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Agantuk (The Stranger),1991 |
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The lost uncle,an anthropologist,appreciates
the ornamental form of a Bengali snack.
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Production: National Film Development Corporation of India
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Screenplay, Music and Direction: Satyajit Ray
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Based on Ray's own story, Atithi |
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Photography: Barun Raha |
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Art Direction: Ashoke Bose |
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Editing: Dulal Dutta |
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Sound: Sujit Sarkar |
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Duration: 119 mins |
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Date of release in India: 20th December, 1991. Colour |
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Cast: Dipankar Dey (Sudhindra Bose), Mamata Shankar (Anila Bose), Bikram Bhattacharya (Satyaki/Bablu), Utpal Dutt (Manomohan Mitra), Dhritiman Chatterjee (Prithwish Sengupta), Rabi Ghosh (Ranjan Rakshit), Subrata Chatterjee (Chhanda Rakshit), Pramode Ganguli (Tridib Mukherjee), Ajit Banerjee (Sital Sarkar). |
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| Awards |
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FIPRESCI Award, Venice Film Festival, 1991 |
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Best Film, New Delhi, 1991 |
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Best Director, New Delhi, 1991 |
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| The Story |
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The niece,breaking the upper-middle class taboo,
starts dancing with the tribal women |
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A long-lost uncle, a stranger to the family who has almost been given up for dead, signals his existence in a letter expressing his desire to spend a few days in Calcatta with his niece. Driven by the suspicions of the husband, the family thinks he might be an impostor, if not a common thief, who may have come to claim an inheritance. The uncle, a world traveller, is put to the test by the family's bhadralok friends who try to probe him: is he really the uncle or only pretending to be him? When questioned by a lawyer friend, the uncle shows legal acumen in defending himself. The niece's little boy has accepted the uncle from the start. The niece also gradually comes to accept him, while her husband, like everyone else, cannot understand this mysterious visitor. |
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An emotionally charged film, Ray literally plants his own voice in it. He briefly sings three times in place of the enunciator-protagonist. The film voices Ray’s global concerns, against narrowness of all sorts, against boundaries, borders and barriers. |
| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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