Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray; India, 1970)

Description

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Ray’s most overtly Renoir-ish film, this might almost be a remake of Une Partie de Campagne, transposed to another time and place and through another sensibility. Instead of the French bourgeois family setting off for a picnic, four young men leave Calcutta for a few days in the country, trailing their westernized careerist attitudes, a middle class indifference to the lower orders, a self-satisfaction that leaves them closed to experience. Out of a series of delightfully funny mishaps as the visitors eagerly try to pursue acquaintance with their two promisingly attractive neighbors, Ray gradually distills a magical world of absolute stasis: a shimmering summer’s day, a tranquil forest clearing, the two women strolling in a shady avenue, wistful yearnings as love and the need for love echo plangently. Elsewhere jobs have to be won or lost, problems faced and solved, but not here; an illusion of course, revealed as time lifts its suspension but leaves one of the quartet a changed man, the other three assailed by tiny waves of self-doubt. Beautifully shot and acted, it’s probably Ray’s masterpiece.

• Written by Ray, based on a story by Sunil Ganguly. Photographed by Soumendu Roy. With Soumitra Chatterjee, Shubhendu Chatterjee, Samit Bhanja, Robi Ghosh. (115 mins, In Bengali with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm, Permission Purnima Dutta)

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http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN20719

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