Ray: Stories that revolve around the realm of Human Dominance
Ray is a series based on the short stories written by the great Satyjit Ray and performed in front of us by some of the great actors of modern cinema, commercialised via the amicable juggernaut Netflix.
I have watched two episodes of this series so far and the series is nothing short of a beauty. The larger narrative in the movies sits on the pedestal of human psychology and how the we often perceive the unequal distribution of resources in our lives is a result of our efforts and forget the proxy that is God, and try to dethrone everyone, thinking that we are supreme. It is this psychology and the insatiable quest for power that makes human fall prey to their own actions and mind.
The first episode in the series is Forget me Not, where Ali plays the role of a successful entrepreneur whose memory is considered to be an equivalent of a computer and has been able to deploy his “God” gift for the success of his business and his life. The story unfolds bitter for him, when he stops being humble about it and start believing in the power of “Me” and not them.
His own life crumbles when everyone around his life forms a ploy to beat him using own God Gift. The plot has some close relativity to plot of Drishyam, but Ali’s performance in the same makes it worth watching. His performance supersedes all your perceptions and pre conceived notions and he really brings out demons, devil, victim and a nice man at the pause and play of a button, as and when required by the script and the narrative.
One of most beautiful thing about the episode is how the most innocuous and innocent looking faces brings down the heaviest damage to the protagonist’s life and this underdog character metamorphosis into the central character is something which I enjoyed the most in the episode.
Episode wasn't at all shy in submitting the fact that story has some closesness to the plot of Dhrishyam. It infact made the required refrence to ‘Dhrishyam’ in one of the scenes where protagonist (Ali Zafar) visits the cinema Mall and his wife is seeing the same movie. However, the larger narrative in the episode is completely different from Drishyam and this is what sets it apart!!
The second episode in the series is “Behrupiya” has a story of a makeup artist Kay Kay Menon, who is dejected by the ill treatment of the society and tries to take revenge of it when he inherits some of the grotesque makeup techniques and a heavy bounty from his deceased grandmother whom he dearly endeared and cared about. The protagonist tried to assert his power over and over again, perhaps the bounds and heaps of embarrassment, haplessness (before founding the lucky bounty) had now transformed into a latent anger was manifesting itself as obnoxious rage and insecurity now into the exterior world. Some of the scenes have been an absolutely testament of Kay Kay Menon’s acting ability who galloped the character quite brilliantly. One of the most remarkable scene in the episode was the one with the Peer baba in the shrine where baba turned blank pages again and again and asked Menon his name, eloquently showing various characters Menon had transformed into using prosthetics!!
All in all,these two episodes are okay that you can spend watching over a weekend.
Dont keep very high expectations considering it is being delivered under the name of the Great Mr. Satya Jit Ray!!
Trailer of the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWPfFDAFvNk
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