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Jana-Aranya (The Middle Man), 1975 |
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| The graduate turns into a pimp. |
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Production: Subir Guha |
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Screenplay, Music and Direction: Satyajit Ray |
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Based on a novel by Shankar |
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Photography: Soumendu Roy |
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Art Direction: Ashoke Bose |
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Editing: Dulal Dutta |
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Sound: J.D. Irani, Anil Talukdar, Sujit Ghosh |
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Duration: 131 mins |
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Date of Release in India:20th February, 1976. B&W |
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Cast: Pradip Mukherjee (Somnath Banerjee), Satya Banerjee (Somnath's father), Dipankar Dey (Bhombol), Lily Chakravarti (Kamala, his wife), Aparna Sen (Somnath's girlfriend), Gautam Chakravarti (Sukumar), Sudesna Das (Kauna, known as Juthika), Utpal Dutta (Bishu), Rabi Ghosh (Mr. Mitter), Bimal Chatterjee (Adok), Arati Bhattacharya (Mrs. Ganguli), Padma Devi (Mrs. Biswas), Soven Lahiri (Goenka), Santosh Dutta (Hiralal), Bimal Deb (Jagabandhu, MLA), Ajeyo Mukherjee (Pimp), Kalyan Sen (Mr. Bakshi), Alokendu Dey (Fakirchand, office bearer). |
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| Awards |
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Best Direction, New Delhi, 1975 |
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Government of West Bengal Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, 1975 |
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Special Award, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, 1976 |
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Somnath, honest till then, is introduced to a winning middleman. |
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Somnath has to face bizarre interviews where even the weight of the moon can be asked ! |
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| The Story |
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| Somnath, a student, ends up absurdly failing his exams when the grader, without his glasses, is unable to decipher his miniscule writing. He gives up his studies, looks for a job, and decides to launch himself on a career in business. |
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| He becomes an independent salesman, paid on commission, to the great despair of his father, a descendant of a noble caste who considers engaging in commerce to be supremely disgraceful to the family reputation. As part of his business dealings, Somnath discovers the expedient value of corrupt practices. After lengthy hesitation, he agrees to provide a prostitute, who is none other than the sister of his best friend from school in order to obtain a contract. He says nothing about all this to his father, who may to some extent only be pretending to be ignorant of what is being concealed from him. |
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Somnath meets a prostitute willing to help in getting a business contract. |
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| View Clips |
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| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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