The Golden Fortress (1974)
"Sonar Kella" (original title)

A young boy becomes a target for crooks, after he claims to remember his past life and mentions precious jewels in a golden fortress.

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Hridayesh Pandey (hindi dialogue), Satyajit Ray (screenplay),

Stars:

Soumitra Chatterjee, Santanu Bagchi, Ajoy Banerjee

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Soumitra Chatterjee	...	Prodosh Mitra (Feluda) (as Soumitra Chattopadhyay)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Santanu Bagchi	...	Mukul 2
Ajoy Banerjee	...	Amiyanath Burman
Haradhan Bannerjee	...	Tapesh's father
Kushal Chakravarti	...	Mukul Dhar
Bimal Chatterjee	...	Advocate
Dibyendu Chatterjee
Rekha Chatterjee	...	Tapesh's mother
Santi Chatterjee
Siddhartha Chatterjee	...	Tapesh (Topshe)
Harindranath Chattopadhyay	...	Uncle Sidhu
Santosh Dutta	...	Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu)
Uday Singh Gailol
Sujit Ganguly	...	(as Dr. Sujit Ganguly)
Nimai Ghosh

Storyline

Mukul, a six year old boy, is obsessed with drawing pictures of a golden fortress, and claims to have lived there in a past life. Hoping to better understand the boy's condition, parapsychologist Dr. Hajra accompanies Mukul to search for the fortress. However, a newspaper story alerts a pair of crooks to the possibility of a hidden treasure. The boy's father fears Mukul is in danger, and hires private detective Prodosh "Feluda" Mitra and his cousin Topshe to join Hajra and Mukul in Rajasthan. But the danger may already be closer than they realize.

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Plot Keywords:

pretending to sleep | drawing | fake gun | newspaper clippings | peacock | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Family

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Details

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Release Date:

27 December 1974 (India)

Also Known As:

The Golden Fortress

Company Credits

Production Co:

Government of West Bengal

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Did You Know?

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.

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Connections

Followed by Tintorettor Jishu (2008)

User Reviews

one of the most entertaining films I have ever seen

This is an excellent film. Satyajit Ray's genius is evident in each and every scene. The characters are portrayed beautifully. Soumitra Chatterjee is superb as 'Feluda'. One of my favorites is Kamu Mukherji as Mandar Bose. The range of emotions shown and the comic touch in his actions and dialogue are excellent. The change in his facial expression when he is trying to match Mukul's face with his photograph in the train is amazing.

Of course, everyone's darling Santosh Dutta as "Jatayu" is very good too. He portrays the average Bengali babu's role to perfection. "Topshe's" role as a eager and jovial teenager is well suited too.

The transitions between scenes are very nice - they help maintain the pace of the film. The background music leaves a beautiful impression. You may need to watch the film more than once to notice the subtle connections between certain dialogues and visual clues.

The dialogues are crisp and delivery is fantastic. Unfortunately, you would need to know the Bengali language to fully enjoy their impact - the loss in translation is inevitable.

Not one moment in the film is boring - if you want to be entertained as well as intellectually stimulated - this film is for you. Needless to say, I have watched it many times and I have a copy in my personal collection.