A Feluda comeback?
| Posted By Sebabrata BanerjeeBIO Total 9 posts | March 11th, 2008 |
Publication of new Sherlock Holmes stories did not actually stop after author Arthur Conan Doyle passed away. Many authors, including his writer son Adrian, tried to recreate the Holmes magic; some of the efforts even received critical acclaim. What Sherlock was to English readers, Feluda is to their Bengali counterparts. Can Feluda walk in again through a different pen?
Several factors are in favour of this. One: all Feluda numbers are hugely popular among Bengali readers even now; they still appear in Bengali bestseller lists. Two: the last film on Feluda by Sandip Ray based on Satyajit Ray’s story “Kailashe Kelenkari”, ran to packed houses till few weeks back, which made a band of producers interested in the franchise. Three: Feluda has already gained some international recognition. Let alone the success stories of English translations of Feluda books, BBC World Service has dramatized two very popular Feluda Novels, Sonar Kella and Jay Baba Felunath, for broadcasting. Sonar Kella, re-christened as The Golden Fortress has its made appearance in BBC World Service podcasting with a fresh episode updated every Saturday.
I once asked Sandip Ray, the renowned filmmaker son of Satyajit Ray, about the possibility. But he looked cautious, “It’s difficult! The magic created by Baba can hardly be copied. They’re not just detective stories, rather a narrative of the lives of people who walked Kolkata streets in the mid-sixties!
When I reminded him about the bright prospects of a Feluda pastiche, Sandip said, “Even after spending so many years with Feluda, I wouldn’t dare go beyond Baba’s works for a project on Feluda. I take a certain amount of liberty while scripting a Feluda because the audio-visual medium often demands a different narrative and I’m comfortable doing that. But I haven’t really thought of writing new stories.”
Then, can we expect a brand new film story on Feluda?
“Let’s see what happens in future.”
That’s what all Feluda-fans can do right now, keep their fingers crossed and wait for the release of the next Feluda-number in December. Meantime, you can always grab some pastiches of Sherlock Holmes, read them and fancy about how nice it would have been to…
4 Responses to “A Feluda comeback?”
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Paromita
responded:That was a nice piece! Hope ‘feluda’ is back again - but only if ‘he’ meets the ‘expectations’!
PInaki Lahiri
responded:Sandip Ray knows how to make films. Just convey him, “to forget the rubbish the present generation of viewers expect”, ” pay a bit more attention on his editing” and “get a new self made background and title music away from Satyajit’s tunes”. This will surely produce an equally better film like the old Feludas.(from a film goer who is not a film reviewer)
Joy
responded:I agree with Pinaki, what he needs to do is brand feluda in a modern way, now Feluda is not Sherlock Holmes of the 1800 s where there little chance of upgradation, whereas here Feluda can be and successfully so as seen in KK and BB. A lot more is expected like redefining the theme music (not change mind you, redefining, slick editing, better SFX and a strong script. A better Lalmohan is expected. A time to scout for new Felu is becoming a necessity with ageing Sabyasachi(who has done a marvellous job so far. A business sense has to also develop in the whole act to come out with memorabilias, books, toys etc to brand it in younger generations better, also release the movies on DVDs at the earliest to avoid piracy. Last but noe the least, a number of Feluda shorts (Feluda 30) await commercial release, dunno for what unknown reason we are deprived of those, except baksho rahashya. thanks, Joy, London, 2008
kuntalghosh
responded:Music is only 1 percent of the problem.And Lalmohan babu is another 9%….which leaves a good 90 % which the filmmaker need to sort…mostly in his head.The big problem is ….. IS SANDIP RAY a good enough filmmaker for the genre of thriller’s.Probably NO.And do we have any in cal who can do it..A BIGGER NO.I have always thought bomkyesh and feluda should have hindi versions where filmmakers of class of shriram raghavan would do justice.We need to make some shift to suit a Pan Indian audience but the output would be good. And please we don’t need charecters who look exactly like Feluda/jatayu(mostly) at the cost of taking in garbage……