Mrinal Sen Movies

Calcutta, a huge city in India, is vastly overcrowded. Even those who are not desperately poor must limit their travel within the region, simply because of the difficulty of getting from one place to another. In this drama, two friends live on opposite sides of the city, and are unable to bridge the physical gap between them with any frequency, so they resort to telephone calls. A writer (Anjan Dutt) lives in a deteriorating but still stately mansion on one side of town, and his caller is a woman (Dimple Kapadia) who lives in a modern, airy apartment. They met on the phone by accident, when the insomniac woman put through a random call and chanced upon him. Their conversations studiously avoid personal information which would give either of them away, but eventually they break their own rules and the game they have been playing is ruined. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This four-hour anthology film was commissioned as a memorial to Hubert Bals, (who started the Rotterdam Film Festival) by a couple of Dutch filmmakers. Naturally enough, it premiered at the 1990 Rotterdam Film Festival. Entries came from 14 different directors, including the famed Indian director Mrinal Sen. All the films were to be 20 minutes long and contain a reference to city life and the sinking of the Titanic; with one minor exception, all the filmmakers followed these guidelines. The other directors whose works were included (besides Sen) were: Tato Koteshvili, Carlos Reichenbach, Eagle Pennell, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Alejandro Agresti, Dick Rijneke & Mildred van Leeuwaarden, Bela Tarr, Gabor Altorjay, Jose Luis Guerin, Ousmane William M'Baye, and Clemens Kopfenstein. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This is a simple, straightforward tale about the rise and fall of human civilization that focuses solely on four characters: a farmer (Naseeruddin Shah), a weaver (Om Puri), a trader (M.K. Raina), and a woman (Shabana Azmi). At the beginning of the story, the workers in a decaying village are offered food and water if they work for the local lords. The farmer and the weaver refuse. The farmer grows food for them both, and the weaver creates textiles that uses to barter with an itinerant trader. One day a frightened, lonely woman arrives on the scene and she is taken in by the two men. She cooks and cleans, and before long becomes a source of contention. Meanwhile, the trader is observing these events from the sidelines. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Set against the backdrop of a crumbling, historical villa on an ancient feudal holding now going to seed, director Mrinal Sen develops a portrait of a crumbling, deteriorating woman -- old, blind, and senile -- and her daughter who is wasting away, hopelessly waiting for her lover like Estragon for Godot. Three men arrive in the town for a brief vacation from city stress, and they inevitably stir up conflicts as they meet the two occupants of the villa and interact with their lives. As in Beckett's famous play, nothing happens -- Sen does not have his protagonists come to grips with their personal issues as the events continue to unfold at the villa. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Burning with a desire to be a journalist, a young man gets his chance when a publisher -- the father of a friend -- suggests that he write a story on the daily life of the people in his house (several families worth of people). The material turns out to be too incohesive and abundant to work into a pointed, thematic article, and just when he is about to give up, his younger brother asks him a simple question: "How many coal burners are there in Calcutta?" This triggers an idea for a story about Calcutta's pollution -- and the aspiring journalist dreams of myriads of burner-toting citizens invading the publisher's home demanding redress. Maybe he is finally on the way to a story that matters. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

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

East Indians still suffer under the heavy weight of the Laws of Mani, which prescribe occupations and social obligations for every kind of person, organized into "castes." Those on the bottom of the totem pole are obliged to do whatever work is not forbidden to them by the ancient codes. Basically, they are asked to do whatever no one else is willing to do. Given the numbers of poor in India, that is a tall order indeed. In the story, a father, his son, and family, work like slaves on the farms of wealthy upper-caste men who virtually own them. The father is keenly aware of the unfairness of the situation and occasionally resorts to small thefts to keep everyone fed. When his son marries a girl from the next town, their difficulties are increased until the boy's wife dies in childbirth. When the family seeks to raise money for the girl's funeral, they get more money than they imagined possible and are forced to reflect on the conditions they and their caste have labored under. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The chorus in this Indian film is the large group of poor people who are seeking jobs from the stuffy executives who have jobs. These individuals are simply trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the needy crowds. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This harrowing Indian film promotes the need for population control. It persuasively demonstrates the effects of overpopulation, overcrowding and famine on the people of India. Activity in an Indian courtroom frames the numerous sketches used to assist viewers in understanding the issues viscerally. One repeating scene has a young man, condemned to death, who comments on the population problem and its ramifications. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this East Indian film, a young Indian man is preparing for a job interview at a business firm which is run along British lines. He searches everywhere for a proper western-style suit but in the end is forced to go wearing his regular clothing. Though he answers the interviewer's questions well, he does not get the job. Later, angry and humiliated both by his need to wear a European-style suit and by his failure to get one, both of which contribute to his failing to get the job, he throws a stone at the window of a store which is displaying one. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide