India
AGANTUK
(The Stranger)
(1991/Colour)
Director: Satyajit Ray
"Agantuk" ("The Stranger")
was Satyajit Ray's last film, and it shows all the virtues of a master
artist in full maturity.
With the simplicity that comes with complete command of his medium, Ray
begins his story with a letter. The recipient, Anila (Mamata Shankar),
is a typical middle-class housewife living with her husband, Sudhindra
(Deepankar De), and son in Calcutta; the letter writer is an uncle who
left India 35 years ago, following his wanderlust to the far corners of
the globe. Or at least that's who he claims to be. Anila hasn't actually
seen her uncle since she was a baby, a fact that the uncle makes note
of. Nevertheless, he calls on the family's sense of "traditional
Indian hospitality" and asks to be taken in until he takes up his
travels once more.
In laying out these details, Ray—by far India's most renowned director—works
in the unhurried, observant style that made him one of the cinema's most
respected filmmakers. His focus, as always, is the human elements. But
he is also interested in ideas, and in that sense, "Agantuk"
is more conceptual, more Shavian and less naturalistic than most of his
earlier work.
THE
CHESS PLAYERS
(1977, Colour) Director: Satyajit Ray
One of Satyajit Ray's most beautiful films:
two fanatical chess players play game after game, while a bigger game
of chess - a political one - is being played out around them. Richard
Attenborough and Saeed Jaffrey give mesmeric and memorable performances.
DAYS
AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST
(1969, Black-and-white) Director: Satyajit Ray
This is Ray's most overtly Renoir-ish film,
almost a remake of Une Partie de Campagne. Here, however, it is not the
French bourgeois family setting off for a picnic, but four young men leaving
Calcutta for a few days in the country. Bringing with them their westernised
careerist attitudes, their middle-class indifference to the lower orders,
and a self-satisfaction that leaves them closed to experience...
GODDESS
(DEVI)
(1960, Black-and-white) Director: Satyajit Ray
In The Goddess Ray deals with a subject that
figures only marginally in his other films: the field of popular religion.
He shows us a conflict between the old and the new India, in the form
of a clash between father and son, with the soul of the son's beautiful
young wife as the prize.
PATHER
PANCHALI
(1955 Black-and-white) Director:
Satyajit Ray
The first film in Satyajit Ray's famous "Apu
Trilogy", it is the saga of an impoverished Brahmin family living in a
small Bengali village. Haunting and evocative, it takes the hero through
his early years up to adolescence.
TWO DAUGHTERS
(1961, Black-and-white) Director: Satyajit Ray
Another prize-winning film from Satyajit Ray,
based on stories by Rabindranath Tagore.
THE
WORLD OF APU
(1958, Black-and-white) Director: Satyajit Ray
The final part of Satyajit Ray's acclaimed
'Apu Trilogy', and a unique work in its own right. A visually brilliant
film, demonstrating Ray's remarkable talent for making even the most commonplace
event representative of our deepest feelings.
PRATIDWANDI (The Adversary)
(1972/B/W) Director: Satyajit Ray
Opening with negative black and white photography
to signal a dreamlike sequence, Satyajit Ray signals that Pratidwandi
(The Adversary) will differ from his previous work. Better known for his
films about rural India (The Apu Trilogy) and for period pieces (The Music
Room and Charulata), he tackles Calcutta's contemporary 1970's social
and political issues directly with this film. Despite the subject matter
and snippets of Buñuel-like surrealism, you can still identify
Ray's signature temperament and style as the film reaches its final reel.
Visit the Satyajit Ray Foundation website
Days
and Nights
in the Forest
Goddess(Devi)
Pather Panchali
Pather
Panchali
Pather
Panchali
Pather
Panchali
Two Daughters
The World of Apu