Satyajit Ray: The finest film maker.

[P_R]

Still chewing on Pratidwandi.

Dada, do you think I can become a model?
Model?..What if they ask you to wear something ridiculous?
Like what?
Like nearly nothing at all
My figure isn't that bad

What is it that Siddharth is unsure of? That his kid-sister is a sexual object? That her boss is exploiting her? Or that she is 'matter of fact' about this? Or that she is indeed the one calling the shots? (does mother want me to quit? - she brushes aside her mothers' concerns). The coincidence of the 'working woman' and 'stepping out to work' has scarcely been depicted so strongly.

Where are the lines drawn? Is modeling unacceptable if she is up for it? If not, then isn't the family's 'acceptability' of her current working condition itself soaked in self-deception of 'this far and no further'. Isn't the objection stronger than the kid brother putting his life on the line what he believes.

And that dream sequence- one of the best ever dreamy yet coherent and compelling. The shot down dream brother is attended to by a 'nurse'. A nurse whose 'maternal' instincts are suspect given she moonlights as a prostitute. Well isn't that the fundamental question deep seated in the male about: working women in general !!! Is that Siddhartha comes face to face with.

Watching his sister practicing dance in the terrace, you really wonder if he HAD to quit medicine as he says. Doesn't she seem to able to find means to climb social ladder?

How can a Siddharth ever be angry when he sees all sides of the issue? He sees the driver and the girls in the car. When you see everything you can do nothing. Sees breasts and thinks of glands and ducts. Is he is just making a medical point when saying 'all people are the same'. Though Keya does try to point out the absurdity of it, it only seems to strengthen the point he is making !!

And they remain where they are till the end of the movie. There isn't enough from each other to move on. That shot of the crowded maidan from the terrace. The expanse, the crowd, the loneliness, the companionship... o forget it...just fantastic.

And the throwbacks to the kids scenes are well done. The divergent expressions to the beheading of the hen etc.

The conversations are perfect. Not a single place simply 'pushing' things forward. And many places where something is not spoken, but that ambiguity is not confusing but exactly what makes it interesting.

Sister's boss goes out to answer the 'trunk call' and we hear offscreen : 'I have spoken to him, it is all settled'.
Now there is absolutely no need to jump to a conclusion that he is referring to Siddharth. But he thinks so and leaves in a huff. Or he thinks it is only a possibility but the pause in conversation has given him the time to assess how he has failed to make the conversation a 'confrontation' like he wanted to. And thus leave in a huff. Such minimal lines, excellent pacing, acting that you 'feel' his vacillation.

Brilliant I say

[KV]

Interview with One of Ray's stellar collaborators, on One of Ray's best films. Acting by the ensemble cast is uniformly good. Soumitra Chatterjee was good (and charismatic), but it's fair to say that the women (Sharmila Tagore and Kaberi Bose) steal the show remarkably in far lesser footage. Except perhaps Simi Garewal as tribal girl, Duli - rather perplexing why Ray would cast her in one of the decidedly "non-acting" parts. Why hire her if you want to paint the whole body dark. Rather unnerving.



Ray writes quite a lot on Renoir in "Our films, their films", and in gushing praise for "The Rules of the game", he definitely had that film in mind before making this one. Even if it doesn't reach the summits of that undoubted masterpiece, "Days and Nights in the forest" is a superlative film (IMHO his best!).

Kid, I'm just curious, what's it that makes you choose this movie over Ray's other works. I mean, yeah, good movie, super performances from the ensemble (especially the ladies), shot interestingly, et al, but beyond this, does the movie offer scope for readings at multiple levels, say, like a Charulatha? Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to question your preference. I'm just trying to understand your perspective.

[P_R]

Thoughts sparked by Mahanagar

A wife of a conservative household takes up a job to make ends meet. The impact on the household, its people, the changes, her social experiences and their marriage is what the film is about. Each and every one captured on screen are fleshed out wonderfully, in all their complexities, that Ray earns our deep interest in the proceedings.

Home

What is particularly amazing is the way in which the home is painted. The child collecting the ticket, the child's own concerns quite orthogonal to the domestic situation, and the goodness of the family that humours the child are brought out with incredible ease. One would think the constraints of joint family would have been brought out well in many Indian films. But I can't recall anything half as good.

For instance...

You have the husband and wife in physical proximity - not even a private display of affection. The adoloscent sister - played wonderfully by young Jaya Bhadhuri - enters the room, sees them and exits immediately closing the screen. Of course, in such a house one cannot be beyond earshot. We the audience see her shadow as she waits a moment in the adjoining room. The wife has now moved away.

And from their sounds it can be inferred that the husband and and wife are in two different parts of the room and now it is okay for the sister to enter. All this happens in a couple of seconds - quick cuts and beautiful storytelling.

How many movies have captured quirks such as a middle-class man using his matchstick for a toothpick, an old woman cleaning up strewn about remains after a meal - suggesting the power structure in the household, a child who has become too old to lift now and makes his mother grimace (below)?



Dialogues and Believability

Some lines are trite and convenient but made convincing by acting. The old father verbally records how, as a teacher, proud as he is about the station of his students, he can't help feel jealous. A straight, self-summarizing line. But progressively the movie shows him 'changing', crossing limits of decency and sinking to new lows. It is always the first transgression that is the problem. After that the line cross becomes the standards and dictates the progress. And anyone can see the old man is 'sinking' because of the smouldering anger that things are going beyond his control.

The long line where the wife decides to take up the job, is said in quasi-soliloquy, to a half-asleep husband. Thus, the situation is easily becomes a valid justification for an unrealistically perfect enunciation of a logical sequence of thoughts.

The whole suggestion of the housewife seeking a job is fantastically dialogued. The husband comments half-jokingly about the pointlessness of his sister studying. He mentions his friend's wife working. But refuses to answer straight when his wife presses him on the question of whether he wants her to work. He even mentions the English quotation "a woman's place is her home" - but quite crucially - in a faux tone. What he intends is captured only in the weakness of his resistance to the idea, rather than in a direct suggestion from him. Or, to take an uncharitable point of view, the man does not want to take responsibility for the decision, but is content with appearing to be democratic in allowing the idea to pass. How much better can a marriage be captured?

Camerawork

There is something to be said about the allure of B&W camerawork. But such ambitious topics ought to be entrusted with someone more knowledgeable about the intricacies. I'll just leave you with some captivating frames and some lighting that I found impressive.

The musty gloom of the evening, punctuated by the sparks at each crossing of the tramway forms the entire opening sequence (first pic in the post above). Apart from the inherent loveliness, it feeds the appetite of those like me with a dangerous proclivity for seeing symbols everywhere.

Here camera ascends the stairs, camera approaches new houses she hesitantly enters as a salesgirl (heck this is the man who made the camera hop in tune with a dance step in Charulatha. In a couple of frames you have a small source of light/ reflection elevating it wonderfully.

One where the old father visits an opthamologist - a former student of his - and bares his vulnerabilities. Another is where the wife - just before entering the house after a day of work - checks to see ifshe has erased her lipstick. That she has begun to use lipstick is itself conveyed to us in this shot where she is checking that it is not there!




The recorded background running when people are driving - is something seen in many old films. Ray throws in a right-angle turn, grunts of horn, an arm hanging out of the window
Sounds

And all this is to say nothing of the sounds, the radio of some neighbour, the background sounds of household chores, the distant sound of a boss yelling behind a closing door, the temple bells of an evening and so on.

Women working

The central problem about women going out, stripped off all the euphemism, is about providing an opportunity for them to be viewed as sex objects and their being provided a chance to decide on such affairs outside the confines of the home.

In Ghare Bhaire - a film that deserves an even longer ramble than this - has Ray/Tagore confronting the problem quite directly. The inability of the woman coming out, to deal w
ith the complexities of the outside world, her emotional vacillation are presented beautifully but the question of sexual vulnerability is never deflected. In fact there is a lingering sense of doom, a certain inevitability that is evoked extremely well in the film. In Pratidwandi, the sexuality of the working sister is pretty much front and center. In fact Ray achieves an aesthetic high in translating into film some extremely tricky nuances of the novel there.

Here too, the 'attractiveness' of his wife is the point of contention, inevitable insecurity. And it is not as if they enter into it with no awareness about the issue, the advertisement for the job specifically calls for 'smart and attractive' women for the sales girl position.

As the couple read the ad, those specific words, Ray captures in a frame, the adoloscent sister - in the background but listening with rapt attention. After all, isn't it her world that they are talking about.



Control
And Ray is in perfect control throughout. With a film demanding us to understand what is running in the minds of various actors, we seem to have no problem at all given the impressive performances all around, right from Madhabi Mukherjee who plays the lead role of Arati Mazumdar, including those appearing for just a scene - like the man who plays Arati's friend's husband and jokes about the knitting machine she is trying to sell him: "knitting machine, washing machine...will they not let women do any work?"

He even teases you. The tension about the boss driving home is already built-up in the audience. He already has you anticipation a domestic disappointment, if not a showdown. He has a car honk and it is a wrong 'un. But it is the most appropriate wrong 'un ever. Because it brings a thread, you the viewer were not thinking about at that moment - but it is quite unforgivable that, that is not your central concern at that moment.

This is storytelling excellence. And a movie, will always be to me, a story well told.

Courtesy: Huge thanks to the soul who has uploaded the movie on youtube.

[raghavendran]

P_R
good write up

I expect a film to acknowledge a natural limitedness in scope and choose modest subjects becoming of it and execute them to perfection. Themes where at no time the viewer - that is me - is struggling to grapple with the 'core' - so to speak.
When my cynicism is pierced and I react 'exactly' as the work expects me to: joy, anxiety, ball-in-throat, emotions heightened with musical cues etc. I know I am so in. There is joy in the helpless realization about the emotional vulnerability that the film has managed to wrangle out of me, by managing to tease out a degree of empathy with the situations of those who people the story. Yes I said story. Shoot me, you lovers of plotlessness.

i read in Kubrick's thread that u didnt like much of his works...his eyes wide shut more or less reflects what u have said here ....such a simple story kept me glued throughout.....thangalin karuthu ennavo?

[P_R]

Thank You.
Haven't seen EWS. If and when I see, vandhu karuthu solREn

[kid-glove]

Have you read "Our films, their films"?

It's a lovely pocket book to have..

[P_R]

Yeah. Just a few months back.
Total respect

[kid-glove]

KV, read your post in Ray thread. Thought I'd respond with a lengthy post there.

But very quickly, didn't you find men etched out as self-contradicting Bhadralok(s) - not entirely a far cry from the men in Charulata or other pre-war Ray films? Isn't Ray making some sort of post-colonial commentary. Their stigma, societal & personal hypocrisies, stemming from social & parochial constructs. The women have spectral differences of a prachina/nabina. But they hold the cards here. Men, being Bhadralok(s) that they are, are exposed for the indecisiveness & dissected out for what they really are. A subtly made commentary about class attitudes as a constant undercurrent (so much so G.Ghose had a overblown Searchers-like reaction in sequel !). Even Hari isn't totally oblivious from this.

For heightened state of cinematic brilliance, that piece de resistance memory game sequence would rival anything Ray had ever done.*

All this done under a facade of a 'road film'. The genre serves a dialectic purpose as the repressed selves open up in vanity of a jungle trip. A valid criticism is that the tribes are very much left in mute here. Even Duli's character. But that is never an agenda of Ray's examination here..

Ray made many chefs d'oeuvres. but no other film (That I have seen of his) takes on a challenging narrative space interlacing different themes with stark contrast applied to every thread as this one IMHO.

*Except perhaps the lyricism of swing sequence in Charulata

Thanks for the explanation, Kid, and very well written.
The movie surely is a very interesting take on social issues presented in a road movie format. The subtle, yet strong upperhand of the female lead in each plot is what was interesting to me as well, and your reading surely helps in broadening my understanding. However, at the end of the film, I had a feeling if the undercurrents could’ve been made a wee bit more intense, just a little highlighting.

And my favorite, so far, has been the binocular sequence from Charulatha – starting from Charu getting curious about the udukkai sound, fetching the binoculars, following the fat man and finally ending in viewing her own husband in the binoculars – storytelling at its best!

[P_R]

"I have now come to the point where I use less and less music.Music is something that I always feel is..er... up to a point dispensible element. One uses music more with the public in mind than anything else, because one is afraid that the public will not be able to ...uh... 'get' the mood of a certain scene and you want to underline it so they don't miss it, which is unfortunate, but you have to do it." - 1984 interview (Interviewer Shyam Benegal)

[KV]

adhAvadhu, inga oru aalu thEvayE illAma 1000 pilimsku aaniya pudungIttrikkAru'nu kuththi kAmikkarInga, illa?
veliya va, veliya va, veliya vaaa