Bengali cinema
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AJANTRIK / PATHETIC FALLACY (Dir. Ritwik Ghatak, 1958, India) – Man and Machine
Preceded by ‘Nagarik’ (The Citizen) which only got a release after Ghatak’s death, his second film ‘Ajantrik’ is the quirky story of one man’s undying love for his car, a 1920’s Chevrolet affectionately referred to as Jagaddhal. Ghatak says that he procrastinated over the story for twelve long years before making it into a film. Continue reading
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SUBARNAREKHA / THE GOLDEN LINE (Dir. Ritwik Ghatak, 1962-1965, India) – Elliptical Elation
Ghatak’s exacting control over the rhythm of his films extended from Eisenstein’s theoretical and cinematic experimentation’s with political montage. Elliptical editing inevitably invites an ambiguity and fracture into linear narrative, creating discernible gaps that disorient the spectator. After what is an admittedly schizophrenic opening twenty minutes, Subarnarekha settles into a familiar classical rhythm and the Continue reading
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ASHA JAOAR MAJHE / LABOUR OF LOVE (Dir. Aditya Vikram Sengupta, 2014, India) – Time and Space
Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Labour of Love is an intrepid experiment, dispensing entirely with dialogue, relying on sound and images to weave a lyrical narrative about two individuals in Calcutta. Sengupta deploys a hypnotic observational style, dwelling fondly on the micro details of those in-between moments so common to neorealist cinema and particularly De Sica’s films. Continue reading
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AGANTUK / THE STRANGER (Satyajit Ray, 1991, India/France) – Anthropological Articulations
Ray’s final period as a director was effected by his ill health and while some critics have remarked on the predominance of sequences shot indoors in his final films, I’m not sure of the validity of such a statement considering Ray’s best films, Charulata and The Music Room, unfold in a similar contextual space. Agantuk, Continue reading
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SHABDO / SOUND (Dir. Kaushik Ganguly, 2013, India)
The mechanics of sound have been coldly explored in films before such as The Conversation, Blow Out and most recently Berberian Sound Studio. Shabdo (Sound, 2013), a Bengali film written and directed by Kaushik Ganguly navigates a similar world of film sound with a story about a Foley Artist who loses his grip on reality because Continue reading
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