I am an ardent Ray fan and I till now I have seen 14 of his movies and loved 13 of them. Only one that I didn't love is Parash Pathar.
Satyajit Ray is my favorite filmmaker and all of his movies are master pieces. It is hard to find a fault in any of his movies. Acting is always very good, yet subtle. Background score is never over the top. There is no cheap melodrama and the viewer is encouraged to make his own conclusions. Even a minor actor not acting up to par has a jarring effect. It is like watching a blemish on an extraordinary piece of art.
So I was quite surprised by this movie, as the lead character Paresh Chandra Dutt was overacting a lot. So were some other actors. While in almost all Ray's movies characters are very real here they are caricatures instead and there is no subtlety to be found. Also the story never took an unexpected turn, it is another morality tale centered around philosopher's's stone. Though you can find Ray's touches here and there, there are not enough of them to save the film.
Though it a good film when compared with other Indian films of the same period, it doesn't in any way compares with Ray's other movies. I would recommend it only to Ray's die hard fans like me. Though I didn't really liked the movie I didn't consider it a waste of time either.
