Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Hero Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 28, 2018

Satyajit Ray's "The Hero" a.k.a. "Nayak" (1966) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include an archival interview with actress Shamila Tagore and new video interview with professor Meheli Sen. The release also arrives with a 30-lage illustrated booklet featuring an essay by author Pico Iyer, reprinted tribute to actor Uttam Kumar, and technical credits. In Bengali, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The interview

Uttam Kumar, arguably the greatest Bengali actor of the post-WWII period, plays another iconic actor, Arindam Mukherjee, who is expected in Delhi where he is scheduled to make an appearance at a prestigious event to receive an important award. The trip from his home town to his final destination is a long one, well over 1,000 miles, which means that he must spend almost two full days on a train.

Soon after the train leaves the station, Arindam is annoyed that the morning papers have rushed to report an incident that could damage his reputation -- just hours earlier, while drinking in a popular night club, he lost his cool and caused a massive brawl. If he had stayed home he could have altered the ‘official story’ that the papers have reported, but how can he defend himself while traveling? Now the reporters can embellish the story even more and there is nothing that he can do to stop them. In a desperate attempt to ease a growing headache and avoid the silly chatter and requests for autographs from passengers that may recognize him, Arindam casually enters the dining car and orders a drink. However, after awhile he becomes bored and agrees to do an interview with a young and very beautiful reporter (Sharmila Tagore) from a trendy contemporary magazine that does not offer in-depth coverage of the local box-office.

In the early stages of the interview Arindam sells the same image that he always does whenever he talks to reporters -- he is the confident star that can comfortably navigate through the many challenges that the film industry routinely places in front of successful actors like him. But when the reporter carefully begins to unpeel the many layers of the mask that he has learned to wear over the years, Arindam suddenly realizes that he has paid a hefty price for his professional success and quietly evolved into a unhappy man on the verge of self-destruction.

In a new interview included on this release, professor of cinema studies Meheli Sen compares Satyajit Ray’s The Hero to Federico’s Fellini’s masterpiece 8½ and highlights the similar ways in which their main protagonists begin to reevaluate their lives. The comparison is interesting and justified. Though in Fellini’s film Guido is a prominent director who tries to overcome what seems like a permanent creative block, the protective mask that he wears is essentially identical to the one that Arindam uses early in Ray’s film. Additionally, Ray enters Arindam’s dreams to reveal the vulnerable person behind the mask just as easily as Fellini merges fantasy and reality to expose the conventional fears and flaws of the aging director.

What affects the nature of the introspection that Ray and Fellini’s films offer and ultimately makes them different is their visual style. Fellini’s film is like a giant live portrait whose different elements are constantly repositioned by an artist with an overwhelming imagination, which is why it is visually stunning but at times also perplexingly chaotic. Ray’s film is smaller, leaner, and devoid of glamour. It also casually surrounds its ‘hero’ with ordinary characters that eventually see through his mask and realize that he is just like them.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Satyajit Ray's The Hero arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:

"This new digital master was produced from a restoration undertaken by RDB Entertainments, under the supervision of Kamal Bansal and Varsha Bansal. For the restoration, a digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative and a 35mm print at Pixion in Chennai, India. The original monaural soundtrack was restored by the Academy Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from a 35mm composite optical print at Audio Mechanics in Burbank, California. Additional remastering and restoration work was completed by the Criterion Collection in New York.

Project supervisor: Mr. Balaji/Pixion, Chennai, India.
Lead restorers: Mr. Chadrashekhar, Mr. Kiran/Pixion.
Colorists: Mr. Mathews, John Tharyil/Pixion."

RDB Entertainments is also the party behind the recent restorations of Satyajit Ray's The Big City, Charulata, The Coward, and The Holy Man. Unsurprisingly, the overall quality of the technical presentation of The Hero is very similar to that of the rest of the films that are mentioned above.

What immediately becomes very obvious is that the film is healthy and stable. In fact, I would speculate that a massive amount of cleanup work was done to eliminate all age-related imperfections because in the past, when released on home video, Satyajit Ray's films would typically look very rough. The Hero looks fresh, vibrant and virtually spotless. Detail and depth are very pleasing, though there are a few areas where some minor fluctuations can be observed. Work appears to have been done to reabalance the images as best as possible and the end result is quite good. Trained eyes will likely notice a few segments where the digital work that was done to accomplish the evenness also flattens the image a bit, but there are no troubling anomalies. Also, there is a bit of black crush popping here and there, but once again it is extremely mild and unoffensive. A couple of somewhat shaky transitions remain, but overall image stability is very good. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Bengali: LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

There is some small but noticeable unevenness -- 'boxiness' is perhaps a more accurate description -- that emerges during a few sequences, but to me it is clear that it is how the audio was actually recorded. (The most obvious examples are early in the film before Arindam boards the train). The dialog is stable and very easy to follow. Satyajit Ray also created the score for the film, but its role is secondary. There are no audio dropouts or digital distortions to report.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Sharmila Tagore - in this archival video interview, edited by Criterion for this release, actress Sharmila Tagore recalls her work with Uttam Kumar and Satyajit Ray during the shooting of The Hero and discusses the visual style of the film and some of its key similarities with Federico Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2. The interview was recorded by producer Nasreen Munni Kabir in 2008. In English, not subtitled. (12 min, 1080p).

• Meheli Sen - in this new video interview, Meheli Sen, associate professor of cinema studies at Rutgers University, discusses some of the unique themes in The Hero, its narrative structure and style, and Uttam Kumar's performance and legacy. The interview was conducted exclusively for Criterion in 2017. (25 min, 1080p).

• Booklet - 30-lage illustrated booklet featuring author Pico Iyer's essay "Depths and Surfaces", Satyajit Ray's "In Memory of Uttam Kumar", and technical credits.

The Hero Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Success often comes at a price that one can fully comprehended only years later, after one has already undergone an irreversible transformation. Sometimes it is easy to come to terms with the 'discovery' and quickly move away from it, but more often than not after the realization there is a very painful recovery period that can cause some permanent scars. The Hero marked the first collaboration between Satyajit Ray and the popular Bengali actor Uttam Kumar, and it is about a very successful movie star who has began realizing that he has sacrificed an awful lot to get to the top. It has some very interesting Fellini-esque overtones that have rightfully compelled many viewers to compare it to the timeless 8½. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.