Anil Chatterjee Movies

When an Untouchable wins the elections for mayor in his small village in northeastern India, deadly rioting forces an impoverished couple to escape to Calcutta where they can hopefully find work. Instead, they end up sleeping on the streets until they have a chance at earning a little income -- a man has asked them to take his herd of pigs across a fast-moving river. The current is dangerous, and worse, the wife is pregnant and this would not be an easy task even if she were not. Undaunted and desperate, the couple accept the job and enter the river to face their destiny. Both the acting and the cinematography and music are excellent in this slow-paced, but engaging drama from director Goutam Ghose. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Four widows and a young woman befriend a writer on a train ride to Puri. The young woman has been jilted, and the writer is in a position to lend a sympathetic ear to her and the other four women. It is never clear how any of the travelers are able to afford the trip, and the characters all have their own unique aura of mystery. Scenes from the ancient temple at Konarak are also featured in this film written and directed by Sinha Tapan. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Chhabi Biswas plays a prominent Indian industrialist who takes his family on holiday to Darjeeling. In close contact with one another for the first time in months, the family members vent their various pet peeves. Efforts to solve the family's problems are often stymied by the schism between the younger and older members of the group. In short, filmmaker Satyajit Ray trots out several of his favorite themes, then bundles them together in an entertaining and accessible fashion. In the tradition of Hollywood's The Set-Up and High Noon, the events in Kanchenjungha are played out in "real time," with everything occurring uninterruptedly within the film's 100 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The "third daughter" in this excellent, intended trilogy by acclaimed Indian director Satyajit Ray got axed in the final cut when Ray decided to keep his film at its current 116 minutes. The first story in the set, both based on tales by Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore is titled "The Postmaster" and relates how Ratan (Chandana Bannerjee) an orphan, is befriended by a Calcutta poet, Nandalal (Anil Chatterjee), when he comes to Ratan's remote village to take over the postmaster's job and hires her as a servant girl. His kindness extends to teaching her to read and write and she, in turn, is devoted to him. Faced with the difficulties of living in abject poverty, the postmaster has to choose between staying with Ratan or returning to the city. In the second story, "Samapti" or alternately, "The Conclusion," a student returns home from law school to discover that his overbearing mother has arranged a marriage for him with a local woman from a respectable family. Rebelling against this traditional custom, the young man decides to marry the tomboy he loves, with interesting results. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

One of Indian director Ritwik Ghatak's most acclaimed films was this rural drama - a meditation on poverty and familial dysfunction set in a Calcutta refugee village. Supriya Choudhury stars as Nita, a physically attractive, intelligent and diligent young woman who demonstrates extreme loyalty to her family. While walking through the square of the local market, she accidentally breaks her sandal. In lieu of spending her monthly salary on another pair of shoes, she continues to walk barefoot on the gravel. When she arrives back home, her lazy brother Shankar (Anil Chatterjee) finds her reading a letter from a boyfriend, Sanat (Niranjan Ray), then whips it out of her hand and begins to hassle her for spending money. At the same time, the youngest children in the family, Mantu (Dwiju Bhawal) and Gita (Gita Ghatak), beg their impoverished mother (Gita De) for new clothing. When their requests fail, they begin pressuring Nita to help them. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi