Akash Kusum acted as a trend-breaker in the filmography of Bengali auteur Mrinal Sen, the staunch Marxist who is known principally as a maker of ‘angry films’ and avant-garde movies with strong socio-political overtones, as this was a rare romantic comedy that found place in his oeuvre. But it did have potent observations and commentaries delicately garbed in its seemingly lighthearted tragi-comic tale. The story revolves around a young man (marvelously played by Soumitra Chatterjee), belonging to the lower middle class strata, who wants to make it big in his life through a decidedly risky business venture with a shady but docile looking partner (Jnanesh Mukherjee). He takes help of his wealthy childhood friend (Subhendu Chatterjee) to maintain a false visage for his clients. And when he gets involved in a romantic affair with a cheerful young lady (Aparna Sen), who belongs to an upwardly mobile family and whose father (Haradhan Bannerjee) is an established advocate, he continues maintaining that false image by making use of his friend’s car and apartment in order to project himself as belonging to the same economic league. It worked as a fine precursor to some of his later movies, like Interview and Chalchitra, in that Sen used a number of Nouvelle Vague techniques, like jump cuts, freeze frames and a freewheeling narrative, to tell this breezy love story that is destined to be doomed. In an ingenious move, he used still photographs at regular intervals to capture the mood as well as to move the story forward, and the final shot had multiple freeze frames. The movie, which was remade into the Hindi film Manzil by Basu Chatterjee, boasted of fine all-round performances and a very good script.
Director: Mrinal Sen
Genre: Comedy/Romantic Comedy
Language: Bengali
Country: India
The Exterminating Angel, which competes with quite a few films in the great Spanish screen surrealist Luis Bunuel’s oeuvre, was the final feature film that he made in Mexico, which was his adopted homeland for quite a few years. The movie, which forms a terrific companion piece with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (the two make for a truly superb double bill on account of their striking thematic similarities), which he made a decade later, was a brilliant work in the domains of surrealism and social satire. A group of wealthy people, representing diverse careers, lives and types, have gathered for a formal dinner party. Post dinner, they retire to the drawing room for casual chitchat and cocktail; however, strangely, when it starts getting late, instead of leaving for their respective homes, they decide to spend the night there itself. Before long we realize that the motley crowd, in essence, has been ‘locked’ in that room – despite there being no blocked doors, they somehow cannot leave the room. Thus, trapped with hardly any food or water, their cheerful and at times pompous demeanours start getting stripped off, and what we find under their veneers of aristocracy and thoroughbred natures, irrationality, hatred, treachery, anarchy, savagery, barbarism, and such baser instincts. Not just a searing examination of human behaviour filled with lashing humour and wry observations, it was also a sly and delectable commentary on class divisions – and more specifically, a satirical caricature of the bourgeoisie and the upper class. Poignant and darkly funny in equal measures, this wonderfully enacted absurdist comedy remains a dizzying masterpiece of world cinema.
Director: Luis Bunuel
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire/Comedy of Manners/Avant-Garde
Language: Spanish
Country: Mexico
Depending on which definition one subscribes to, Sadgati, which runs at slightly less than 50 minutes, could either be called a feature film or a short film. Ray was commissioned by Doordarshan, India’s national television channel, to make a film for them that would fit within a 1-hour segment, upon which he adapted a short story by Munshi Premchand for the same (this was his second adaptation of the famed writer as well as his second film in the Hindi language after Shatranj Ke Khiladi). That Ray was a liberated person is well documented. In Devi he delivered a powerful indictment against blind religious superstitions, this trenchant social satire was aimed at caste system, and in Mahapurush and Ganashatru he made not-so-veiled commentaries on organized religion and its inherent hypocrisy – though humour and utter seriousness, respectively. Here, he directed his acerbic jabs through the tragic tale of Dukhi (Om Puri), a poor villager who belongs to the lower strata of the society, and the ironic fate of a respected village Brahmin and priest (Mohan Agashe). Dukhi wants to finalize the date of his daughter and goes to the Brahmin’s house in order to request him for the same. Sensing an opportunity to leverage his status and get some free work done in the process, he commands Dukhi to run some laborious errands for him. Unbeknownst to him, Dukhi is both weak (on account of recovering from an illness) and malnourished, and consequently, and when he tries to use his last remaining source of energy for completing one especially difficult task, he collapses and dies - and, in a darkly ironic twist of fate, this forces the Brahmin to do something beyond his wildest nightmares. This eloquent and disturbing film also has Smitha Patil in it playing Dukhi’s wife.
Director: Satyajit Ray
Genre: Drama/Rural Drama/Social Satire
Language: Hindi
Country: India
Singer-songwriter Anjan Dutt, who began his tryst with Saradindu Bandopadhyay’s iconic literary character Byomkesh Bakshi with his adaptation of the brilliant novel Adim Ripu, has continued his journey with a novella this time, viz. Chitrachor. This was a smart move on his front one might say, given the inherent cinematic value of this novella. The super sleuth and private investigator (played by Abir Chatterjee), who preferred calling himself ‘Satyanneshi’ (‘one who seeks trutch), in order to recover from an illness, has come down to the Dooars in North Bengal with his wife Satyabati (Ushashie Chakraborty) and his trusted friend, aide and chronicler Ajit (Saswata Chatterjee). There, he doesn’t just get acquainted to motley characters representing diverse personalities and professions, he also becomes aware of the theft of a photograph. Given his self-anointed sobriquet, curiosity gets the better of him and he appoints himself to solve the case which quickly spirals into a rather murky affair with dark family secrets, rabid jealousies, extra-marital affairs, grievous bodily harm and even murder thrown along in the way. Given the larger canvas and the string of interesting performances, this was an engaging watch and a better job vis-à-vis the earlier effort; however, it still failed by some margin in matching the kind of literary brilliance that Dutt attempted translating to the celluloid – the rather insipid climax, too, didn’t help much in that regard. Abir yet again falls short in capturing Byomkesh’s depth and intelligence, but Saswata has once again shined as the cynical Ajit and a clear stand-in for the writer himself.
Director: Anjan Dutt
Genre: Thriller/Detective Film/Mystery/Ensemble Film
Language: Bengali
Country: India
French auteur Robert Bresson, who made just 13 movies in his 40-year filmmaking career, left an indelible impression with his final work too. L’Argent, adapted from a short story by the Russian literary giant Leo Tolstoy, was a masterwork in Bressonian minimalism, stark visuals, bleak yet quietly meditative world-view, and Catholic themes of crime and punishment. The plot device that Bresson used to kick-start the storyline was the passing of a counterfeit currency note from one hand to another. The journey of that note starts from a young boy belonging to an upscale family who resorts to such a transaction without much thought as to how that might end up tragically and irrevocably transforming the life of the person who it finally reaches – an honest and unsuspecting delivery guy called Yvon (Christian Patey). Though not sent to prison, the innocent and mild mannered Yvon ends up losing his job; to sustain his family comprising of his wife and infant child he becomes part of a botched robbery attempt, and this time he is sent to jail. His life turns thus into a series of debilitating tragedies which reaches its nadir when, upon release from prison, he commits an act of such gruesome and unprovoked violence that it is sure to leave viewers reeling with both shock and heartbreak. Not only did Bresson examine class-divide and the destructive power of money, he also brilliant depicted how a simple act of callousness can wreak havoc on the life and family of a person. Like most films of his, Christian viewpoints and social commentary, which abound in the story’s powerful theme, are subtle, disconcerting and profoundly affecting.
Director: Robert Bresson
Genre: Drama/Crime Drama
Language: French
Country: France
