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While exhibition of films in Calcutta can be dated back to 1896, when one Professor Stevens screened the Lumiere programmes at Star Theatre, it was only in the first decade of the twentieth century that Bengal had its first indigenous film-makerâHiralal Sen. Calcutta at the time had a strong tradition of professional theatre, and theatre houses served as outlets for films. The earliest screenings were held in theatre houses where films appeared as a double bill attraction alongside the plays.Â
Influential theatre owners, like for example Amarendra Nath Dutta of Classic Theatre, encouraged the production of films by allowing Hiralal Sen to photograph his stage productions, which were then advertised as âsuperfine pictures from our world-renowned playsâ and exhibited.Â
Hiralal Sen himself went around Calcutta and shot scenes of everyday life: a moving tram, the bathing ghats, a cock fight, the temple at Kalighat.Â
The 1940s was remarkable for the influx of writers from the Progressive Writers Association and artists from the Indian Peopleâs Theatre Association (IPTA) to the film scene.Â
Among IPTAâs idealist members who dreamed of changing the way films were made were two young men, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, who would play influential roles in giving Bengali and Indian cinema a new form.Â
Immediately after independence and partition in 1947, a group of young intellectuals in Calcutta, Satyajit Ray and Chidananda Das Gupta among them, founded the Calcutta Film Society and set off the film society movement in India which has gone down in history for its role in fostering public taste for an alternative realist and meaningful cinema.
In the â50s, Bengali cinema also produced its most iconic star duo, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen. Uttam Kumar remained Bengali cinemaâs top hero for over two decades .
The best-known âeventâ of the â50s Bengali cinema is nonetheless Satyajit Rayâs Pather Panchali which released in 1955 and won âBest Human Documentâ at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.
Pather Panchali was appreciated by filmgoers and critics alike, as was Apur Sansar, the third film of Rayâs Apu trilogy, which had a âsilver jubileeâ in Calcutta.
Rayâs contemporary Ritwik Ghatak who also was an influential member of the IPTA, and spearheaded the more political avant-garde cinema.Â
In the â70s, Mrinal Senâs films depicted the contemporary social unrest and the rise of a radical politics in Bengal. Senâs Akaler Sandhane-a film within a film- where a film crew recreates the 1943 Bengal famine, won the Silver Bear at Berlin in 1981 .
In the same year, Aparna Sen made her first film 36 Chowringhee Lane, becoming best known as a feminist filmmaker with Paroma (1985).
Satyajit Ray received an Oscar for his lifetimeâs work days before his death on 23 April 1992.Â
It marked the end of an era, but the â90s also saw the rise of a young director in the Ray mould- Rituparno Ghosh, whose films returned urban middle-class audiences to Bengali cinema. Ghosh,who was already a National Award winning director, made a splash nationally with Chokher Bali (2003) where he cast Aishwarya Rai as Tagoreâs Binodini.
Bengali cinema isn't about larger-than-life films. It has always been real in that sense.
âĄSome of favourite Bengali films :-
RELEASE DATE: 17th April,1964
Story by : Rabindranath Tagore
The film "Charulata" starred Madhabi Mukherjee(as Charulata), Soumitra Chatterjee(as Amal),and Shailen Mukherjee(as Bhupati Dutta)in lead roles.
Charulata follows the story of Charu, a bored and neglected housewife in late nineteenth-century Bengal. Her husband Bhupati is a upper-class Bengali intellectual (āĻāĻĻā§āĻ°āĻ˛ā§āĻ). and the editor of a newspaper, who is interested in the freedom movement and social reform but has no time for his lonely wife. Charu is beautiful and intelligent, but she cannot do enough to fill her time. Sensing her loneliness, Bhupati invites her brother Umapada and sister-in-law, Manda to stay with them. However, Umapada begins helping Bhupati with the printing press, and Mandaâs crude nature does not compliment Charuâs intelligent and creative nature. One day Bhupatiâs cousin Amal visits, and Bhupati asks him to engage and encourage Charu with her literary and cultural ambitions.
Both Charu and Amal bond over their mutual interests and fill the void of time in each otherâs life. Amal realises Charuâs love for him but does not reciprocate out of guilt and duty. Umapada and Manda flee after scamming Bhupati of his money, destroying the prospects for the newspaper. Bhupati confides in Amal as the only one he can trust. Overcome by guilt and shame, Amal goes to England for higher studies and to marry, leaving behind a letter for Charu who is left heartbroken. Bhupati, shocked and also heartbroken upon realising the truth when he sees Charu crying leaves the house.When he returns, Charu and Bhupati attempt to extend their hands towards each other but the film ends before their hands meet.
Release date: 26th August,1955
Story by: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.
'Pather Panchaliâ (A Song of the Little Road) marked Satyajit Rayâs debut as a director. This masterpiece from Ray is a social drama inspired by a famous novel of the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. âPather Panchaliâ plots a young boy Apu from a poor family and his daily life in a rural Indian village. The film was produced by the then Bengal government as the legendary filmmaker ran out of money after only shooting half of the movie.The sibling love between Apu and his elder sister Durga is the heart of the film, their scenes of everyday intimacy encapsulate the sweet bonding between a brother and sister.Â
Release Date: 6th May,1966
The film "NAYAK" starred Uttam Kumar(as Arindam Mukherjee), and Sharmila Tagore(as Aditi) in lead roles.
A superstar from the movies gets on a train and sees his life unravel.
In the film Aditi interviews Arindam, with her deep-rooted indignation for the celebrities. But she uncovers a lonely man with shades of guilt, agony, and insecurity embedded under the perfectly maintained glamorous image. A journalist from a renowned female magazine plays the catalyst in the narration and leaves the 'Nayak' with no other choice but to pour his heart out.
Initial Release: 25th May, 2012
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Screenplay: Rituparno Ghosh
The film has Rituparno Ghosh(as Rudra),Anjan Dutt(as Subho),Jisshu Sengupta(as Partho)and Raima Sen(as Kasturi) as main characters.
The film "Chitrangada: the crowning wish" revolves around the premise that same-sex couples cannot adopt children in India, which is why Rudra decides to undergo sex reassignment surgery to be a woman, so as to be eligible to adopt a child with Partho. The tragedy in Rudraâs life is that while heâs willing to undergo six months of pain and suffering for Partho, the latter breaks it off with him by saying, âIf I have to have a woman, Iâd rather have a real one, not this half-thingâ.
The film beautifully portrays the daily struggles of a queer man, his relationship with his parents and the society around him. It does a brilliant job of highlighting his loneliness and selflessness and at the same time and educates the audience about the several difficulties faced by members of the LGBTQ community.
The film also incorporates bits from Rabindranath Tagoreâs story about Chitrangada,who was brought up as a man and warrior because it was her fatherâs wish to do so, and juxtaposes Chitrangadaâs desire to be a woman when she falls in love with Arjun during a hunt, along with Rudraâs desire of the same.Â
In the film , Rudra's life is similarly transformed after meeting the much younger Partho a heroin-addicted and highly irresponsible drummer.
The film also explores how Rudra's mother and father respond to their son's predicament, offering insights into how gender expression can affect families. It's a universal story and they, along with an understated counsellor.
P.S. The ending of the film with the line "Be What You Wish To Be" gave me goosebumps and it was the first time in my life that I cried after watching a film.
Initial Release: 18th July,2019
The film has Tuhina Das(as Brinda),Anirban Bhattacharya(as Nikhilesh), Jisshu Sengupta(as Sandip Jha) and Rwitobroto Mukherjee (as Amulyo Dutta) as main characters.
'Ghawre Bairey Aaj' is a modern day adaptation of Rabindranath Tagoreâs iconic novel Ghare Baire. Itâs a modern retelling of Tagore`s classic novel, and chronicles a triangular love story which is as much a story of passionate romance as it is of clashing ideologies.
Release Date: 23rd November, 2018
Screenplay: Mainak Bhaumik
The film has Rwitibroto Mukherjee(as Apu/ Arunava Bose),Sauraseni Maitra(as Durga)in lead roles.
The story of the film revolves around Apu, a tenth standard student in Kolkata, and his cousin sister Durga, visiting from Delhi. Apuâs parents put a lot of pressure on him to study, perform well in his board exams, join the science stream, and clear the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE). His parents disciplined him excessively and gave him little freedom to do as he liked. As a result, he felt as if he had not quite grown up. He loved to write music, play guitar, and sing, but was harshly discouraged from doing so.
While Apuâs parents worried about him too much, Durgaâs parents completely washed their hands of her. They turned a blind eye to her struggles, pretending her depression had nothing to do with them. They sent her to Kolkata, because word had gotten around that she was receiving psychiatric treatment. Whenever she called them, they would hastily hang up. Her mother would say she was busy, while her father would say that the network was bad. When she said her maternal uncle had molested her, her mother refused to believe it.
Durga and Apu had been brought in considerably different households. She impressed Apu by talking back to his mother, and her aunt at the dinner table, something he would have never dared to do. It seemed she could act exactly as she liked. An unlikely friendship blossomed between them, as Apu was the only person who asked Durga why she tried to kill herself once. Soon, Apu was breaking away from the obedient, submissive son he was accustomed to being. He started breaking the rules set out by his parents. By encouraging him to talk to his crush Piya and to play at his schoolâs open-mic music festival, Durga helped Apu find his voice. On her birthday, on the pretext of buying herself a present, she bought him a guitar. She urged him to get a piercing.
Durga was undergoing treatment for clinical depression in Delhi, while she was sent to Kolkata. She refrained from taking her prescribed pills as the side effects were quite difficult. She also stopped going for counseling. Her condition worsened. Her boyfriend Sourav refrained from speaking to her on the phone. When she decided to call him and confess her love, his wife picked up the phone. Remembering Apuâs motherâs words, Durga called her parents, who for one last time evaded her calls. She decided to end her life by jumping off a building, and this time succeeded.
Apuâs father felt that Durgaâs suicide was an act of selfishness, and that she acted irresponsibly. This sparked a confrontational exchange between Apu and his father. Apu accused his father of caring about IIT, only for the sake of the familyâs image. In response, his father says that all he wants is that Apu does not end up struggling for money as he is. Apu asserted his right to pursue music if he chooses. He disobeyed his father, and decides to perform at the "Gaanwala".
The movie ends with a sequence from a year later, when Apu ties a letter to Durga to a set of balloons, and releases it into the sky. He had grown up, taken the science stream, and decided to write the JEE, while also pursuing music seriously.
The movie offers a nuanced exploration of the psychosocial factors contributing to depression.Â
Generation Aami casually exposes the hypocrisy implicit in the stigmas imposed by society.
Well, the list of favourite Bengali films especially for a Filmophile like me is never ending I guess. One movie comes up after another and so on !
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