DodoDroppings

First off, even though regressive superstitious beliefs are prevalent today even in metropolitan cities, I feel the series should've been set in the early 90s to make it more believable and to pack a heavier punch.

Mimi Chakraborty should've fit the lead role, but doesn't. Yes, she's supposed to be the misfit w.r.t the rest of the characters and the backdrop, but she should've at least been on the same page. Her performance feels superficial. She does somewhat redeem herself in the climax though, thanks to the action director and the makeup/effects team. The antagonist "Jaan Guru" should've felt like a caricature but with a sinister, nauseating presence. Clichéd performance by Biswajit Das.

Great supporting characters - varied, quirky. Commendable performances by everyone.

A tense, gritty narrative unfolds, with some creative, unfeigned humour sprinkled in to lighten the grim tone at times. The action is taut, relentless and quite realistic - the USP of the series. With outrageous on-screen violence in fashion these days, "Dainee" keeps things restrained yet graphic. Overall good cinematography and editing, but could've been better.

The sequence of events catches the viewer off guard at times and entertains if taken at face value. But, the little things do matter. We can't use the term "plot hole" to describe them if we are willing to suspend our collective sense of logic in addition to our disbelief, but an eye for detail and a keen sense of storytelling should be basic prerequisites, right?

And now, I'd like to throw light on something that irked me more than the story. The series looks and feels like contemporary South Indian films - makeup, colour-grading, action, characterisation...you name it. Repeating formulaic patterns and aesthetics on screen is fine as long as something original and culturally relevant is kept intact in a way that overpowers the "copy of a copy of a copy" aspect of it all. At the very least, I expect subtlety, originality in artistic expression and nuanced realism in storytelling when watching Bengali content. And, I daresay, a cerebral approach.

With the exception of a few well-made shows, Hoichoi usually produces mediocre original content, so there's hardly any need to discuss them. But "Dainee" had great potential, hence the need to pen down my thoughts. To sum up, it surely is one of the better ones of the lot and deserves one's time.

If one reads Satyajit Ray's short story "Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro (Storyteller Tarini Uncle)" one would hardly find enough material to make a feature-length film out of it. There are other Tarini stories of course, but Ananth Mahadevan's "The Storyteller" is based only on the aforementioned one. Hence, the makers have had to add stuff, drag out the narrative, build upon the characters and feed in underlying themes.

Casting Paresh Rawal as a Bengali was nothing short of a blunder. And it felt like he wasn't given much to base his character off of - the worst thing that can happen to a Ray adaptation. Adil Hussain as the Gujarati businessman Garodia too seemed out of it. Additional supporting characters have been sprinkled in generously but most of them didn't seem to add much to the narrative. I failed to understand the dynamics between Tarini and the librarian Suzie (Tannishtha Chatterjee - awfully miscast). Only Revathi somehow makes her mark despite her limited screen time.

Clichés have been added in poor taste (two things need to be mentioned here: 1) Tarini was fine with having Gujarati food at his employer's residence in the original story, 2) The depiction of Durga Puja in the film is the worst I've ever seen). Had expected some good stories (either original or adapted from Ray's other works) presented in animated form as Tarini attempts to put his employer to sleep - got a couple of poorly "spun" headless/tailless ideas instead. The overall pacing is painfully drab, with more focus on the mundane and minimal efforts to make things interesting for the viewer. Even the conflict and the resolution seemed lacklustre. Tarini's ultimate self-discovery after overcoming self-doubt felt like a consolation prize for sitting through the film.

Pros? A few witty lines here and there and the closing scene. The music too, I guess - Tagore and Ray never fail.

"The Storyteller" is a prime example of how bad filmmakers ruin good stories despite having great actors on board. Let's just leave it at that.

I've said it before, I'll say it again - Srijit Mukherji has bagged the best lead actors since Sandip Ray's original trio (Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Saswata Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh). All three leads look (and have been made to look) awfully similar to Ray's sketches and have clearly worked on 'becoming' the characters they play. Then again, nostalgia is a tough thing to beat. Our expectations would always remain sky-high.

With season 2, Anirban Chakrabarti has stopped being Ekendra Sen and has started to look and sound more like Lalmohan Ganguly without parroting his predecessors. He has understood the assignment (mostly) and has worked on delivering. Kalpan Mitra gets a lot of hate on social media, but I like him better than all his predecessors and peers post Saswata Chatterjee. Tota Roy Chowdhury's approach is more grounded and real, yet his portrayal elicits conflict. Despite wowing in some scenes, quite a few of his expressions and body language made me cringe. Even his voice sounded drab and too loud at times.

The supporting cast should've been stronger.

Kashmir has been used well, its ethereal beauty oozing in abundance in almost every shot; the 'travelogue' element well-incorporated. The colour-grading is definitely an issue, but can be overlooked if only the camerawork is taken into consideration.

As for the narrative, Mr Mukherji has kept the whodunit intact but has added elements of his own to spice things up a bit. The political tension was unnecessary in my opinion but does add another dimension for viewers who haven't read the story. Creative liberties here and there could've been avoided, especially the two big ones in the climax. The planchette scenes felt awfully underdone, comical even. Loved the "Hirak Rajar Deshe" reference, the "Sonar Kella" reference and, of course, the casebook montage.

The BGM, though repetitive, sounded good.

Our need for a Feluda story to look and feel like a Feluda story on screen is a mighty ask, for what we actually look for is the same feeling we feel every time we watch the two OG films and the OG TV series. Feludar Goyendagiri S02, like Feluda Pherot S01, is thankfully quite watchable.