The struggles and triumphs of a 1950s Kolkata family whose highest earner is a woman is told with marvellous lucidity in an optimistic masterpiece
Satyajit Ray’s magnificent movie from 1963 is now rereleased as part of a Ray retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank, and what a pleasure to marvel again at this film’s freshness, its fluency, its directness, its powerful and essential optimism. Ray’s lucid storytelling always strikes me as a kind of miracle whenever I see this film. He makes the miracle look easy.
The setting is Kolkata in the early 1950s and Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is the harassed employee of a bank which – though he doesn’t know it – is on the verge of going under. He is reasonably happy with his lot, with a humorous, distracted manner, often absent-mindedly smoking or eating during conversations. He lives with his wife Arati, whose sensitivity, sweetness...
Satyajit Ray’s magnificent movie from 1963 is now rereleased as part of a Ray retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank, and what a pleasure to marvel again at this film’s freshness, its fluency, its directness, its powerful and essential optimism. Ray’s lucid storytelling always strikes me as a kind of miracle whenever I see this film. He makes the miracle look easy.
The setting is Kolkata in the early 1950s and Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is the harassed employee of a bank which – though he doesn’t know it – is on the verge of going under. He is reasonably happy with his lot, with a humorous, distracted manner, often absent-mindedly smoking or eating during conversations. He lives with his wife Arati, whose sensitivity, sweetness...
- 7/21/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Big City (Mahanagar), dir. Satyajit Ray, 1963)
“There’s a saying in English,” Bhombol (Anil Chatterjee) says to his wife, Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee): “ ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.” When Arati asks if he really believes that, Bhombol tells her that he does, that he’s like his father, very conservative.
But for Arati, this is an important issue. Her household – consisting of herself, her husband, their son, Pintu, and Bhombol’s parents and sister Binu (Jaya Bhaduri) is struggling on just Bhombol’s salary. There is barely enough money to keep the household running, and when Arati hears that a friend’s wife has taken a job, Arati decides that she, too, must find employment. Her reasoning is that it’s not right for her husband to have to be responsible for this whole household.
Bhombol may be conservative, but he is not so traditional that...
“There’s a saying in English,” Bhombol (Anil Chatterjee) says to his wife, Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee): “ ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.” When Arati asks if he really believes that, Bhombol tells her that he does, that he’s like his father, very conservative.
But for Arati, this is an important issue. Her household – consisting of herself, her husband, their son, Pintu, and Bhombol’s parents and sister Binu (Jaya Bhaduri) is struggling on just Bhombol’s salary. There is barely enough money to keep the household running, and when Arati hears that a friend’s wife has taken a job, Arati decides that she, too, must find employment. Her reasoning is that it’s not right for her husband to have to be responsible for this whole household.
Bhombol may be conservative, but he is not so traditional that...
- 7/13/2022
- by Katherine Matthews
- Bollyspice
By Anand Singh
Sacrifice, a word which conjures images of martyrs, of heroic deeds, and great struggles. We all have dreams and yet, due to circumstances seen and unforeseen, they never materialise. Sometimes we give it up for those we love, giving and giving until we realise we have ceased to exist. When it is too late, we cry out, crushed, forgotten, like a horse that cannot work anymore. Released in 1960 and directed by Ritwik Ghatak, the film “Meghe Dhaka Tara” (The Cloud-Capped Star), shows this in a poignant and memorable manner.
The film revolves around a family of six, the parents and their four children. The father is a school teacher and the mother (played by Gita Dey) is a housewife. The eldest child, Shankar (played by Anil Chatterjee) is unemployed and aspires to be a singer. The second child, Nita (played by Supriya Choudhury) is...
Sacrifice, a word which conjures images of martyrs, of heroic deeds, and great struggles. We all have dreams and yet, due to circumstances seen and unforeseen, they never materialise. Sometimes we give it up for those we love, giving and giving until we realise we have ceased to exist. When it is too late, we cry out, crushed, forgotten, like a horse that cannot work anymore. Released in 1960 and directed by Ritwik Ghatak, the film “Meghe Dhaka Tara” (The Cloud-Capped Star), shows this in a poignant and memorable manner.
The film revolves around a family of six, the parents and their four children. The father is a school teacher and the mother (played by Gita Dey) is a housewife. The eldest child, Shankar (played by Anil Chatterjee) is unemployed and aspires to be a singer. The second child, Nita (played by Supriya Choudhury) is...
- 8/10/2019
- by Rhythm Zaveri
- AsianMoviePulse
Satyajit Ray's enduring 1963 masterpiece about one woman's struggle for independence is back on the big screen
Satyajit Ray, who died in 1992 at the age of 70, is one of the giants of world cinema. The son of a prominent Bengali literary figure, he was an accomplished writer, composer, editor and artist as well as a great movie director. His passionate interest in the cinema developed early on, and shortly after the second world war he accompanied Jean Renoir when he travelled to India to scout locations for The River. Subsequently he wrote a wonderfully perceptive article about this experience for Sequence, the film magazine edited by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.
During a visit to Europe to work in the London headquarters of his Calcutta advertising agency, he saw Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and decided that on his return he wanted to make a movie in...
Satyajit Ray, who died in 1992 at the age of 70, is one of the giants of world cinema. The son of a prominent Bengali literary figure, he was an accomplished writer, composer, editor and artist as well as a great movie director. His passionate interest in the cinema developed early on, and shortly after the second world war he accompanied Jean Renoir when he travelled to India to scout locations for The River. Subsequently he wrote a wonderfully perceptive article about this experience for Sequence, the film magazine edited by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.
During a visit to Europe to work in the London headquarters of his Calcutta advertising agency, he saw Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and decided that on his return he wanted to make a movie in...
- 8/17/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Kick-Ass 2 | 2 Guns | Planes | The Big City | Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Again | Bachelorette | Call Girl | Aftershock | Kuma | When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun
Kick-Ass 2 (15)
(Jeff Wadlow, 2013, Us/UK) Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Moretz, Jim Carrey, 103 mins
The amateur Avengers return, though the sequel finds them weighed down by their superhero lifestyles, or is it audience expectations? The ingredients that made the first movie such a pleasure are all here – absurd alter-egos, ultraviolence, high-school angst, swearing – just minus the element of surprise. As a result, this incident-packed story struggles to recapture that balance between comic-book zaniness and real-world teen comedy.
2 Guns (15)
(Baltasar Kormákur, 2013, Us) Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton. 109 mins
Two double-crossed undercover agents must unravel a convoluted conspiracy (and learn to get along, of course) in what could almost be a Lethal Weapon reboot. Washington and Wahlberg spark off each other nicely, which is all that's needed.
Kick-Ass 2 (15)
(Jeff Wadlow, 2013, Us/UK) Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Moretz, Jim Carrey, 103 mins
The amateur Avengers return, though the sequel finds them weighed down by their superhero lifestyles, or is it audience expectations? The ingredients that made the first movie such a pleasure are all here – absurd alter-egos, ultraviolence, high-school angst, swearing – just minus the element of surprise. As a result, this incident-packed story struggles to recapture that balance between comic-book zaniness and real-world teen comedy.
2 Guns (15)
(Baltasar Kormákur, 2013, Us) Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton. 109 mins
Two double-crossed undercover agents must unravel a convoluted conspiracy (and learn to get along, of course) in what could almost be a Lethal Weapon reboot. Washington and Wahlberg spark off each other nicely, which is all that's needed.
- 8/17/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Satyajit Ray's 1963 film about a Calcutta woman blossoming in the world of work is utterly absorbing
Satyajit Ray's glorious film Mahanagar, or The Big City, is rereleased 50 years on: it is an utterly absorbing and moving drama about the changing worlds of work and home in 1950s India, and a hymn to uxorious love acted with lightness, intelligence and wit. Madhabi Mukherjee is superb as Arati, the demure wife of Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), a sweet-natured, semi-competent bank employee in Calcutta. To help out with the family finances, she takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman, promoting a new knitting machine – and is electrified by her new self-esteem and cash. Encouraged by her feisty, flighty colleague Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian of the sort not much loved in the city, she insists on lucrative commissions for her rocketing sales and blossoms as a beautiful professional woman about town. Ray...
Satyajit Ray's glorious film Mahanagar, or The Big City, is rereleased 50 years on: it is an utterly absorbing and moving drama about the changing worlds of work and home in 1950s India, and a hymn to uxorious love acted with lightness, intelligence and wit. Madhabi Mukherjee is superb as Arati, the demure wife of Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), a sweet-natured, semi-competent bank employee in Calcutta. To help out with the family finances, she takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman, promoting a new knitting machine – and is electrified by her new self-esteem and cash. Encouraged by her feisty, flighty colleague Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian of the sort not much loved in the city, she insists on lucrative commissions for her rocketing sales and blossoms as a beautiful professional woman about town. Ray...
- 8/15/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Re-released for its fiftieth anniversary, Satyajit Ray’s The Big City tells the tale of a family struggling to adjust to great social change, in a time when the notion of a woman’s place was suddenly debatable. Ray’s deeply sensitive portrayal of his subject is as relevant today as it was upon its original release.
Set in 1950’s Calcutta, The Big City centres on Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee) and her husband Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee), as the power balance in their marriage starts to shift in response to great social pressures. In a city in financial crisis, the Mazumdar family find that Subrata’s bank clerk wage is increasingly falling short of what is required to support himself, his wife and their extended family, generations of which live under one roof. However, when Arati decides to contribute herself, and takes a job as a door-to-door sales girl, Subrata...
Set in 1950’s Calcutta, The Big City centres on Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee) and her husband Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee), as the power balance in their marriage starts to shift in response to great social pressures. In a city in financial crisis, the Mazumdar family find that Subrata’s bank clerk wage is increasingly falling short of what is required to support himself, his wife and their extended family, generations of which live under one roof. However, when Arati decides to contribute herself, and takes a job as a door-to-door sales girl, Subrata...
- 8/15/2013
- by Georgia Fleury Reynolds
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Criterion brings two of auteur Satyajit Ray’s early 60s works to the collection this month with Charulata (1964) and The Big City (1963), both starring Madhabi Mukherjee in phenomenal performances. While both explore women’s lives in a rigidly male dominated world, it’s the earlier film that stands as Ray’s first look at contemporary life in his native Kolkata. While his nine previous films were either period pieces or set outside of the city (Charulata, in fact, sees him returning to period, set in 1870s India), the coalescence of budget and talent finally brought his modern times project to fruition, which he had apparently been wanting to make since his 1955 Palme d’Or winning debut, Pather Panchali. Beyond being simply the story of a woman, Ray constructs an intimate character study that examines an uncomfortably changing social climate, economic pressures, racial injustice, and the moral obligation to do the right thing.
- 8/6/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Madhabi Mukherjee in “Mahanagar”
The British Film Institute (BFI) is releasing a restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City) to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
The film will hit theatres in UK on August 16, 2013.
“Satyajit Ray’s wonderfully enjoyable portrait of mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence, displays warmth, wit and genuine insight into its large, multi-generational cast of characters, including Arati’s conservative old father-in-law, her studious teenage sister-in-law, and her benevolently despotic boss,” says Margaret Deriaz of the BFI.
The film was restored in India by scanning the original negative at a high resolution (2K), enabling the film’s “epic scale and intimate detail – from the portrayal of bustling urban life to the exquisite play of emotions on Arati’s face – to emerge in greater beauty and clarity,” according to Deriaz.
She adds, “The Big City, with its emphasis on...
The British Film Institute (BFI) is releasing a restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City) to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
The film will hit theatres in UK on August 16, 2013.
“Satyajit Ray’s wonderfully enjoyable portrait of mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence, displays warmth, wit and genuine insight into its large, multi-generational cast of characters, including Arati’s conservative old father-in-law, her studious teenage sister-in-law, and her benevolently despotic boss,” says Margaret Deriaz of the BFI.
The film was restored in India by scanning the original negative at a high resolution (2K), enabling the film’s “epic scale and intimate detail – from the portrayal of bustling urban life to the exquisite play of emotions on Arati’s face – to emerge in greater beauty and clarity,” according to Deriaz.
She adds, “The Big City, with its emphasis on...
- 7/12/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
“Why should P.K.Nair not be a recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award? After all, whatever we have of Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra, meaning just the first and last reels of the film, are there due to Nair’s unwavering vision and his endless efforts. Again, the only complete Phalke film available to us, namely, Kaliya Mardan (1919), is there because of Nair. If someone like him is not deserving of the Phalke Award, one wonders, who is?”
In mid-November, when the Calcutta air is cooler than in the preceding several months, I had the delightful experience of watching a 150-minute documentary film in a small auditorium in the company of no more than a dozen other people. What added to the delight was the fact that those who were there for the film’s first shot were in his or her seat till the last. This is not a small thing,...
In mid-November, when the Calcutta air is cooler than in the preceding several months, I had the delightful experience of watching a 150-minute documentary film in a small auditorium in the company of no more than a dozen other people. What added to the delight was the fact that those who were there for the film’s first shot were in his or her seat till the last. This is not a small thing,...
- 12/12/2012
- by Vidyarthy Chatterjee
- DearCinema.com
Kolkata, Sep 2 – Veteran stage and screen actor-director Dilip Roy died of cancer in a private hospital here Thursday, family sources said. Roy, 79, left behind his wife and three sons.
Beginning his acting career with the Bengali film ‘Sati Behula’ in 1954, Roy came up with commendable performances in a great variety of roles during his over half a century of association with celluloid.
He was equally at ease portraying the hero or the villain, and also sparkled in a wide range of character roles alongside actors like Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Suchitra Sen, Anil Chatterjee and Chhabi Biswas.
Some.
Beginning his acting career with the Bengali film ‘Sati Behula’ in 1954, Roy came up with commendable performances in a great variety of roles during his over half a century of association with celluloid.
He was equally at ease portraying the hero or the villain, and also sparkled in a wide range of character roles alongside actors like Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Suchitra Sen, Anil Chatterjee and Chhabi Biswas.
Some.
- 9/2/2010
- by realbollywood
- RealBollywood.com
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