Pratidwandi (2010)

 ●  Bengali ● 1 hr 50 mins

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The first of Ray’s Calcutta trilogy, coinciding with Mrinal Sen’s, addresses his native Calcutta’s turbulent politics. The student movement aligned with the Naxalite rebellion is invoked through the younger brother (Debraj Roy) of the film’s protagonist Siddhartha (D. Chatterjee) and informs the plot repeatedly e.g. with the Films Division newsreel about Indira Gandhi’s budget speech and, most importantly, by Siddhartha’s search for self-realisation and a job in Calcutta, an enterprise presented as inherently tragic. Siddhartha fails to get a job by answering that the greatest achievement of mankind in the 60s is the courage of the Vietnamese people rather than the NASA moon landing. In such an atmosphere, defined by the endless waiting for job interviews in stiflingly oppressive and humiliating conditions, he is eventually driven to leave Calcutta and his lover Keya (J. Roy). Ray introduces for him unprecedented narrative devices such as the voice-over of an unseen political activist (Ray’s own voice) who offers advice to Siddhartha, two film clips (the newsreel and a boring European art-house movie shown by the local film society) and the encounter with a prostitute which is shown in negative. Ray also includes, in the background as the lovers part, footage of a big political rally on Calcutta’s Maidan. Unlike Sen, however, whose use of similar devices was accompanied by a more sophisticated understanding of Brecht, Ray’s protagonist leaves only after performing a cathartic act of rebellion: he upsets an office in which yet another set of job interviews are being conducted. The film intercuts these episodes with a relatively more familiar pattern of flashbacks e.g. Siddhartha’s fantasies about his childhood before being disturbed by American hippies, or the flashback which interrupts the argument he has with his sister (K. Bose) about her opportunistic affair with her employer. The 2nd title in the trilogy is <a href="https://indiancine.ma/ORT/info">Seemabaddha</a> (1971).

Cast: Priyanka Sarkar, Rahul Banerjee

Crew: Anup Sengupta (Director), Ashok Bhadra (Music Director)

Rating: U/A (India)

Genres: Drama

Release Dates: 10 Sep 2010 (India)

Bengali Name: প্রতিদ্বন্দী

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as Sharmila
as Akash/Dibyendu
as Mother of Akash
Supporting Actor
as Commissioner of Police
as Bother in Law of Sankar Ghoshal
Supporting Actor
as Sohini
as Asst. Commissioner Khanna
as Sankar Ghoshal
as Film Director
as Iqbal
Supporting Actor

Direction

Director

Production

Producer
Production Company

Writers

Screenplay Writer
Story Writer
Dialogue Writer
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
Bengali
Colour Info:
Color
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.39:1 (Scope)
Stereoscopy:
No