| Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder), 1973 |
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| Ananga, Gangacharan |
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Production: Sarbani Bhattacharya for Balaka Movies |
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Screenplay, Music and Direction: Satyajit Ray |
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Based on a novel by Bibhutibhusan Banerjee |
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Art Direction: Ashoke Bose |
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Editing: Dulal Dutta |
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Sound: J.D. Irani, Durgadas Mitra |
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Duration: 101 mins |
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Date of release:15th August, 1973. Colour |
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Ananga |
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Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee (Gangacharan Chakraborti), Babita (Ananga, his wife), Ramesh Mukherjee (Biswas), Chitra Banerjee (Moti), Gobinda Chakraborti (Dinabandhu), Sandhya Roy (Chhutki), Noni Ganguli (Scarfaced Jadu), Sheli Pal (Mokshada), Suchita Roy (Khenti), Anil Ganguly (Nibaran), Debatosh Ghosh (Adhar). |
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| Awards |
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Golden Bear, Berlin Film Festival , 1974 |
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President’s Gold Medal for Music , New Delhi, 1973 |
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President's Award for Best Colour Photography, Soumendu Roy, New Delhi, 1973 |
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President's Award for Best Bengali Film, New Delhi, 1973 |
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Best Film, Government of West Bengal, 1973 |
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Best Actor, Soumitra Chatterjee, Government of West Bengal, 1973 |
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Chhutki |
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Gangacharan with his pupil |
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| The Story |
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Gangacharan |
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The action, which occurs in a tiny village in 1943, during World War II, is based on the man-made famine that caused the deaths of five million inhabitants of colonial Bengal.
Gangacharan, a Brahmin recently settled in the village with his wife Ananga, decides to start a school in exchange for being supported by the villagers. Airplanes disturb the peaceful sky, a metaphor for the disruption of traditional life of the villagers by War in Europe. It causes the price of rice to increase rapidly. This causes hardship for and rioting by the villagers and hoarding of grain by merchants. Gangacharan, shrewd, manages to initially keep himself supplied with food in exchange for his services. However, conditions begin to deteriorate rapidly. Anaga is molested while hunting for edible roots in the lush forest, highlighting the irony of the situation: there is no drought and the fields have produced a good harvest that season. The film ends with Anaga telling Ganga about her pregnancy as a deluge of starving humanity approaches them. |
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| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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