The first of two films (the second being Joi Baba Felunath, reviewed here) directed by Satyajit Ray that follow his own Sherlock Holmes’esque literary creations, detective Feluda and his companions Topshe and Jatayu, Sonar Kella is filled with mystery and intrigue accessible to all ages as it travels through ancient cities and the ruins of …
There are moments in An Enemy of the People, Satyajit Ray’s third to last feature, that are moving and compelling and make for a near great film. Unfortunately, those moments are nearly all in the last 30 minutes of this slow-paced film and are almost undone by a less-than-satisfying conclusion. This is odd for Ray, whose films are …
A double feature of contrasts and the multihued shades of human emotions, The Coward and The Holy Man work in asymmetrical congruence to show the range of Satyajit Ray’s abilities. The Coward works in underplayed emotions and restraint to show a protagonist haunted by past decisions and missed opportunities while The Holy …
Behemoths of war rumble overhead and block out the sun in shadows carved from steel as people living ancient agrarian lifestyles look upward and see the inevitable conclusion of their way of life. Neighbors become competitors for dwindling resources as scarcity is manufactured from fear and the death of empathy triggered by …
Everywhere in the sweltering concrete expanses of Calcutta, men and women are competing for precious few jobs, candidates strictly vetted by their political affiliations, ideological preferences, and proficiency in English. Such exacting standards can only thrive in an environment where workers vastly outnumber available jobs, giving …
For Satyajit Ray’s third feature, he took a break from his Apu Trilogy to make a film about a broken man, once important but now barely remembered and then only as a formality. This man, Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), was the landowner of an entire area who lived in an elaborate palace with his wife Mahamaya …
The second film in a trilogy based on a story by Satyajit Ray’s grandfather, Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury, Kingdom of Diamonds continues the tale of Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne who had earned themselves three boons and the hands of two princesses in Ray’s earlier film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969). The pair long for a …
The syncopated rhythms of a heartbeat as interpreted by an ECG meter fill the opening frames of Shakha Proshakha (Branches of the Tree) with sights and sounds that remind us of our own frailty and impending mortality, particularly salient emotions for Satyajit Ray who was approximately the same age as the ailing …
The Stranger is Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s final film and a fitting capstone, overflowing with the curiosity and humanist ideals he espoused throughout his nearly fifty-year film career. At seventy years old, Ray had perfected his own version of “late style” (like Carl Dreyer, Luchino Visconti, and Yasujiro Ozu before him), a lucid …
The train has been an integral component in the history of cinema since the Lumiere brothers filmed one arriving at a station that spawned the very medium, the Lumiere’s assisting in the transition of cinema from the novelty of traveling magic lantern shows and penny arcades to majestic theaters as imposing and ornate as hallowed …