Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), one of the masters of the Indian cinema, is coming t0 Toronto through the medium of a retrospective of his prolific body of work.
The Sun and the Moon: The Films of Satyajit Ray runs from July 3 to Aug. 17 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
A sampler:
Aparajito (Friday, July 4 at 6:30 p.m.), like virtually all his black and white movies, is spare to the point of being austere. It follows the fortunes of Apu Roy, a village-bred Bengali boy in eastern India who aspires to higher education and a better life.
The opening scenes are poetic. The Ganges River at dusk. People bathing in its holy waters. A mother tending to a simple family meal. A care-free boy exploring the ghats and back streets of Banaras. It almost feels like a documentary.
After the death of Apu’s father, he and his mother leave the city and move in with relatives. He studies Hindi rituals to become a priest. She works as a cook and a maid. Neither of them are happy. He wants to continue his education. She hopes to return to her ancestral village.
Apu fares so well at school that he’s offered a scholarship in Calcutta. His mother is none too pleased by his impending departure, but she finally agrees. In Calcutta, he studies during the day and works at night. He’s on a path toward upward mobility.
Unfolding to the haunting sitar music of Ravi Shankar, the film is poignant and understated.
Charulata (Friday, July 11 at 6:15 p.m.) is set in 1879 in British-ruled India.
Charu, a pretty young woman, putters around the palatial splendor of her home. She peeks out the window for a view of street life. She orders the servant to being tea. Bored and alone, she’s like a bird in a gilded cage.
Her preoccupied husband, Bhupati, a busy newspaper editor and Indian nationalist fighting for India’s independence, all but ignores her. “You’re very lonely, aren’t you?” he asks. She replies curtly, “I’m used to it.”
Bhupati’s cousin, Amal, an indolent young man with literary aspirations, arrives to stay with them. Bhupati asks him to encourage her interest in Bengali literature. Although he tries to suppress his affection for Charu, Amal finally admits he’s in love with her, and serenades her with songs. She’s amused, forming an attachment to Amal.
Expressive and earnest, with fine performances from the cast, both these films are supremely serene, largely unfolding in real time. Ray’s movies, unlike Bollywood pictures, contain no sex, violence, intrigue or flamboyant dance routines. They come straight from the heart and are affective.
THE SUN AND THE MOON: THE FILMS OF SATYAJIT RAY
All films are in Bengali with English subtitles unless otherwise noted.
Pather Panchali
India | 1955 | 115 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A worldwide sensation upon its release and a sanctified classic of international art cinema, the opening chapter of Ray’s Apu Trilogy finds the eponymous hero at age six, as he apprehends the beauty and cruelty of the world around him.
Thursday, July 3 at 6:30 p.m.
Aparajito (The Unvanquished)
India | 1957 | 108 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
The least-known but best film of the Apu Trilogy, this second chapter follows Satyajit Ray’s young hero as he moves to the city of Benares, where he grows from a youth into a man as he faces death and the dissolution of his family.
Friday, July 4 at 6:30 p.m.
The World of Apu (Apu Sansar)
India | 1959 | 100 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
The moving, heartbreaking, ultimately uplifting final film in the Apu Trilogy chronicles Apu’s surprising marriage, the tragedy that befalls him and his young bride, and his eventual emotional and spiritual rebirth.
Saturday, July 5 at 6 p.m.
Days and Nights in the Forest (Aranyer din Ratri)
India | 1969 | 115 min. | G | 35mm
Four young careerists from Calcutta are unexpectedly forced to confront their complacency and callowness during a weekend idyll in the countryside, in this superb chamber drama that ranks among Satyajit Ray’s greatest achievements.
Saturday, July 6 at 3:30 p.m.
Kanchenjungha
India | 1962 | 102 min. | PG | 35mm
Ray’s first film in colour focuses on a wealthy and entitled patriarch who finds his formerly secure world crumbling around him over the course of a single afternoon during a family holiday.
Thursday, July 10 at 9 p.m.
Charulata
Introduction by University of Toronto Lecturer Kathleen O’Connell
India | 1964 | 117 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A neglected young wife finds love with her husband’s dashing young cousin, in Ray’s favourite of his own films.
Friday, July 11 at 6:15 p.m.
Deliverance (Sadgati)
India | 1981 | 52 min. | PG | 35mm | Hindi with English subtitles
A Brahmin exploits an untouchable who comes to him for a favour, and maintains his caste traditions even in death.
Preceded by:
Pikoo
India | 1980 | 26 min. | PG | 35mm
A six-year-old boy confides in his ailing grandfather about his mother’s infidelities.
Friday, July 11 at 9:30 p.m.
Mahanagar (The Big City)
India | 1963 | 131 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Ray’s Dickensian epic follows an uneducated young woman who finds unexpected success as a door-to-door saleswoman when her husband loses his job.
Saturday, July 12 at 3:45 p.m.
Devi (The Goddess)
India | 1960 | 93 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A gentle young woman in nineteenth-century Bengal becomes convinced by her devoutly religious father-in-law that she is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali, in Satyajit Ray’s intoxicating moral tale.
Sunday, July 13 at 3:45 p.m.
The Inner Eye: Four Shorts by Satyajit Ray
Sikkim
India | 1972 | 52 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Ray’s beautiful documentary about the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim was banned in India until only recently.
The Inner Eye
India | 1972 | 20 min. | PG | 35mm
Ray’s tribute to the blind painter Binod Behari Mukherjee, with whom Ray studied, focuses on his murals and their ability to “catch the essence beneath the surface.”
Bala
India | 1976 | 29 min. | PG | 35mm | English
A documentary about the aging prima ballerina Balasaraswati (popularly known as “Bala”), the most famous exponent of the Bharatanatyam dance.
Two
India | 1964| 15 min. | PG | 16mm
A childhood rivalry between a rich kid and a street urchin turns into an allegorical comment on class, power, and conflict.
Tuesday, July 15 at 8:45 p.m.
Three Daughters (Teen Kanya)
Introduction by Director of the Academy Film Archive Michael Pogorzelski
India | 1961 | 171 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Formerly released as Two Daughters until its missing third part was recently restored, this trilogy of tales is one of Ray’s unquestioned masterpieces.
Thursday, July 17 at 6:30 p.m.
The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari)
Introduction by Director of the Academy Film Archive Michael Pogorzelski
India | 1977 | 124 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Ray’s Chekhovian historical drama takes place in the mid-nineteenth century, where two wealthy and indolent chess fanatics ignore their wives — and the impending British schemes to annex their state — as they obsess over their interminable chess matches.
Friday, July 18 at 6:15 p.m.
The Elephant God (Joi Baba Felunath)
India | 1977 | 112 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Detective Feluda returns in Ray’s sequel to The Golden Fortress, in which the intrepid sleuth is hired to investigate the attempted theft of an invaluable gold statuette of the god Ganesh.
Saturday, July 19 at 6 p.m.
The Home and the World (Ghare-Baire)
India | 1983 | 140 min. | PG | 35mm
A late-career triumph for Ray, this splendid adaptation of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s 1916 novel chronicles a love triangle that pits an idealistic but fatally complacent husband against a charismatic revolutionary who is campaigning against British imperialism.
Sunday, July 20 at 5:45 p.m.
Branches of the Tree (Shakha Proshakha)
India | 1990 | 130 min. | PG | 35mm
A dying patriarch looks to his four variously unworthy sons to carry on his legacy, in the penultimate work by Ray.
Saturday, July 26 at 1 p.m.
The Hero (Nayak)
India | 1966 | 120 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A film star travelling to an awards ceremony aboard the Calcutta-Delhi express reveals more than he should to a young female interviewer, in Satyajit Ray’s delightful skewering of the Bengali film industry.
Saturday, July 26 at 4 p.m.
The Kingdom of Diamonds (Heerak Rajar Deshe)
India | 1980 | 118 min. | PG | 35mm
Goopy and Bagha return in this marvellous, music-filled sequel to their first adventure, where they become the leaders of a revolt against a despotic ruler.
Tuesday, July 29 at 6:15 p.m.
The Stranger (Agantuk)
India | 1991 | 120 min. | G | 35mm
Ray’s remarkably personal final film, about a middle-class household that is descended upon by a potential impostor, was hailed by critics as a valedictory work of classic serenity, subtlety, and beauty.
Thursday, July 31 at 6:30 p.m.
The Music Room (Jalsaghar)
India | 1958 | 100 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Regarded as Ray’s King Lear, the director’s brilliant fourth feature relates the story of a wilful, impoverished aristocrat who squanders the last remnants of his former fortune to stage a grand musical evening in his decaying mansion.
Saturday, August 2 at 1 p.m.
Company Limited (Seemabaddha)
India | 1971 | 112 min. | PG | 35mm
A self-satisfied young sales manager reveals the price he is willing to pay for success, in the richly comic second instalment of Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy.
Preceded by:
Rabindranath Tagore
India | 1961 | 54 min. | PG | 35mm
Ray renders a profound tribute to Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose multifarious gifts (as novelist, poet, philosopher, painter, composer, singer) and unconventional concept of the “world university” helped shape Ray’s view of art and history.
Saturday, August 2 at 3:30 p.m.
The Expedition (Abhijan)
India | 1962 | 150 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Greeted as a buried treasure when it was shown at the Museum of Modern Art’s preservation film festival, this fast-paced tale about a cynical, headstrong taxi driver who falls into the vortex of the underworld was Ray’s biggest box-office success in his native Bengal.
Sunday, August 3 at 1 p.m.
The Middleman (Jana-Aranya)
India | 1975 | 131 min. | PG | 35mm
Unable to find work, a gifted and idealistic university graduate falls into the role of an underworld go-between, in the bitterly satirical closing chapter of Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy.
Sunday, August 3 at 4:15 p.m.
The Adversary (Pratidwandi)
India | 1970 | 110 min. | PG | 35mm
A former medical student attempts to navigate between the compromises of the professional world and the dogmatic certainties of young, pro-communist activists, in the first film in Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy.
Tuesday, August 5 at 6:15 p.m.
Distant Thunder (Ashani Sanket)
India | 1973 | 101 min. | PG | 16mm
The far-away carnage of the Second World War slowly and tragically begins to make itself felt in a remote Bengali village, in this long unavailable masterpiece that ranks among Satyajit Ray’s most important works.
Saturday, August 9 at 4:15 p.m.
An Enemy of the People (Ganashatru)
India | 1989 | 100 min. | PG | 35mm
A respected physician becomes a pariah when he campaigns to close a polluted holy site that is spreading contagion through his town|in Ray’s adaptation of the classic play by Henrik Ibsen.
Sunday, August 10 at 4 p.m.
The Coward and the Holy Man (Kapurush-o-Mahapurush)
India | 1965 | 139 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A terrific double bill of two short features — one a brilliantly incisive and ironic tale of adulterous love, the other a hilarious skewering of the “guru cult” — that reveals Ray’s great range.
Tuesday, August 12 at 6 p.m.
The Golden Fortress (Sonar Kella)
India | 1974 | 115 min. | PG | 35mm
The fearless Detective Feluda becomes embroiled in a race to recover a hidden treasure, in Ray’s delightful and visually extravagant comedy thriller.
Friday, August 15 at 6:30 p.m.
The Philosopher’s Stone (Parash Pathar)
India | 1958 | 111 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
A middle-aged bank clerk discovers a magic stone that turns base metal into gold, in Ray’s delightful comic allegory.
Saturday, August 16 at 4:15 p.m.
The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha (Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne)
India | 1968 | 118 min. | PG | 35mm
Restored 35mm print!
Two tone-deaf troubadours are swept up in an adventure of warring kingdoms, magic slippers, spies, princesses, and dastardly villains, in this sparkling musical-comedy-fantasy that was Ray’s biggest domestic hit.
Sunday, August 17 at 4 p.m