Nayak ("The Hero", sometimes referred to as The Hero) is a 1966 film from India, directed by Satyajit Ray.
Arindam Mukherjee is a Bengali actor who has been invited to accept a prestigious award. He takes a train to the capital and, while on the train, meets a broad variety of people. Many of them are star-struck, but one who isn't is Aditi Sengupta, a young journalist who edits a women's magazine. Aditi is not impressed by movies or movie stars, and she seems to regard Arindam as faintly ridiculous. Arindam for his part takes a liking to her, partly because she's good looking and partly because she isn't impressed by him.
A fellow passenger suggests that Aditi interview Arindam. Her women's magazine is struggling so Aditi gets Arindam talking while she surreptitiously takes notes. Arindam, who on the surface seems smoothly confident, gradually reveals more and more of his doubts and insecurities over the course of a long conversation. Aditi begins to wonder if publishing the interview would be a good idea.
Tropes:
- Blowing Smoke Rings: Arindam does this while smoking in his train car, as he projects the essence of cool.
- Call-Back: We eventually find out that Arindam had an affair with a woman named Promila in which she gave him sex in return for him getting her into the movies. Later, when Molly approaches Arindam on the train and says in a vaguely flirtatious manner that she'd like to get into the movies, he tells her to ask her husband.
- Casting Couch: It's strongly implied—not stated, because Indian censorship of the era wouldn't allow it, but implied—that Promila had sex with Arindam in return for him getting her started in movies.
- Doing It for the Art: In-Universe, Discussed Trope. When Shankar the theater director finds out that Arindam is auditioning for a movie, he gives Arindam a long lecture in which he says that movies aren't real art, and an actor can only give a real performance on a stage with an audience watching, as opposed to acting for a camera and having it all chopped up and edited.Shankar: I know there's glamour in films but they have nothing to do with art!
- Dream Sequence:
- Arindam has a dream where he is walking through a whole landscape of money, until he starts drowning in money quicksand. A man named Shankar appears and Arindam cries out for help. The meaning of this dream is soon revealed when Arindam tells Aditi that Shankar was his old theater director, who urged him not to go into movies.
- Later he has another dream where Promila leads him into a restaurant that is actually just tables in a field, where he's accosted by another man. This is Arindam dreaming about the incident where he punched Promila's husband.
- Flashback: In the latter part of the film, Arindam's stories to Aditi about his film career are accompanied by a series of flashbacks. One flashback shows a veteran actor who, on Arindam's first day on a movie set, insulted him and criticized his performance in what was basically a show of dominance. Another flashback set a few years later shows that veteran actor, his career having gone down the drain, asking Arindam for a part only for Arindam to ignore him.
- The Glasses Gotta Go: Aditi briefly takes off her glasses, showing her lovely face, and an admiring Arindam says "You look nice without your glasses." Not coincidentally, she wears her glasses less and less as Arindam bares his soul and they make a connection.
- Gratuitous English: It seems to be a habit, at least among the educated classes in Bengal, to pepper conversation with English. When Arindam's manager tells him, in Bengali, that his presence in a film doesn't guarantee box-office success, he says "Isn't that enough?" in English. Maybe 20% of the dialogue is in English, as multiple characters keep dropping English sentences into conversation.
- He's Dead, Jim: Shankar, Arindam's mentor in the theater, falls over. Arindam shouts his name, and someone else, about three seconds after Arindam hit the ground, says "No point calling him, he's gone." RIP Shankar.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: There's a lot of talk about the movies and the state of Indian filmmaking. Aditi sniffs that the movies aren't realistic. Arindam agrees, saying that women are hardly likely to burst into song at the end of a love affair. That's a cliche of mainstream Indian cinema but such fanciful moments were absent from the films of Satyajit Ray, whose movies were grounded in realism.
- Match Cut: In a flashback, the camera shows Arindam's fists slamming a table as he vows that he will make it to "the top!" of the acting profession. Cut to a closeup of Arindam's hands lighting a cigarette in the present day as he tells the story.
- Shout-Out: Arindam chats with an irascible old man named Chatterjee who says he's 89 years old and Indian movies have been bad since the talkies came in—but he did see and like How Green Was My Valley.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Aditi wears glasses, which mark her out as a smart, serious journalist, but also somewhat more subtly suggest that she's smug.
- Title Drop: Arindam says, about his film career, that "I always played the hero."
- Trade Your Passion for Glory: When Arindam was a struggling actor he was best friends with a left-wing radical named Biresh. Years later, after Arindam is a big movie star, Biresh looks him up and tries to get him to go to a protest rally like they used to in the old days. Arindam refuses, and as he tells the story to Aditi, he says he could tell that Biresh lost respect for him that day.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: A subplot features Sarkar, an advertising exec, and his wife Molly. He is bald and pudgy and in late middle age and she is gorgeous and in her 20s. Sarkar proposes that his wife flirt with a businessman on the train in order to get his business, and Molly is disgusted.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: One flashback shows Arindam, a newbie in film, getting bullied by an established actor named Mukunda Lahiri. Another flashback set much later has Mukunda show up at Arindam's house to relate how his career went down the toilet and he hasn't had an acting job in four years. He begs Arindam to get him a part but Arindam blows him off.
