| Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest), 1969 |
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| Asim starts feeling helpless when he faces Aparna |
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Production: Nepal Dutta and Asim Dutta for Purnima Pictures |
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Screenplay, Music and Direction: Satyajit Ray |
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Based on a novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay |
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Photography: Soumendu Roy |
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Art Direction: Bansi Chandragupta |
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Editing: Dulal Dutta |
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Sound: Sujit Sarkar |
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Duration: 115 mins |
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Date of release in India: 16th January, 1970. B&W |
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Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee (Asim), Subhendu Chatterjee (Sanjoy), Samit Bhanja (Harinath), Rabi Ghosh (Sekhar), Pahari Sanyal (Sadasiv Tripathy), Sharmila Tagore (Aparna), Kaveri Bose (Jaya), Simi Garewal (Duli), Aparna Sen (Atasi). |
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| The Story |
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| Four friends from Calcutta, who have very different personalities, make a holiday excursion into the country, to a tiny village in the state of Bihar where they set themselves up in a bungalow. A series of minor events, all connected to their respective reactions to their new environment, reveals their characters more deeply. |
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Jaya invites Sanjoy to meet her alone in
the bungalow |
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Hari seduces a tribal beauty |
Displaced from their customary sense of social rules, they engage Lakha as a servant until the day when Hari, having lost his wallet, accuses him of stealing it, strikes him, and sends him away. They meet a beautiful local woman, Duli. When Hari uses her for some fast sex, Lakha ambushes him in revenge. The others become very friendly with two young women from the neighbourhood who live on a comfortable estate. The inhibited Sanjoy does not dare to respond to Jaya's interest while Aparna leaves Asim after giving him her address on a five-rupee note. |
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The friends depart again for the city, pretending to be unaffected by their experiences.
Referred to as "Ray's Mozartian masterpiece" for its emotional complexity and delicate balancing of responses, this film proves, definitively, Ray's affinity with Mozart.
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Asim finally discovers the reality of life in forest through the window of the guard’s dingy quarters |
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| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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