Byomkesh Bakshi is a popular, fictional private detective from Bengali literature and was created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay inspired from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Having only seen his Apu trilogy prior to this, Satyajit Ray for me has always been an auteur who gave utmost importance to realism while the movies of that era were mostly melodrama with heavily theatrical acting. Therefore, it aroused my curiosity of how Ray would have treated a story that didn't belong to his sensibilities (or so I thought as I didn't know about Feluda then).Chiriakhana (which means Zoo in Bengali/Hindi) begins with Byomkesh and his friend cum trusted associate Ajit awaiting for their next case when it finally knocks their door. The client, Mr.Sen who is a retired judge, runs a reformist colony (named Chiriakhana) which houses some of the ex-convicts who were sentenced by him. He seeks Byomkesh's services to investigate a song that he overhears someone humming in the colony. Byomkesh figures it out to be a song from an abandoned film whose actress cum singer is accused of a murder and has been absconding ever since. One day Mr.Sen suspects something and requests Byomkesh to visit his colony urgently when someone murders him while he is still on the call. Byomkesh now has to investigate his client's murder and also link the mystery of the song with the murder.
Chiriakhana is arguably the least suspenseful of Byomkesh Bakshi stories. The link between the song and murder is quite clear to the viewer but it takes a while for a great detective like Byomkesh to understand it and this dilutes the brilliance of Byomkesh. The ending where the detective summons everyone and reveals the culprit is very hurriedly done. Even after multiple watches, the motive is still not very clear and convincing to me.
The movie was initially meant to be directed by one of Ray's assistants and he had to hesitantly take it up and had no say in the story or the cast. Even with a flawed screenplay, the director leaves his mark on the film and manages to extract quite natural performances from the whole cast. Ray's touch can especially be noticed in the opening scene that introduces Byomkesh and Ajit in their dark, crammed apartment and the conversation with Mr.Sen that follows. Uttam Kumar, the reigning star of Bengali Cinema at that time, makes for an excellent Byomkesh and his audacious presence further elevates the character.
Chiriakhana nevertheless is a good watch and recommended for a lazy afternoon.
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