The Big City [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray

Overview

Subrata (Anil Chatterjee) is a bank clerk who is barely making ends meet as he supports his parents, wife and child. His wife, Arati (Madhabi Mukerjee), soon secures a position selling knitting machines to wealthy housewives. As she becomes successful, Subrata grows uncomfortable with the arrangement. With prompting from his father, Subrata is about to have Arati quit her new career. Just before she sends in her letter of resignation, however, Subrata's bank fails and he loses his job. Though Arati is satisfied with her work, her employer unfairly fires her Anglo-Indian friend and Arati considers handing in her resignation once more as an act of solidarity. World-reknown director Satyajit Ray) took a slight detour from his typical film subjects and focused more on contemporary social issues in a light manner. In spite of this difference, Ray's brilliant filmmaking held true, earning him yet more acclaim. Mahanagar/The Big City was awarded numerous awards in India and Ray received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival in 1964. Ray is also responsible for the score.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/20/2013
UPC:	0715515109314
Original Release:	1963
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	2:15:00
Sales rank:	13,960

Special Features

New interview with actor Madhabi Mukjerjee; Satyajit Ray and the Modern Woman, a new interview with Ray scholar Suranjan Ganguly; Satyajit Ray (1974), a documentary short by B.D. Garga; The Coward (Kapurush, 1965), a short feature by Ray that also addresses modern female identity and stars Mukherjee and Soumitra Chatterjee; Plus: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Chandak Sengoopta and a 1980s interview by Ray by his biographer Andrew Robinson

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Anil Chatterjee	Subrata Mazumdar,Priyogopal,(as Tapen Chattopadhyay)
Madhabi Mukherjee	Arati,Actor,Actor
Jaya Bachchan	Actor
Sefalika Devi	Sarojini
Prasenjit Sarkar	Pintu
Haradhan Bannerjee	Himangshu Mukherjee
Vicky Redwood	Edith
Bibhuti Banerjee	Actor
Manisha Chakraborty	Actor
Arun Chowdhury	Actor
Pritish Dey	Actor
Shailen Ganguli	Actor
Shyamal Ghoshal	Actor
Anuradha Guha	Actor
Jyoti Kripalani	Actor
Samir Lahiri	Actor
Ashok Mitra	Actor,Actor
Shila Pal	Actor
Gitali Roy	Actor
Subrata Sensharma	Actor
Jaya Bhaduri	Bani
Anil Chatterji	Actor
Satyajit Ray	Composer

Technical Credits

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray	Director,Screenwriter
R.D. Bansal	Producer
Jyoti Chatterjee	Sound Effects
Debesh Ghosh	Sound Effects
Sujit Sarkar	Sound/Sound Designer
Atul Chatterjee	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

The liberation of a middle-class housewife is a stepping stone for writer/director Satyajit Ray to explore a host of issues; yet this film feels nothing like an exploration of issues, just a simple recitation of one family's economic struggles. Subrata (Anil Chatterjee) and Arati (Majhabi Mukherjee) are portrayed as a reasonably happy couple in the film's opening scenes of domestic life, even with his elderly parents sharing cramped quarters with them and their two children. But Arati yearns for something more, not just money to ease their financial burdens, and she determines, under the guise of bringing in more money, to become a sales representative for an appliance company. Subrata's ailing father, trading in on his relationships with former students for financial favors, leads the charge against his daughter-in-law's break with tradition, although in a passive-aggressive way; he just stops talking to his son and Arati. Her friendship with an Anglo-Indian colleague and a boss who's both avuncular and bigoted open her eyes to the wonderful world of office politics, while Subrata struggles to reconcile the family's economic reality with his own pride. In one of the film's best scenes, he's able to eavesdrop on his wife making a sales pitch in a café and covering up the family's desperate circumstances with lies that shame Subrata even more. Ray focuses on several objects (the patriarch's eyeglasses, Arati's lipstick tube) that provoke misunderstandings by other family members and also symbolize the fierce pride of these two characters. The director views each major character with the same equanimity, and though our sympathies are almost always with Arati (thanks in part to Mukherjee, a wonderfully subtle actress), we're able to clearly see the motives of those who would oppose or support her.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener