Aranyer Din Ratri [1970]

 Aranyer Din Ratri marked a pivotal shift for Satyajit Ray. While he’d already made a terrific transition to contemporary Calcutta settings earlier, and had tackled defiant topics already – from religious dogmatism and quackery to tyranny and war hysteria to crumbling feudalism and gender roles – he embarked on a more overtly political cinema with its cutting critiques on class entitlements, fragile masculinity, sexual tensions, exploitative attitudes, urban privileges, and brewing social conflicts. It, consequently, served as a fascinating segue to his radical masterpiece Pratidwandi that he immediately followed this with; both films, incidentally, were adaptations of feral novels by Sunil Ganguly. The tale’s premise – viz. the weekend getaway of four close friends and the women they meet there – was indicative of a light-hearted comedy; however, despite its loose-limbed structure, it was anything but one. The four friends – the haughty, fast-rising corporate executive Ashim (Soumitra Chatterjee); erudite, reserved labour welfare officer Sanjoy (Subhendu Chatterjee); brash, petulant cricketer Hari (Samit Bhanja) fresh of a heartbreak; self-effacing, unemployed Shekhar (Rabi Ghosh) who’s the group’s unintentional comedian – find their shallow, self-centred and vulgar self-confidences shattered by the intelligent, self-assured Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) who Sanjoy becomes besotted with, her widowed sister-in-law (Kaberi Bose) who challenges Sanjoy’s “bhadralok” sensibilities, and impoverished Santhal woman Duli (Simi Garewal) who the egotistic Hari seduces leading to a violent comeuppance. Ray underscored the jaunty tone with sharp undercurrents of cynicism and irony, while Soumendu Roy’s terrific B/W cinematography – along with ingenuous inter-cutting that, accompanied with shots of Santhal dance, took the narrative to an edgy crescendo – gave the film a compelling audio-visual language. Ghosh’s turn was arguably the best of the lot in this funny, provocative, tense and cynical work.

p.s. This is a revisit. My earlier review of this film can be found here.

Director: Satyajit Ray

Genre: Drama/Road Movie/Buddy Film/Romantic Drama/Ensemble Film

Language: Bengali

Country: India