Tage und Nächte in der Wildnis

Story is about friends going to a vacation to disconnect from daily life for a while. The writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay, is one of the best novelists of Bengal who wrote beautifully about youth and thus this film too. There are scenes of them drinking which has been served as a reference for drunk scenes for decades. Also, the memory game scene breaks the classical expositions in film and a source of many pop quizzes, memes and minimalistic posters. At least 2 post-millennial film I can remember directly inspired by this - Goutam Ghose's 'Abar Aranye', a sequel and Anjan Dutt's 'Chalo Let's Go', a remake?!. Again, like all his films, Rabi Ghosh steals a lot of scenes. And again, lot of sexy women.

As a passionate movie buff, I have the highest regard for Ray's films. That has been reconfirmed after watching this subtly nuanced film from Ray. To the casual viewer, it might seem like the escapades of four middle class gentlemen when they go out of their constrictive surroundings into the wilderness and meet three women. However, a rigorous viewing will expose different layers, some surprising, and others not so surprising. With flawless and fluid direction, Ray tells a story of love lost, confidence regained, inhibitions of a conservative society blown away, overwhelming sadness, and the joy and freedom of coming close to nature. Even though it is quite an old film, it speaks of the human nature and its eternal characteristics so beautifully, that it does not seem dated at all- which is the mark of a classic. Highly recommended.

"Aranyer Din Ratri" is an underrated lyrical masterpiece from the great Satyajit Ray. Its structure is one of the most musical of Ray's films, yet it remains one of the most scathing indictments of pompous urban men. A must see. The memory game sequence alone is worth the price of the film.

I feel compelled to respond to Ravenus, who writes: "Simi Garewal's hilariously accented Bengali makes her tribal character a hard act to digest." We must remember that Duli, the character Simi plays, is not a sophisticated woman from Calcutta, but a tribal woman from Palamau, which is 300 miles west of Calcutta. Her accent is perfect for the character.

Film opens with a shot of paddy fields while a man traveling with his pals in a car ,reads the following " Bengali people are as happy looking at seasons and nature, as they are at looking death in the face". Now I'm not very sure whether this statement is true, but I suspect that this kind of cultured stoicism aptly applies to the director of this movie - Satyajit Ray. Four friends - all young men from Calcutta- go into a forest and plan to stay in a rest house there, while aspiring to have sexual fun with tribal women who are presumed to be liberal in such matters. Of course, this sort of plot is not standard territory for the said director but even with this unlikely template, Ray directs his masterly rays of perspective to illumine the hinterlands and give larger wings to a fledgling premise.

Though it is not set in the city or even a village, the film is a composite shot of civilization in decline. But in Ray's world, there is always hope, a calm sense of being obliged to emerge from the ruins, and in A.D.R we also see a beautiful example of strong but tranquil feminism.

This latter aspect emerges in the form of Sharmila Tagore who registers a great performance in this movie. In Ghare Baire, Ray made Victor Banerjee essay a model man, and here he has Sharmila Tagore giving us a portrait of the model woman. Kohl-lined beautifully curving eyes, luxuriant hair coiffed into a bouffant, and a softly contoured figure clothed in sari ,all set off a face that can essay feminine mystique as smoothly as it can show child-like amusement. Aparna (Tagore), it is steadily revealed, is gifted intellectually, bears the weight of the past, nurtures a humane mind and yet sequesters all these facets beneath a regally controlled visage that can hint at displeasure as beautifully as it can sport a smile.

Technically too, this is an accomplished film with superior camera-work by Soumendu Roy. There is a famous static shot in which the lens stands just outside the car window and looks inside, through the car compartment, and past the other window into the background -4 visual planes hold four different people ,all sporting a range of interesting expressions and emotional dynamics. The other memorable sequence is the Memory Game wherein all the players are seated in a circle, and the lens flicks from one face to another as they play the game.

Starting with this script, countless other story-tellers might have produced a work of dissipated effect, but Satyajit Ray makes fine use of the novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay to present not just a sylvan jaunt enjoyed by four young men, but also an elegantly presented humanist tapestry. Some directors don't need the Midas touch, they possess something greater.

For full review and other cinema analysis you may visit http://www.upnworld.com/movie/view/id/6/title/Aranyer+Din+Ratri

Adapted form Sunil Ganguly's story, the film zooms in on the vagaries and vicissitudes of the then bourgeoisie and their disillusionment with their state of affairs. A motley quartet ventures into the woods of Palamau to spend some days in order to extricate themselves from the trammels of their ordered social and city life. Culled from the various strata in the middle class the four characters reflect completely different attitudes bound by a thread of friendship. 'Breaking the rules', they drop anchor at a government forest bungalow without the required permission, consequently browbeating, and finally bribing the chowkidar, putting his job at stake. They remain unshaven, exchange diatribes at a local arrack shop and indulge in a drunken twist causing problem to vehicles. Their behaviour with and indifference (frequently found among the bourgeois people) of the lower orders of the society and their suffering, quite often verging on brutality, may make them, for the time being, unlikeable; but their innocent and ignorant self-esteem doing them in at last draws back our sympathy once again. Ashim (as Soumitra Chatterji) loses his self-confidence finally after the memory game; Sanjoy (as Subhendu Chatterji) finds himself hollow as a man in front of a seductive Jaya; Hari himself mislays his wallet but beats the local boy Lakhai which rebounds on him at last; Shekhar (as Rabi Ghosh) is only the man who escapes much of the humiliation because of his hilarious nature.

Their unexpected spotting, one morning, of two ladies of their social stratum within the tribal village brings them back, somewhat, to their superficial selves and they try to meet them in person and try their own hands at flirting. Though a forging of relationships is on the way under the hammer-blows of a set of consecutive meetings between the opposite sexes, yet each of the conceited quartet is blown to bits as the women come up trumps. Each of the quartet is chastened in his own way near the end of the film, and the women, winners in the beginning, appear to be pale, gloomy and their voices plangent beneath their jocund exterior and mellifluous chatter and pithy elicitation.

Like in most of Ray's films, here also, the characters smile, but they find it rather painful to laugh. Though it is a matter of pity that a film of this momentousness received a lukewarm response form the native audience and critics when it was screened, yet it, then, was, and still is, a surefire narration of epic dimensions and the film's aura doesn't seem to dim even though it is watched over and over again. Unfortunately, they, who search for a single and simple theme in a film like this, will not be able to comprehend herein the interplay of various themes. Ray once said regretfully in a Sight & Sound interview, "The film is about so many things, that's the trouble. People want just one theme, which they can hold in their hands." He likened the structure of the film to a fugue, where disparate elements appear, develop interwoven, transformed pitted in a balanced way against each other.

Lastly, the memory game sequence in the forest is as much psychological as it is appealing. Ray's astute handling of the mise-en-scene surpasses every character study heretofore attempted. Aparna pulls out when only Aparna and Ashim are left in the fray. Sexual undercurrents and each one's mental preferences are reflected during the game. With the forest as the setting the visitors engage in a primitive game of dethroning the other with one's mental might. The mysterious forest exudes revelations of the highest order at once perceivable and profound to be taken into, absorbed and preserved for perennial use by the unfortunate and innocent souls, who often get consumed with the fire of self-esteem and self-satisfaction thereby closing doors to experience and knowledge that's omniscience in it's vastness and immanence.