table before exhaling, the sudden storm as Feluda views the painting of Tintoretto, and the DVDs of old Hindi films at Paresh Pal's Hong Kong residence (his wife is a Bollywood film buff), which in turn explains the presence of the Cine Blitz film magazine from which Feluda confirm's Shilajit's identity as Nandakumar or Naba's brother.

But the story first. Feluda and his Topse and Jatayu help Naba Neogi(Bhaskar) when his car breaks down. Naba insists on them returning to his ancestral home (Jhargram Rajbari). A 14 year old Golden Retriever called Thumri has been killed--and they want to know why. At home, there is Naba's father Soumyasekhar, a lover of Classical music (2 excellent soundtracks of Gohar Jan and a Thumri are used--and the second dog is called Kajari). His brother Chandrasekhar had gone to Italy, married an Italian girl and had received this fabulous painting of Jesus Christ by Tintoretto, the famous Renaissance artist. He had brought it back to this house where he worked as a portrait painter and hung it in an unguarded room on the rooftop(how convenient!!), before disappearing years ago leaving behind a son in Italy called Rudrasekhar. Bhudeb Singh(the familiar Rajaram Yagnik) of Bhagwangarh in Chattisgarh, and a friend of Chandrasekhar wrote an article in India Today, putting the value of the painting at a whopping Rs.2 crores. This attracted the attention of Hiralal Somani(Biswajit Chakraborty) an unscrupulous businessman who wants the painting at all costs, to sell it to a Hong Kong based multimillionaire Art Collector.Meanwhile a researcher called Robin(Tota Roychoudhury),is a guest at this ancestral home, ostensibly to research on the life of Chandrasekhar. Another person (Shilajit) claims to be Chandrasekhar's son Rudrasekhar and lays claim on the painting. He avoids meeting anybody in the house, and has all his meals in his room. A robber is stopped by Feluda. The old clerk in the house smells a rat and is killed. . .

Rudra hangs a copy on the wall, steals the wall painting and tries to bypass Somani, but his goons kill him off. The killing is very hackneyed--the gunshot is masked by upping the TV volume. Very, very cliche and not in sync with the rest of the handling of the film. Somani now has the painting. Feluda detects the fake copy at the ancestral home by the night insects stuck to the wet freshly painted picture. He follows Somani to Hong Kong,where he meets up with Naba's contact Paresh(Paran Bandopadhaya), who runs an Indian Restaurant and loves snake preparations for dinner. After some insipid fights and revolver wagging, Feluda and his gang are captured by Somani. Meanwhile Robin arrives at Hong Kong and rescues them. Robin tells them that he has the original painting as he had already substituted a fake copy earlier. Feluda tells Robin that he had detected that Robin was not a Bengali, as he ate the meat preparation first and Sukto later.He then turns to the picture of a portrait of Chandrasekhar and in his computer, shows the similarity with Robin, who admits that he is Chandrasekhar's son and wants to donate the painting to an European Museum.The imposter Rudraprasad(Shilajit),was actually Nandakumar, Nabakumar's brother ,who had gone to Bombay to be an actor, and whose photograph was spotted by Feluda from the film magazine.The dog had been killed by Shilajit to prevent him from being identified by it as a previous resident in the house.Is it possible for a father(Soumyasekhar), not to know his own son, even though he has poor eyesight?

Finally the multimillionaire detects that Somani had stolen a fake only and had sold him that.He gets after Somani. Feluda corners Somani and smashes the painting(fake one ,of course). Somani hands back the cheque. And everything is hunky dory.

The screenplay is not smooth but adequate.Though why Tota's role had to be added on to the original story is a mystery.Perhaps Sandip Ray ran out of ideas while rewriting the screenplay. He could have created some thrilling  incidents with a bit more twists and turns but chose the easier option of a new character.The edutainment part was there, and details about the Renaissance painters were woven in as per the original story.The painting hardly looked 500 years old, and the way Tota was handling it, keeping it in his suitcase, is inexcusable for a person who had studied painting.

This is a Tintoretto painting and the portrait in the film looked to be in a different style.

  There was a glaring faux pax. The millionaire could easily have stopped the 3 million dollar cheque given to Somani, from being encashed ,by a simple phone call to his bankers--and not endangered lives by this car chase. Moreover are deals like this ever handled by a cheque ?It is always by fund transfers from bank to bank.

The music relies on Satyajit's original score, and Sandip thankfully kept it going and resisted the temptation of adding a song.

Barun Raha and Sasanka Palit took some glorious shots with interesting and innovative camera angles. The lighting in the night scenes were disturbing, and the contrasts and brightness were uneven  in some places. The Editing was on a whole satisfactory without being extraordinary.The director and editor were always cutting after an actor's reaction--which is fine unless it is repeated ad nauseun.

The star of the show is undoubtedly the audiographer Anup Mukhopadhyaya. Off screen voices, sounds of simple activities, music from another room, the crisp recording enhance the viewing pleasure. I would even call it Award Nomination category straight off.

Sabyasachi (Feluda)was brilliant in parts, hard, terse, tough and believable while throwing punches. In a few scenes he seems jaded and worn out. Is he now getting too old for the part? Why he still doesn't have a mobile phone is inexplicable. Parambroto(Topse) is also outgrowing his part. He is too tall and too smart. Left with very little personal moments, he merely supports his role without endowing any surprise or innovations.It is time to look for another Topse. Bibhu Mukhopadhyaya(Jatayu) is adequate but has to pay attention to his dialogue delivery, as many of his words were jumbled up and not decipherable.Biswajit Chakravarty(Hiralal Somani) speaks in the same way as Utpal Dutta's outstanding Meghraj, but is unable to convey the full effect of villainy. The rest were good but there were no outstanding performances nor were there any scope to do so..

Tintorettor Jishu is a clean, family entertainer,fast paced with a more cerebral Feluda.The attractions of Hong Kong were not utilised.There are glaring holes in the action scenes like the car chase where lack of budget and technical expertise was just too self evident. The classical assured slow camera movements to establish a character was missing--as there was more reliance on dialogue.The screenplay just did not have the necessary depth or wit. What saved it was the magic of Satyajit Ray's original story--simple,subtly humourous, the emphasis on the correct pronunciation(Italian, French or English), and the presence of lurking danger.

The Nandan crowd were muted in their response.Naturally, the film promised a lot, raised our hopes in the first half but fizzled out like a long opened Pepsi can when the credits came down..The pace was good and ninety minutes went by in a flash. I did not sleep during the film,but the conclusion was so obvious and standard, that it left a bitter sense of unfulfilment which rankled and lingered on. Luckily, the best seats in Nandan costs only Rs.70!!!!!