Controversial Bengali films on political issues

We love escapist fare. And so films shedding lights on the dismal state of India don't always find many takers. Still, there are those elite filmmakers who have look beyond viewer preference to display it like it is in reality. In a country stormed by scams, corruption and exploitative politics, the genre has always been relevant and often treads on precarious grounds for censoring fear. What actually matters, despite all those challenges, there are some hard-hitting Bengali movies about real issues and policies and their direct impact on society. Here we take a look at some of the Bengali political films which remains cult classics.

‘Komal Gandhar’ explores three interconnected themes – Anusua, the lead character’s dilemma, the infamous divided leadership of Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) and the tragic fallout after the partition of India. Ritwik Ghatak used this film to take a dig at both the IPTA style of radical theatre and the Partition. It resulted in a political controversy in Bengal which apparently forced the director to look for work outside the state. Set in the contentious 50s, the film is mainly structured around the rivalry between two radical theatre groups. Unlike his other works, this one interestingly follows an upbeat mood with the lead pair (Vrigu and Anusua) being reunited ultimately. The music once again added a different flavour to this flick. Though it was a commercial failure, ‘Komal Gandhar’ is still counted as one of Ritwik Ghatak’s masterpieces.

By far the most cynical film Satyajit Ray made was ‘Jana Aranya’ (The Middleman). It’s an adaptation of a novel by Shankar and narrates the story of a young man Somnath who fails to find a job after graduating from Calcutta University. Struggling for months, he one day meets a well-wisher who opens up the world of entrepreneurship to him. Somnath starts a business, as a middleman for order supplies, and the money suddenly starts flowing in. But he soon gets to know no life is a cakewalk, and even in running a successful business, one should turn a blind eye to the moral code when time comes. The film’s climax is an out and out shocker in which Somnath faces a startling dilemma of epic proportions, and just like Ray visualizes he fails to choose the right path, and he is now neither noble, nor a hero.

The Satyajit Ray directorial is set against the backdrop of Bengal’s tragic partition. 'Ghare Baire' is all about the love triangle of Nikhilesh, his wife Bimala and his friend Sandip. When Bimala realises the complex emotions of her relationship with Sandip, it marks her growth as a person. Soumitra Chatterjee, Victor Banerjee and Swatilekha Sengupta’s acting in the central characters is brilliant, and the cinematography, just like any other Ray film, subtly accentuates the themes of liberation and loss, along with the inner connection between the two.

Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pratidwandi’ (1970) marked Dhritiman Chatterjee’s big screen debut. Inspired by a novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay, this film portrayed him as Siddhartha, an extremely talented medical student forced to give up his career following the sudden demise of his father. He enacted the sere frustration and cynicism of Siddhartha so accurately that it seemed quite typical of the late 60s and the 70s youth. It was a period when social and economic decadence were increasing on an alarming rate and communism was on the upswing in Bengal.

‘Interview’ is believed to be the first installment of Mrinal Sen's ‘Calcutta Trilogy’, the others being ‘Calcutta 71’ and ‘Padatik’. Ranjit Mullick plays a smart young man in this film. A friend of the family, working in a foreign firm, assures him of a job in his firm. All he has to do is to appear for the interview, dressed in a western style suit. Unfortunately, on the day of the interview, a strike by a labour union leaves him without the suit as it was in the laundry. The young man borrows a suit but loses it in a fracas. He then attends the interview dressed in the traditional Bengali Dhuti-Panjabi.

Who could have better played the tyrant and greedy ruler of Hirak with a twist of madness? Utpal Dutta slips into the character of Hirak Raja supremely. A little more than a decade after ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ was made, a colourful ‘Hirak Rajar Deshe’ comes with a coded message. It’s basically an allegory of contemporary politics. In the film, a famine-stricken rural Bengal sees Goopy and Bagha using their three boons to put an end to all the wrongs of the greedy Diamond king and giving the children a taste of freedom. Soumitra Chatterjee plays the rebellious schoolteacher leading an uprising against the dictatorship of Hirak Raja.