In 1970, Satyajit Ray was already one of the most respected filmmakers ever with string of movies to his name which placed India in the world map. He has received more accolade than any other Indian filmmaker. I know many cinephiles considered Ray's Trilogy or rank his earlier films to the best while the latter half can be seen as a pessimistic phase. For me, it is the best period with top notch scripts, surrealism, fresh with thematic depth which was not present in the creator's earlier films. I rank Jana Aranya (1975), Days and Nights in the Forest (1970), Nayak (1966), Sikkim (1981) in the top shelf.
I'm a detractor of these new wave/parallel films capitalising on poverty with lame storyline, cliched character arcs, with no room for surrealism. I can't connect fully with the graph of films at that time and also with the Carnatic music which was like a matter of privilege with access only to a certain community. Nothing against the music but rarely someone outside the community gets to access it. Also, it was a time when lot of hippies visited India with short and departed with long hair, they benefitted a lot from the sadhus in India and Pakistan. Drifting from the green power crowd to the city, it was filled with lonely, depressed, politically correct/incorrect, rebellious, aimlessly wandering people. Ray interweaves the mood of the 70s with avant-garde aesthetics of experimental filmmakers, typical of the 1960s, especially in the opening negative sequence, the mirror shot and the climax with the skeletons.
At the center of the plot is Siddhartha Chaudhuri, a modern youth, unemployed, rebellious, and free. The film follows him and his dreams where he tries to scrape together everything to make a living. The city is inhospitable, with each day passing he dives into paranoia more and warps himself in an ever-descending spiral where it does not seem like there is any hope.
There's a scene in Pratidwandi (1972), where the character goes through an upheaval during a job interview. He is asked to answer many questions, and this is my favourite.
'Who was the prime minister of England at the time of Independence?
To which he replies - whose Independence, Sir?
The sequence shocked me, and I was in silence along with mention of Vietnam war, Moon landing. I could almost feel his pain with no atonement on the horizon. What's even scarier is the relevance the film holds portraying the present situation right.
I'm a detractor of these new wave/parallel films capitalising on poverty with lame storyline, cliched character arcs, with no room for surrealism. I can't connect fully with the graph of films at that time and also with the Carnatic music which was like a matter of privilege with access only to a certain community. Nothing against the music but rarely someone outside the community gets to access it. Also, it was a time when lot of hippies visited India with short and departed with long hair, they benefitted a lot from the sadhus in India and Pakistan. Drifting from the green power crowd to the city, it was filled with lonely, depressed, politically correct/incorrect, rebellious, aimlessly wandering people. Ray interweaves the mood of the 70s with avant-garde aesthetics of experimental filmmakers, typical of the 1960s, especially in the opening negative sequence, the mirror shot and the climax with the skeletons.
At the center of the plot is Siddhartha Chaudhuri, a modern youth, unemployed, rebellious, and free. The film follows him and his dreams where he tries to scrape together everything to make a living. The city is inhospitable, with each day passing he dives into paranoia more and warps himself in an ever-descending spiral where it does not seem like there is any hope.
There's a scene in Pratidwandi (1972), where the character goes through an upheaval during a job interview. He is asked to answer many questions, and this is my favourite.
'Who was the prime minister of England at the time of Independence?
To which he replies - whose Independence, Sir?
The sequence shocked me, and I was in silence along with mention of Vietnam war, Moon landing. I could almost feel his pain with no atonement on the horizon. What's even scarier is the relevance the film holds portraying the present situation right.