Few filmmakers expect to reach the level of acclaim of Indian director Satyajit Ray. Winner of a record 37 Indian National Film Awards, including six for Best Direction, Ray has won accolades at film festivals around the world, received an Honorary Academy Award, and was even given the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award bestowed by the Indian government. Earlier this year, he was ranked as the eighth greatest director of all time by Forbes magazine.
However, at first glance, Ray’s films may seem underwhelming. Often focused on only a handful of characters within a single family, his filmography contains simple movies, absent of big set pieces or flashy camera moves. Yet, these quiet films can be deeply rewarding to the patient viewer.
Today, international audiences often associate India’s movie industry with rousing action epics, Bollywood musicals, and feel-good dramedies. While many of these films deserve celebration, Satyajit Ray’s work stems from a cinematic tradition where richness emerges from realism, with themes that still resonate today and artistry that is undeniable.
Indian Neorealism
Born in Kolkata in 1921, Ray started his career as a visual artist. His interest in filmmaking began after a six-month stint in London in 1950, where he watched many films, including Bicycle Thieves (1948), Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neorealist drama.
This film was a source of rich inspiration for Ray, who became one of the key figures of the Parallel Cinema movement, a wave of new Indian cinema that originated in West Bengal and emphasized realism and sociopolitical themes. The Parallel Cinema movement became a cornerstone of India’s cinematic Golden Age, which lasted from the late 1940s to the early 1960s,
It is easy to see the influence that Italian neorealist films like Bicycle Thieves have on Ray’s work. Ray’s debut film Pather Panchali bears a number of striking similarities to Bicycle Thieves. Both films depict the experience of poverty with arresting realism, exploring themes of sacrifice, familial loyalty, the relationship between parents and children, and finding hope in the face of tragedy.
Ozu and Ray
An inherently humanist filmmaker, Ray also evokes comparisons with the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. Ray and Ozu both created gentle, poetic films about the inherent drama of familial dynamics, imbuing their social realism with a level of complexity and artistry that sets them above their contemporaries.
Both directors are also masters of shot composition. While Ozu prefers the low-angled ‘tatami shot’, Ray often frames his characters in doorways, behind bars, through curtains, or reflected in mirrors, depending on the necessary symbolism. While both are fundamentally realist filmmakers, Ray is slightly more expressionistic. An example of his visual poetry is the rain scene in Pather Panchali, as Ray uses rain falling to represent the harsh reality of life that is about to wash over this poor family.
Another similarity between Ozu and Ray is their respect for the elderly, and their profound awareness of the relationship between adult children and their aging parents. One of the most striking characters in Pather Panchali is the elderly grandmother Indir, played by Indian theatre actress Chunibala Devi, who came out of retirement at age 80 to act in Ray’s film. Her adult daughter Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) seems to resent her mother’s presence, in a way that echoes the dynamics in Ozu’s masterpiece Tokyo Story. Both Ozu and Ray recognize how familial love can also create a responsibility and obligation that is not easily escapable and can cause pain for both the giver and receiver of care.
The Big City
This motif of familial burdens is also present in Ray’s The Big City (Mahanagar), whose main tension comes from the financial burden that two elderly grandparents create for the Mazumdar family. The Big City follows Arati (played by Madhabi Mukherjee), a Bengali housewife living in Kolkata who decides to take a job as a saleswoman to relieve the Mazumdars’ financial pressure. However, her decision to work goes against the traditional values of her family, resulting in tensions between her, her husband, and her elderly in-laws.
The Big City pairs well with the 2024 release All We Imagine As Light, the first Indian film to win the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Both The Big City and All We Imagine As Light revolve around the joys and challenges of Indian women in the workforce, navigating a misogynistic world. These two films feature female protagonists with deep inner worlds and explore the complexities of gender roles within India’s patriarchal culture without moralizing or judging.
In The Big City, Ray also explores the legacy of colonialism, most pointedly through the character of Arati’s friend Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian colleague who introduces Arati to Western beauty standards and ideas of womanhood. Ray does not present these ideas as enlightened or as an explicitly corrupting force; rather, he simply reflects the challenges that come from having to grapple with the legacy of colonialism within a traditional culture.
One of the most significant legacies of colonialism in India is the capitalist structure and its inherent inequalities, a theme that Ray explores in many of his works, including Pather Panchali, The Big City, and in his lesser-known short film Two. Again, Ray does not moralize or condemn; he simply explores and presents. Two functions as a parable, exploring the differences between two worlds, one rich and one poor. In The Big City, capitalism appears to be a saving force, as Arati enjoys the freedom and pleasures of her newfound income. Yet, freedom within this capitalist system is fleeting when power ultimately rests with the man in charge.
A Master of Craft
As one of India’s most talented cinematic storytellers, Satyajit Ray is a true master of the craft. His poetic eye is nearly unmatched and his characters are rich with interiority. The themes he explores are universal, resulting in a filmography that has only grown deeper and more meaningful over time.
I encourage you to seek out Ray’s films wherever they are available. The Big City was recently screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival as part of a curated series by Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker Zarrar Khan. Curated festival screenings like these are essential for carrying on the legacy of film history, as each generation of filmmakers builds upon the ones who came before.
This article is part of Cinema Escapist’s dedicated coverage of the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival.