Age of Reason

Random musing of books and stuff I am reading.

2005/07/05

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray is the master builder of Indian movies,
and his movies in Bengali are highly recommended:

Uppal Dutt in "The Stranger" and "Two Daughters".
The Stranger examines modern middle class values
prevalent in Calcutta. While two daughters is about
rural Bengal of 1960s.

The Apu Triology: Pather Panchali, Apu Sansar, Aparajito.
We studied Pather Panchali for ICSE, and also saw
this triology at British Council Library as part of school work
at Cathedral and John Connon School. This series traces
the life of Apu from childhood in a rural village in Bengal with his
sister Durga, to his student life in Calcatta.

I have lived in Calcutta and it is culturally vibrant city
unlike any other in India, and Bengali is easy to understand.

You can get all the Satyajit Ray movies on DVD or VCD
with English Subtitles at a good price from BdBazar.com

The other recommened movies is by Arthur Miller and Henrik Ibsen,
from Broadway Theatre Archive: An Enemy of the People from 1966.

The other profound movie is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead",
a Absurd Drama by Tom Stoppard. A roller coaster tempo of wit.
Here is a summary.
It has a few allusions to science thrown in --
Galileo's feather and ball, Archimedes
water displacement, Newton's apple and probability
theory. The existential wordplay is amazing,
you may want to read the text separately.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home