Sonar Kella (1974)

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writer:

Satyajit Ray (writer)

Release Date:

27 December 1974 (India)

Genre:

Adventure | Family

Plot Keywords:

Hypnotism | Camel Ride | Pretending To Sleep | Drawing | Snakes And Ladders

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Santanu Bagchi	...	Mukul 2
Ajoy Banerjee	...	Amiyanath Burman
Haradhan Bannerjee	...	Tapesh's father
Kushal Chakravarti	...	Mukul Dhar
Bimal Chatterjee	...	Advocate
Rekha Chatterjee	...	Tapesh's mother
Siddharta Chatterjee	...	Tapesh (Topshe)
Soumitra Chatterjee	...	Prodosh Mitra (Feluda)
Harindranath Chattopadhyay	...	Uncle Sidhu
Santosh Dutta	...	Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu)
Ashok Mukherjee	...	Journalist
Kamu Mukherjee	...	Mandar Bose
Shailen Mukherjee	...	Dr. Hemanga Hajra
Shiuli Mukherjee	...	Mukul's mother
Sunil Sarkar	...	Mukul's father

Directed by
Satyajit Ray

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Satyajit Ray		writer

Original Music by
Satyajit Ray

Cinematography by
Soumendu Roy

Film Editing by
Dulal Dutta

Production Design by
Ashoke Bose

Sound Department
J.D. Irani	....	sound
Anil Talukdar	....	sound

Production Companies

• Government of West Bengal

Distributors

• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (1981) (USA) (TV) (network premiere) (subtitled)

Also Known As:

The Golden Fortress (USA)

Runtime:

120 min | India:136 min

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Government of West Bengal

Trivia:

The title means "The Golden Fortress", a reference to the fort at Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India, which is built of a kind of sandstone that resembles gold.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Kailashey Kelenkari (2007)

A brilliant adaptation of Ray's own novel.Watch it for Feluda and Jatayu.

Well those who are not aware of who Feluda the protagonist of this movie is won't be able to get the real flavor of the flick.But for a Feluda fan like me Sonar Kella is truly a masterpiece.Feluda, a private investigator is one of the most underrated detectives in the world of fiction but perhaps one of the most interesting characters of Indian novels and stories.Sonar Kella is one of his early adventures and it is the story where he and his cousin meets the brilliant Jatayu, the comic element and an author of detective stories.The greatness of the movie is that it successfully portrays the original characters so much so that you just wonder which was made earlier,the story or the movie itself,very much like The Godfather.Hardly you will come across such a successful adaptation of a novel.Soumitra Chatterjee as Feluda and Santosh Dutta as Lalmohan Ganguly(Jatayu is his pen name)are simply amazing.The supporting actors too have done a commendable job.It is not a flawless film.Still that can be forgiven as its target audience were the kids.Cinematography was brilliant,so was the selection of the locations in Rajasthan where most of the film was made.Watch it not just for its director but for its lead actors and its brilliant screenplay.Don't forget to show this to your kids.Jatayu is gonna make them laugh for sure.Good work done.