La grande città

The struggle between traditional and modern values in Indian life is the centerpiece of The Big City (Mahanagar), a charming and totally engaging film by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray. Unlike Ray's earlier works which were centered either on the very poor or the very affluent, The Big City deals with the life of an ordinary middle class Bengali family and spotlights the changing role of women in India during the 1960s. Based on a short story by Narendranath Mitra and set in Calcutta, Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is the sole breadwinner in his family but does not make enough to support his extended family that includes his wife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), their young son Pintu (Prasenjit Sarkat), sister (Jaya Bhaduri), father (Haren Chatterjee) and mother (Sefalike Devi).

Subrata's father is a retired school teacher whose pupils have gone on to considerable success as doctors, lawyers, and businessmen while he has slid further into poverty. When the aging patriarch is in need of new eyeglasses, he turns to one of his former pupils to help him out. After Subrata casually mentions that a friend's wife has gone to work, Arati gets the idea of supplementing the family's meager income by getting a job herself but this idea is looked on with disdain by the traditionally-minded family. A "cold war" prevails in the household as Arati takes a job selling sewing machines in affluent neighborhoods, enrolling the woman of the house who is always at home.

After several abortive attempts in which she backs off after hearing the sound of a guard dog, Arati settles into her job and begins to thrive, gaining increased self-confidence and inner strength. Even young Pintu is mollified when his mother brings him home some toys after getting paid. Influenced by co-worker Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian, Arati begins to wear lipstick and sunglasses and is more assertive with her boss (Haradhan Bannerjee) but her husband is resentful and complains that he doesn't know her anymore. Although Edith persuades her boss to grant the workers a commission on sales, he seems to resent her Westernized manner and feels more comfortable with Arati whom he offers a promotion.

Due to a run on the bank in which he is an employee, Subrata is laid off and this causes additional stresses and strains in the family but their love for each other transcends economics and allows Arati to stand up to her boss on a matter of principle. The Big City is not as sweeping in scope or as in-depth a character study as some of Ray's more well-known films, but it is an honest and compelling portrait of a young woman's discovery of herself with strong performances by Mr. Chatterjee and especially Ms. Mukherjee, who would go on to star in one of Ray's most acclaimed films, Charulata.

I haven't watched much of Satyajit Ray's films, but now I strongly have an urge to watch more and more.. My first Ray film was Charulata, which was once screened in our college film club. It too had Madhabi Mukherjee playing the title character, 'The lonely wife'.

After having finished watching Mahanagar, I felt that the lonely house wife I had seen earlier had achieved a sense of fulfillment..a sense of completion.The entire film is a microcosm of an typical urbane family of the 1960's Calcutta. The legendary city of Calcutta in the 1960's has been impressionistic-ally captured with all its charm as well as confusion.We can see some of the best well-scripted, realistic emotional sequences. An young Jayabhaduri too appears as the little sister of Mr. Mazumdar(The main character's husband). Madhabi Mukherjee again dons a intense character and proves her brilliance in acting.Now I have become impatient enough to watch Ray's Calcutta Trilogy and other films too.It is very difficult to get good prints of most of them.

Ray had based this film on Abataranika, a Bengali short story. All the actors have been handpicked-especially Anil Chatterjee and Haren Chatterjee-who played the role of Mr. Mazumdar and his father.The film was well-received at the 14th Berlin Festival and Ray won a Silver Bear for direction. Even though it was rejected at the Oscars, it received an All India merit certificate at the National awards that year.

I loved this film. Madhabi Mukherjee is gorgeous and so engaging, with the virtuosic ability to represent the stresses of a changing Kolkata through a simple glance. Mahanagar is a fascinating, dramatic case study of the collision of modernism and traditionalism that produced a sociocultural duality/dichotomy in twentieth-century India's urban landscapes.

We see all sorts of manifestations of duality in Mahanagar. The tension-cum-rivalry of Arati and Subrata is, of course, the most obvious manifestation. However, we also have the duality of the new- generation Arati/Subrata and the old-generation Sarojini/Priyogopal (Subrata's mother and father) and Arati, who wears traditional clothing and speaks Bengali, versus Edith, the English-speaking Anglo-Indian in Western dress. These instances of duality speak directly to the moment in which things began to make a 180-degree shift in India, when women became the breadwinners of the household and traditional gender norms became subsumed by sexual liberation.

With a leading lady as precise as Mukherjee, Ray was able wrap these complex coterminous processes up in a relatively tidy package. Mahanagar is essential viewing.

If, at some point in the future, Pather Panchali cannot fulfil its duties as Satyajit Ray's masterpiece, Mahanagar can step up and fill in the position. Or perhaps the two films can co-rule, as they compliment each other so nicely. Pather Panchali is the simple, straightforward masterpiece and Mahanagar is the more ambitious and complex work. The first is Ray's La Strada and the second his La Dolce Vita.

The Big City is a subtle, flowing work about a young housewife (Madhabi Mukherjee, who would also star in Ray's Charulata) in a middle-class family who finds a job when her father-in-law needs a new pair of spectacles. The family is very conservative, and this upsets everyone. Her husband's manhood is somewhat insulted, her father- and mother-in-law (who both live with the married couple in a rather small apartment) feel that it's just not right, and her son thinks he's been forgotten. The only one who supports her is her younger sister-in-law; she sees her as a role model. The husband (Anil Chatterjee) tries to get her to quit, but, when he loses his own job, he changes his mind quickly. Now she becomes the breadwinner, and he is effectively castrated.

This could have been a little, humble film, like many of Ray's works. But here he decides to examine a huge portion of his own culture, setting up many opposites and studying them closely. We have the husband and wife, man and woman, old-world conservatism and new-world progression, young and old, employer and employee. The list goes on. The depth of this film is nearly endless, and I'm sure it would hold up to any number of repeated viewings. The only flaw that I can see is a somewhat contrived climax - Ray had this problem in a few of his films.

I do have to give special praise to the two leads. Mukherjee and Chatterjee are just brilliant in the film. The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent.

Through 'Mahanagar' the great Satyajit Ray tells a story of an ordinary traditional family living in the modern big city (hence the title). However, the breadwinner of the family does not earn enough money to support the whole family. The wife decides to support him by working herself. Fortunately she finds a job and befriends a modern Anglo-Indian co-worker who does influence her by applying lip-stick and giving her a pair of sunglasses. The father of the family is a retired teacher and he does not accept the fact that his daughter-in-law is working. Gradually, the rest of the family disapprove her working. The retired teacher visits his former student and 'asks' for financial help.

Through this wonderful family drama, Ray tells us a story of the clash between modern and traditional values in a middle-class family struggling to make a living in the big city. Furthermore, Ray examines the 'urban' relationships as is reflected between the employer and employee, the husband and wife, the co-workers, the working mother and her child and so on. It is no surprise that Ray is THE most accomplished director of Indian cinema. This film, like pretty much everything else he did, only reminds us why.

The performances are top-notch. Again, this is no surprise as Ray manages to extract the best from his actors. Madhabi Mukherjee is breathtaking as we see her transform from a naive housewife, to a determined and excited employee to a strong courageous woman who stands up for her friend. Anil Chatterjee is excellent as the struggling husband who tries to make ends meet, silently accepts his wife's working but secretly resenting it. Vicky Redwood adds freshness with a strong presence and a likable performance. Haradhan Bannerjee is very good as the prejudiced but sympathetic boss. Jaya Bhadhuri delivers a very natural performance. The rest of the cast are all just as competent.

The ending isn't the traditional happy ending one witnesses in the numerous Indian films but it's one of optimism and hope that beautifully 'seals' the film. 'Mahanagar' is a fantastic example of the best of Indian cinema. A classic gem it is.