Dhritiman Chatterjee Movies
- 1997
A challenging and deeply personal film filled with symbolism, this drama tells the story of three average men who each experience a sudden epiphany about their lives and band together to kidnap a sick boy. One of the newly ruthless outlaws is a cab driver and it is his rig that they use for their getaway vehicle. While traveling the off-roads, the three meet a series of interesting characters until tragedy forces them to stop. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Satyajit Ray's final film is a deceptively simple modern fable about a mysterious and world-weary old man (Utpal Dutt), who comes to stay with a middle-class Calcutta family, claiming to be the wife's long-lost uncle, Manmohan Mitra. Anila (Mamata Shankar), the wife, wants to believe him, but her husband, Sudhindra (Deepankar De), has his doubts. The couple's young son, Satyaki (Bikram Bhattacharya), is enthralled by Manmohan's exotic tales of his magical adventures, which have taken him from New York to the jungles of the Amazon, and pretty much regards the whole thing as a game. As the family and their friends try to figure out who exactly he is, his very presence forces them to reflect on their own lives and identities. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
- 1989
Legendary Indian film director Satyajit Ray developed this project based on a classic play by Henryk Ibsen because his doctor wanted him to only shoot films in a studio. The story has been transferred to Bengal, and Bengali is the language used in the film. In the story, Dr. Ashoke Gupta (Soumitra Chatterji) is an idealistic doctor working in a town near Calcutta. He discovers that the water at a popular temple is the source of an outbreak of typhoid and hepatitis. In order to save lives, he risks his career to try and call attention to this polluted water source. His efforts are thwarted by a local group of building contractors, who attempt to discredit him in various ways. Despite that, Dr. Gupta has supporters, and a reporter from Calcutta offers to tell his story in the papers there. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Soumitra Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, (more)
An older woman teaches Shakespeare in a girls' school, but events conspire to get her down-graded to an entry-level position. Just as that misfortune occurs, her only remaining family member -- a brother in an institution -- dies. Bereft on these personal and professional levels, she is especially grateful for the friendship of a couple she has met and has generously invited to share her apartment. The couple move out when they marry, and the woman goes to their wedding, continuing her acts of generosity to her newfound friends. Some time goes by before she realizes that the couple had been friends as long as they needed her apartment, and now that they no longer need it, they are not that interested in keeping up a relationship with her. When she does not hear from them any longer, she is at a loss as to how to recuperate some sort of balance in her life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Kendal, Dhritiman Chatterjee, (more)
- 1980
A moving film about the relationship between art and reality from well-known Bengali director Mrinal Sen, In Search of Famine is a movie about making a movie. A young, idealistic director arrives in a village to make a picture set during the Great Bengal Famine. It's a film that he hopes will reveal the problems and privations still current in rural India. Once in the town everything begins to go wrong. An actress walks off the set and a local girl quits when the film's subject becomes to personal, forestalling production. Most ironically however, the presence of the film crew begins to drive up the price of food in the village, leaving the residents angry and fearful of another famine. The tension increases and finally the film crew is driven from the town. In Search of Famine makes an important point: good intentions are not enough to overcome the demands of reality upon works of art. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dhritiman Chatterjee, Smita Patil, (more)
- 1973
India has almost as many political parties as it has people, and even when the government in power is "leftist," there is no guarantee that a given leftist movement will not be heavily persecuted. In this movie, a young activist has gone underground in the apartment of a woman separated from her husband. When a warm friendship develops between them, he misinterprets the woman's intentions. Eventually, he returns to his parents' home when he hears that his mother is ill. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1971
The Adversary stars Dhritiman Chatterjee as an Indian university student. Upon the death of his father, Chatterjee is compelled to drop out of school and support his family by taking a series of "grunt" jobs. Surrounded for the first time in his life by the squalor and poverty of Calcutta, the student grows increasingly embittered over his reduced circumstances. Director Satyajit Ray cannot completely obscure his eye for pictorial beauty even in this tragic tale of dashed hopes. Originally released in 1971 as Pratidwandi, The Adversary has been distributed to English-speaking countries under the alternate title Siddharta and the City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
