Calcutta 71

This is my first meeting with Mrinal Sen's movie Universe. This movie truly surprised me. To begin with, the topic of this movie, how far we've come from the era where wars, famine, and natural disasters have touched human civilization, this is a presentation of his flood scene. The image is from 1971 and it captures the stories of ordinary poor people from the preceding three years of 1933, 1943, and 1953. The night rain scene from 1933 is as if it has been captured, unbelievable camera work and acting. The one from 1943 presents the story of a helpless family living in the darkness of the city. There too, everyone is phenomenal. In the story of 1953, the protagonist portrays his ultimate acting. And finally, the famine of 1971 in Kolkata, and at that time the extravagant lifestyle of the city's respected people, in no way did the image fail to capture the real life of that time. And most importantly, what struck me the most about this picture, the murder in the voice of its narrator, his portrayal encompasses the history of those thousand years, compelling you to think about our existence and way of life.

My first Mrinal Sen movie, and I'm glad I get to watch it on the big screen. It seems that this is the second part of the Calcutta trilogy and I wish I saw Interview first especially since it starts right from there, even if the film itself is segments of different stories connected through a postmodern narrative. The way the film satirises the so-called intellectuals of the time while at the same time clearly giving seriousness to the plights of the struggle of the common people throughout the 20th century makes his style still relevant. I feel like a lot of later filmmakers who were inspired by this style made their films with not as much of a grasp of the socio-political climate or the cinematic language used, and this type of filmmaking has been turned into mockery. But everything lines up perfectly here. The anger, frustrations, and hypocrisy of the times are depicted with clarity while experimenting with how to translate it to cinema.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film, which I found on Amazon Prime. I can usually take or leave Indian art movies, but this one grabbed me. It is an anthology of downbeat stories involving the plight of Indian citizens in the 20th Century. Not all of the stories take taking place in 1971 despite the title.

The first story is set in 1971. A man is on trial for breaking a store window and stealing a suit off a dummy. This story is shot in a minimalistic style (a bare courtroom which looks like a void). I was impressed by the technique.

The second story was set during a heavy rainstorm as an Indian family has to decide whether or not to move out of their home. This story was probably my favorite.

I also very much liked the third story where a man travels to visit friends of the family (the eldest daughter was a former flame). He finds the mother and two daughters living as squatters in an apartment complex and making some hard choices to survive.

The fourth story deal with rice smugglers. These are children of poor families stealing rides on trains to illegally sell rice miles away. The other, more well off, passengers on the train do not like these children and eventually petty violence erupts. There is a lot of heart to this story even if the ending leaves a bit too much unresolved.

The last story is both the most experimental and also the most didactic. Like the first story, it is set in 1971, a rich, self-absorbed sort is hosting a party and giving his long-winded opinions on everything. The film keeps cutting away from the party to scenes of fighting, striking, and young-looking Indians in a garage band blasting away psychedelic style music in the Blow-Up fashion. I kind-of liked the visual and aural experience, but I did find some of the points heavy-handedly made.

The print on Prime runs about fifteen minutes shorter than the running time listed on IMDB. I don't know what the differences are between the two versions. My guess is that some scenes have been cut around the frame story dealing with a youth being killed by the police, which barely registers in the version I saw. That is just a guess though. Regardless of running time, Calcutta 71 is well worth checking out. It is the first film I have seen from director Mrinal Sen, but I hope it isn't my last.

This is a film that clearly demonstrates that there is an Indian cinema beyond Bollywood and that it is not even new. In fact, Satyajit Ray had been filming Indian realism since the 1950s.

This is a difficult film to classify. If in essence it is a raw and realistic work, which denounces the misery of a city (and a country) where inequalities are glaring and deficiencies reach the level of mere survival, on the other, in its segmented structure, in the message that is sometimes revolutionary, it has echoes of nouvelle vague, especially after May 1968. There are brief influences from Godard and a freshness from the young protester of 1971, which clearly contrast with the usual cinematic language of the Indian subcontinent.

A beautiful film about a terrible reality.