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ABHIJAN/ EXPEDITION
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Lesser known but no less important than Satyajit Ray's early works in the Apu trilogy. Trying to make a success of his taxi business after a run-in with the police, Narsingh (Soumitra Chatterjee) takes refuge in the outskirts of the city, where he encounters the darker side of Bengali life--prostitutes, drug dealers, and white slave traders. Though similar to contemporary Indian commercial cinema in certain respects, it's Ray's indebtedness to neorealism and his depiction of intimate, human relations that Satyajit Ray---India---1962
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ADVERSARY
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A young man, graduated from college, is unable to find meaningful employment. His ensuing hardships and personal grief, magnified by the tense and impersonal setting of Calcutta, make for a most devastating film experience. While at times reminiscent of the emotionally wrenching Italian neo-realist classics, this beautiful film often seems to outstrip them with its overwhelming spiritual perspective and astounding depth of feeling. One of Ray's brilliant masterpieces. In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1971---110 mins.
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APARAJITO
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The second part of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy follows the young man on his intellectual odyssey from the streets of Benares to college in Calcutta. Music by Ravi Shankar.
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CHARULATA
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Ray considered this film, structured like a musical rondo, to be his best work. Set in 1879 during the social reform movement in Calcutta, it tells of Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee, in an exquisitely graceful performance), the bored and neglected upper-class wife of the reformer Bhupati Dutta (Sailen Mukherjee). Wrapped up in the politics of the times, Bhupati is oblivious to his wife's lonelines. When his young cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterji) arrives, Bhupati hopes that he will encourage Charulata in her reading of literature; instead, she falls in love with the young man. "Gets nearer to the heart of the 'woman's dilemma' than films which see the problem in terms of career possibilities. In so doing, [Ray] has made a film that is extraordinarily contemporary" (Molly Haskell). In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1964---124 mins.
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CHESS PLAYERS (SATYAJIT RAY)
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Ray's so-called Hindi debut film (it is actually in Urdu), features major Hindi stars, but it was refused a commercial release by local distributors because of the director's Calcutta art-house reputation. This is a colorful period drama about colonialism and indigenous culture set in 1856, at the court of Wajid Ali Shah in Lucknow. Beginning with an animated cartoon about the British annexation policy (featuring the voice of Amitabh Bachchan), this film features two narratives: the first is based on Premchand's short story about two hookah-smoking zamindars playing interminable games of chess; the second dramatizes the conflict between Wajid and General Charles Outram. Stars Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Amjad Khan, Richard Attenborough and Shabana Satyajit Ray---India---1977---115 mins.
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CHIRIAKHANA/ ZOO, THE
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From the famed Indian director Satyajit Ray comes this mix of art cinema introspection and mass appeal thriller. A detective is summoned to a retirement home to investigate a resident who just so happens to be a former movie star. However, his sources keep becoming targets of murder. First the head of the retirement home is killed, then the witness to his murder as well. Ray supposedly warned that this film was "certainly not for Bond addicts!" In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1967
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COMPANY LIMITED/ SEEMABADHA
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Like Days and Nights in the Forest and The Adversary before it, Company Limited again finds Satyajit Ray cleverly analyzing Indian city life. Even with his good education and years of work at a Calcutta fan factory, Shyamalendu Chatterjee (Barun Chanda) thinks he needs an edge to land a big promotion. To do so, he makes moral compromises that would startle his former, more idealistic self. This is made clear when his sister-in-law (Parumita Chowdhury) comes to visit and observes Chatterjee's empty success, which stands in sharp relief with his past. In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1971---112 mins.
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DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST
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An incisive and moving study of four men who leave crowded and cold Calcutta for a brief holiday. At their destination, they will each have different, very personal experiences that will alter their lives--a brief love affair, a cheap sexual experience, and true love. By the time they leave, each has been changed in a radical way. Another insightful examination of the human condition from master director Satyajit Ray. In Bengali with English Satyajit Ray---India---1970---120 mins.
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DISTANT THUNDER (RAY)
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A moving dramatization of the effects of famine in India during World War II when the government controlled the food supply in order to feed troops, letting common people starve. The film follows the lives of several individuals including a doctor who humbles himself to survive. In Bengali with Satyajit Ray---India---1974---92 mins.
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ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
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Satjajit Ray's skillful transposition of Ibsen's classic play to contemporary India. Soumitra Chatterji plays a country doctor working in a village outside populous Calcutta. When he discovers the town's water supply is causing an outbreak of disease, his attempt to warn people falls on deaf ears. The superstitious townsfolk quickly fall in line with a cadre of crooked contractors and bureaucrats set against the doctor, including his own brother (Dhritiman Chatterjee), the mayor. Filmed primarily in studio interiors at the request of Ray's doctor. In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1989---99 mins.
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JANA ARANYA (THE MIDDLEMAN)
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When Somnath, a young Calcuttan college graduate, fails to get a job in spite of his qualifications, he breaks with Brahmin tradition and goes into business as a middleman, which, he discovers, imposes a painful choice between morality and survival. Eventually the trafficking of goods becomes the trafficking of human beings as he begins supplying call girls to his clients. With Pradip Mukherjee, Satya Bannerfi, Dipankar Dey, Lily Chakravarti and Aparna Sen. Fully restored. "Under Ray's piercing yet compassionate glance, his characters darken with loss of innocence. The quiet urgency and emotional intensity of the film transcend its context; this is not only a film about India" (New York Film Festival note). Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1975---131 mins.
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MAHANAGAR ( BIG CITY ) BENGALI
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Madhabi Mukherjee gives a beautiful performance as Arati, a housewife who, upon the urging of her bank clerk husband, takes a job selling knitting machines door to door to help support her family and her husband's extended family. Although the families disapprove of the idea, Arati is successful and finds her strength in the work. Focusing in particular on the role of women in this metamorphosis, Ray tells a story that is both particular to Calcutta and universally recognizable. Fully restored. "Few directors can match Ray's facility for observation or his perceptiveness in registering those tiny moments of conflict when a casual nuance can drop like a bomb" (David Wilson, Monthly Film Bulletin). With Anil Chatterjee, Haradhan Benerjee and Haren Chatterjee. Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1963---131 mins.
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MUSIC ROOM, THE (JALSAGHAR)
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Satyajit Ray's Chekhovian story of Bishamber Rai (Chhabi Biswas), an aging, proud, Indian nobleman, who undergoes a slow decline after he decides to present a lavish musical fete, all to spite his ambitious businessman neighbor. "The hero is great because he destroys himself; he is also mad" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker).
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NAYAK THE HERO
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On his way to New Delhi for an awards ceremony, a famous young actor (Uttam Kumar Chatterjee) meets a pretty journalist who devises a plan to expose his shallowness and narcissism. Instead, the reporter causes the actor to reexamine his life, and the conclusions he reaches are both devastating and profound. Satyajit Ray's psychological drama utilizes flashbacks and dream sequences to capture the complex psychologies of its characters. In Bengali Satyajit Ray---India---1966---120 mins.
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PATHER PANCHALI
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The opening entry of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy is a fiercely naturalistic, devastating portrait of poverty and despair. With music by Ravi Shankar.
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STRANGER/ AGANTUK ( RAY )
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Ray's last great masterpiece is the provocative tale of Manmohan, a world traveler who returns to Calcutta after 35 years to visit his niece, Anila. Anila's suspicious husband believes the long-lost uncle to be an imposter who has come to claim an inheritance. As Manmohan's identity is slowly revealed, Anila and her husband must examine their own identities in relation to traditional values and modern civilization. "A tour-de-force as the film maestro fathoms his characters psychologically and intellectually...the camera is wielded like a conductor's baton as Agantuk strikes chords deep in the mind" (The Times). In Bengali with English subtitles. Satyajit Ray---India---1991---120 mins.
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WORLD OF APU, THE
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The final part of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy is a poignant summing up of the earlier films' themes and stylistic preoccupations. Music by Ravi Shankar.
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