Aranyer Din Ratri

Film opens with a shot of paddy fields while a man traveling with his pals in a car ,reads the following " Bengali people are as happy looking at seasons and nature, as they are at looking death in the face". Now I'm not very sure whether this statement is true, but I suspect that this kind of cultured stoicism aptly applies to the director of this movie - Satyajit Ray. Four friends - all young men from Calcutta- go into a forest and plan to stay in a rest house there, while aspiring to have sexual fun with tribal women who are presumed to be liberal in such matters. Of course, this sort of plot is not standard territory for the said director but even with this unlikely template, Ray directs his masterly rays of perspective to illumine the hinterlands and give larger wings to a fledgling premise.

Though it is not set in the city or even a village, the film is a composite shot of civilization in decline. But in Ray's world, there is always hope, a calm sense of being obliged to emerge from the ruins, and in A.D.R we also see a beautiful example of strong but tranquil feminism.

This latter aspect emerges in the form of Sharmila Tagore who registers a great performance in this movie. In Ghare Baire, Ray made Victor Banerjee essay a model man, and here he has Sharmila Tagore giving us a portrait of the model woman. Kohl-lined beautifully curving eyes, luxuriant hair coiffed into a bouffant, and a softly contoured figure clothed in sari ,all set off a face that can essay feminine mystique as smoothly as it can show child-like amusement. Aparna (Tagore), it is steadily revealed, is gifted intellectually, bears the weight of the past, nurtures a humane mind and yet sequesters all these facets beneath a regally controlled visage that can hint at displeasure as beautifully as it can sport a smile.

Technically too, this is an accomplished film with superior camera-work by Soumendu Roy. There is a famous static shot in which the lens stands just outside the car window and looks inside, through the car compartment, and past the other window into the background -4 visual planes hold four different people ,all sporting a range of interesting expressions and emotional dynamics. The other memorable sequence is the Memory Game wherein all the players are seated in a circle, and the lens flicks from one face to another as they play the game.

Starting with this script, countless other story-tellers might have produced a work of dissipated effect, but Satyajit Ray makes fine use of the novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay to present not just a sylvan jaunt enjoyed by four young men, but also an elegantly presented humanist tapestry. Some directors don't need the Midas touch, they possess something greater.

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Ray excells himself in this wonderfully sensitive rites-of-passage film. A group of friends in their twenties take a short vacation in the countryside together. After some confusion about their accommodation they find themselves staying near to two respectable young women of good family who stimulate their interest. Although the women appear not too interested at first, things change, and they all begin to spend time together. Each of the characters is profoundly different from the others, and it soon becomes clear that they have different goals - and perhaps needs - in life. That does not prevent an extraordinary sexual chemistry from developing which is all the more vivid for being understated and unspoken. The picnic scene where the girls suggest they all play a literary game is replete with poignantly repressed sexuality. As the film develops the four men begin to go their separate ways, but for the two women (and for one especially) the encounter with the men has stimulated feelings it is difficult to ignore. This is a film of extraordinary subtlety and depth. A classic of world cinema by one of the cinema's greatest directors, it deserves much greater recognition.

Probably one of the most underrated works of Satyajit Ray....this is a beautiful take on life of few middle urban class people as they go on a vacation.......There's so much depth in every characters and sequences that is handled with so much immense realism......The Memory gane scene alone is enough to make this film into the top tier......

Story is about friends going to a vacation to disconnect from daily life for a while. The writer, Sunil Gangopadhyay, is one of the best novelists of Bengal who wrote beautifully about youth and thus this film too. There are scenes of them drinking which has been served as a reference for drunk scenes for decades. Also, the memory game scene breaks the classical expositions in film and a source of many pop quizzes, memes and minimalistic posters. At least 2 post-millennial film I can remember directly inspired by this - Goutam Ghose's 'Abar Aranye', a sequel and Anjan Dutt's 'Chalo Let's Go', a remake?!. Again, like all his films, Rabi Ghosh steals a lot of scenes. And again, lot of sexy women.

Couldn't recall the time, last when I have seen such a natural, inherent term movie! No doubt about that how much gem Satyajit Ray was! Really wish to watch his all movies..