Global via the Local: 5 Films from Early Popular Indian Cinema theedgesusu.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theedgesusu.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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
Shabana Azmi in a still from “The Black Prince”. Photo: Reuters
As Shabana Azmi turned 70 barely four months ago on September 18, 2020, she saw her glorious 45-plus year long career bookended by roles as diverse as they can get.
Her first film, the 1974 classic by Shyam Benegal had her play Lakshmi, a village woman trapped in India’s oppressive caste-ridden society compounded by chronic poverty. Her latest project is as far from that stifling milieu as it can ever get. She plays Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky in the live action science fiction series HALO based on the video game franchise being executive produced by Steven Spielberg.