Der Bürger

Nagarik is an extremely remarkable film especially given the year in which it is made. Had it been made at the end of the fifties, one would be tempted to see the influence of Camus' L'Etranger, of Osborne's Look Back in Anger or the plays of Harold Pinter but Nagarik pre-dates all of them. Verismo certainly but not quite in the manner of Satyajit Ray's later Pather Panchali (1955) because Nagarik is highly stylised and has very much the feel cinematographically of a film noir. Although nothing like it in theme, it has stylistic echoes of Kamal Amrohi's 1949 Hindi film Mahal(and uses narration in a way very typical of Amrohi). Few films have ever better depicted the despair of poverty, the debilitating pattern of hopes defeated, of humiliations endured. Yet for all that it remains an engaged film (there are echoes too of Eisenstein, of Gorky, of the Renoir of Les Bas-Fonds). It is little less than criminal that this film remains so little known.

The first neo-realistic "art film" from Bengal, shot and completed much before the Apu Trilogy, but unfortunately released 25 years later. For allegory-suckers, this is just another version of "Inside Llewyn Davis", or at least shows the infinite sorrow and struggle of the protagonist. This would be the recurring undercurrent for all of the upcoming Ghatak's films. Also, the fate, or the destiny will be the constant companion of Ghatak's movie releases and box office collection. But all these do not matter, as this foreshadowed most of the aspects of his style like mise-en-scène with depth and layers, classical music for exposition, (1 of) the smartest love stories, (1 of) the most urban humane narratives, and the tale of people who came to another place to live on. The great Ramananda Sengupta started his career with shooting this film. There is a scene where the lead is acting by just lying down on a mat, that itself is so much craftful to make us amaze. Another gem of that time, Ramesh Joshi was also a debutant when he was cutting this film. But we were surprised by the multi-shots of the drawing room discussions with the new paying guest. Almost forgetting to mention, I think Nagarik was the first bengali movie to show the Calcutta lanes and alleys artistically.