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Abhijan (The Expedition), 1962 |
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| Gulabi faces Narsing, the taxi-driver |
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Production: Abhijatrik |
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Screenplay, Music and Direction: Satyajit Ray |
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Based on a story by Tarashankar Banerjee |
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Photography: Soumendu Roy |
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Art Director: Bansi Chandragupta |
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Editing: Dulal Dutta |
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Sound: Durgadas Mitra, Nripen Paul, Sujit Sarkar |
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Duration: 150 mins |
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Date of release in India: 24th September 1962. B&W |
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| Award |
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President's Silver Medal, New Delhi, 1962 |
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Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee (Narsing), Waheeda Rehman (Gulabi), Ruma Guha Thakurta (Neeli), Jnanesh Mukherjee (Joseph), Charuprakash Ghosh (Sukhanram), Rabi Ghosh (Rama), Arun Roy (Naskar), Shekhar Chatterjee (Rameswar), Ajit Banerjee (Banerjee), Reba Devi (Joseph's mother), Abani Mukherjee (Lawyer). |
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| The Story |
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| Abhijan was one of the most popular films (in Bengal) Ray has produced: a "conscious" effort to communicate with a wider audience. The project was originally one that his friends had conceived. Ray stepped in when his friends |
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| The taxi-driver, unable to read and write himself, was subtly captivated by the educated school-mistress. |
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| panicked at the prospect of directing. It was Ray's mastery that turned this "conventional" plot from a stark to a subtly nuanced story. The theme of the film is the attempt to "buy" over an honest but impoverished young man by a financially sucessful middle-aged businessman. |
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| The taxi-driver feels very excited and imagines riding a horse |
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The action takes place in Bihar (northwest of Bengal), around 1930. Narsingh, a proud and hot tempered rajput (originally from Rajasthan), is a taxi driver with a passion for his vehicle. His license is taken away as he races a government official, but Sukhanram, a shady merchant, offers him a handsome fee to transport some merchandise. Narsingh, thus, finds himself drawn against his better judgement into trafficking in opium. The two main female characters, Neeli and Gulabi, form a contrast. Narasingh has a soft spot for Neeli who is a strong, reserved Catholic schoolmistress, and has no interest in him. |
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In the end he redeems both himself and Gulabi and proves that every rule has an exception. |
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| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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