Without doubt, Srijit Mukerjee is the best contemporary living filmmaker in Bengal. The range of themes in his cinema and his actors’ ability to rise above themselves in the material
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The original Oxford Bookstore of Kolkata started back in 1919. Acquired later in 1987 by the Apeejay Surrendra group – the chain has spread across India over decades. The Oxford story is now poised for renewal as the bookstore chain celebrates 100 years.
A marked shift in realising this moral decay on screen is apparent from
Aranyer Din Ratri to his Calcutta trilogy
Pratidwandi,
Jana Aranya. In
Pratidwandi, Dhritiman Chatterjee’s Siddhartha declares that he doesn’t want to leave Kolkata, no matter that he is unemployed, with his mind unable to find an ideological footing. The film coincided with the Naxalite movement that began in Bengal, with the caste system and land rights at its root.
Still from ‘Pratidwandi’.
It’s no coincidence that the trilogy charted the course of Indira Gandhi’s India as it inched towards Emergency, creating a swelling anger at the state. Ray’s films still focused on capturing the Bengali Brahmin’s, or more importantly, India’s ruling class’s frustration with itself and the country. The trilogy’s protagonists Siddhartha in