8 classic Mrinal Sen movies you shouldn’t miss

Mrinal Sen is best known for being a force behind the camera that inspired mainstream Indian cinema to work with social and political issues. He showed how camera and direction can become the ideal medium to question the circumstances at that time. Being an iconoclast, the renowned filmmaker used to romanticize a poverty-stricken India which made him a class apart from others. Here is a list of films that includes his finest works.

The legendary Uttpal Dutt essayed the role of a westernized railway officer who discovers there is a life in offer beyond the bureaucracy he follows during his duck hunting trip to Gujarat. Suhasini Mulay was seen as a young tribal woman who helps Dutt to rediscover the simple joys of life. Another notable highlight of this Mrinal Sen classic was the exceptional cinematography by KK Mahajan which captured the wide-open vistas superbly. Mrinal Sen won two National Film Awards for Best Director and Best Film for ‘Bhuvan Shome’.

'Mrigaaya' featured Mithun Chakraborty as a tribal man who is known to be one of the best hunters around, even by the British rulers. But he was thrown to gallows after being found guilty of murdering the moneylender who kidnapped his wife. His trial and death later ignite a series of revolt among the tribal people. They stand their ground and confront both the British and their zamindar oppressors. Mithun single-handedly made the film a cult classic with his brilliant acting and won the National Award for Best Actor for ‘Mrigayaa’. The film also won Mrinal Sen a National Award for Best Film.

A young man played by Soumitra Chatterjee, dreams of moving up in life and gets involved in a dangerous business deal. In order to maintain his image of a wealthy person, he decides to borrow a car and apartment from his rich friend played by Subhendu Chatterjee. Life goes on and he falls in love with a lady from a wealthy family portrayed by Aparna Sen. He doesn’t have the courage to tell her the truth and eventually suffers for his own deception in the long run.

This 1984 Bengali classic weaves around a group of friends who go for a picnic in some rural ruins and find a mother-daughter duo that lives there. The blind and bedridden mother suffers from a delusion that one of the visitors is a young man engaged to the daughter, but in reality, it isn’t so. The photographer in the group (played by Naseeruddin Shah) suddenly takes pity on the girl (played by Shabana Azmi) and chooses to play along. However, it throws the group into some dramatic situations and they spend a few dark, brooding days in that ruins. ‘Khandahar’ also won Mrinal Sen a National Film Award for Best Director.

This Mrinal Sen directorial became a groundbreaking one in the history of Bengali cinema. It raised some vital questions on gender norms. The story showed how the eldest daughter of the family earns and the male family members including her jobless elder brother depend on her for day-to-day expenses. One night the eldest daughter doesn’t return home from work and that sends her family into a cycle of grief and anxiety amid chaos. Is it a reaction out of love, affection or is it out of a fear of losing their only means of livelihood? Mrinal Sen raised an open question for the society. ‘Ek Din Pratidin’ deservedly won the iconic filmmaker a National Award for Best Direction.

‘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.

‘Calcutta 71’ narrates the violence and corruption throughout ages. The film is based on 4 short stories by reputed writers. All the stories are connected or interlinked to give a powerful statement. A straightforward study of the political turmoil of the seventies, ‘Calcutta 71’ documented the agony of the common people. It served moments of high intensity that has been rarely reached in Indian cinema. Mrinal Sen collected the raw footage for this film since 1966. It took five years to make it and the film was released in 1972.

In ‘Padatik’ we see Kolkata as in the early 1970s, a place filled with chaos and history. All of it lurches into a dark future portrayed in scattered fragments. This film finds Mrinal Sen taking up salient issues amid a period of political turmoil. He begins with and occasionally goes back to, rolling the newspaper headlines that throughout the film create an essence of the tidal wave of nearing crises and invite either panic or hopelessness. The narrative follows a young political activist (Dhritiman Chatterjee) who escapes a prison van and takes shelter in a posh apartment owned by a sensitive young woman (Simi Garewal).