Kolkata 71

My first Mrinal Sen movie, and I'm glad I get to watch it on the big screen. It seems that this is the second part of the Calcutta trilogy and I wish I saw Interview first especially since it starts right from there, even if the film itself is segments of different stories connected through a postmodern narrative. The way the film satirises the so-called intellectuals of the time while at the same time clearly giving seriousness to the plights of the struggle of the common people throughout the 20th century makes his style still relevant. I feel like a lot of later filmmakers who were inspired by this style made their films with not as much of a grasp of the socio-political climate or the cinematic language used, and this type of filmmaking has been turned into mockery. But everything lines up perfectly here. The anger, frustrations, and hypocrisy of the times are depicted with clarity while experimenting with how to translate it to cinema.