A powerful treatise on fame, guilt, empathy and solitude
By Murtaza Ali Khan
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
 |
| Nayak (1966) - By Satyajit Ray |
Our Rating: 9.0
IMDb Ratings: 8.2
Genre: Drama
Cast: Uttam Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Bireswar Sen
Country: India
Language: Bengali
Runtime: 120 min
Color: Black and White
Summary: En route to Delhi to receive an award, a Bengali film star reevaluates his success through his fellow passengers, dreams and past experiences.
Nayak (aka Nayak: The Hero) is a 1966 Bangla drama film written and directed by the legendary
Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore in the
lead roles. Satyajit Ray presents the tale of a movie idol, named Arindam
Mukherjee, who despite his fame and success is haunted by solitude and a sense of guilt. He is both a compulsive smoker and an alcoholic. Although, Arindam hasn't
yet tasted failure, the very thought of it fills his heart with grave fear
and premonitions. He has had female companions but still pines for true love.
He has all the materialistic pleasures at his disposal but is robbed off his
mental peace.
 |
| Uttam Kumar as Arindam Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray's Nayak: The Hero |
While on a train from Calcutta to Delhi to receive an award, Arindam meets a female journalist, Aditi Sengupta, who has little regard for movie
stars. Aditi wants to interview him but she is least interested in printing
what everyone already knows about the matinee idol. So, she blatantly asks him
to reveal his true, darker self to her. He, however, dismisses her, saying that
he doesn't want to self-destruct his goody-goody image in front of his market. But, Arindam soon begins to regret the missed opportunity to finally unload his burden. He then sees a dream wherein he gets drowned in a quicksand of money. When he finally
wakes up, he feels uneasy, and, out of desperation, approaches Aditi to start a
conversation about his rather oblivious past, leaving himself completely
exposed in front of her.
 |
| Sharmila Tagore as Aditi Sengupta in Nayak: The Hero |
Nayak is a testament to Satyajit Ray's remarkable range as an auteur par
excellence. As a brooding character study, Nayak is distinctively different
from Ray's early ubiquitously renowned works like Pather Panchali (1955) and
Mahanagar (1963), which are essentially dramas laden with social commentaries. The
social commentary in Nayak, on the other hand, is mostly implicit. However, the one Ray movie that
Nayak does hark back to is the 1958 musical masterpiece, starring the great Chhabi
Biswas, Jalsaghar—undoubtedly, one of the greatest character studies of all
time. Nayak serves as a great precursor to Ray's "Calcutta trilogy”—comprising
Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1971), and Jana Aranya (1976).
 |
| A Still from Nayak's haunting dream sequence |
In Nayak, Uttam Kumar plays Arindam Mukherjee with such poise and ease
that it appears as if he is portraying his own life on the celluloid. Ray gives
us a vulnerable hero hiding behind his cocky, larger-than-life façade. And, Kumar, to his credit,
never misses a note during his challenging portrayal. He is well complemented
by Sharmila Tagore who plays the character of Aditi to a tee. Aditi is the only person Arindam opens
up to; the tantalizing conversations between the two characters offer some great food for
thought. Ray uses the various interactions between the co-passengers to make us
realize that the hypocrisies and follies of a star are not much different from
that of an ordinary man. A few other characters in the movie merely provide a morality check.
Overall, Nayak is a powerful work of cinema that like most films
of Satyajit Ray remains as relevant today as it was back then. Nayak is not an easy
movie to watch. Unlike other Ray films which require patience, this one
requires composure. There are scenes of such enormous power in Nayak that a
faint-hearted will get jitters while watching it. Ray's use of dream sequences to
make the narrative more evocative puts him up there with the likes of Bunuel,
Kurosawa, Bergman, and Fellini. Nayak is certainly a film that every student of cinema
ought to watch.
P.S. Nayak is available on YouTube with English subtitles and can be watched here.
 |
| Sharmila Tagore and Uttam Kumar in Satyajit Ray's Nayak: The Hero |
P.S. Nayak is available on YouTube with English subtitles and can be watched here.
Readers, please feel free to share your views/opinions in the comment box below. As always your feedback is highly appreciated!
For Best Films by Satyajit Ray, please click here
For Best Films by Satyajit Ray, please click here
References:
1). IMDb
2). Wikipedia
A Sequence from Nayak (1966)
People who liked this also liked...
Saw this yesterday, brilliant movie.
ReplyDelete