On January 22, Om Books International, in association with the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC), Bengal Heritage Foundation, and Allcap Communications, organised an engaging panel discussion with filmmakers, critics and writers, titled “The City of Calcutta in the Films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Tapan Sinha” at KCC. The discussion sought to reflect on the ways in which Kolkata has been imagined and portrayed by these iconic auteurs whose legacy continues to shape Bengali cinema. The session also marked Tapan Sinha’s centenary.
The panel, moderated by film journalist and festival curator Ratnottama Sengupta, included filmmaker Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury; journalist, film critic and filmmaker Pratim D. Gupta; film critic Amitava Nag; and poet and writer Maitreyee B. Chowdhury. Besides Ray’s Kolkata trilogy (Pratidwandi, Seemabaddha, Jana Aranya), Sengupta identified similar clusters in Sen’s and Sinha’s bodies of work, grouping Interview, Calcutta ’71, Padatik in case of the former and Aponjon, Antardhaan and Aatonko from the latter’s filmography.
‘Watching the story of a city in flux, in transit’
The panel delved into the signature styles of each of the filmmakers
“What is the difference between a city film and a film that just has the city in it?” asked Nag. Focussing on Ray’s ‘city’ oeuvre in particular, he pointed out that “the point of view in these films moves away from the individual to the collective: what the character sees is essentially the difference between the Kolkata trilogy and the other works”, starting off with a protagonist and then panning to the vast stimuli of urban life upon which his gaze would land, as opposed to the blur that we encounter when Apu steps out of his house in Apur Sansar.
Gupta argued that Sen’s films, consistent in their commitment to portraying the unrest and turmoil haunting the city in the late ’60s and early ’70s, were “more dated than Ray’s because they were mirrors of their time, while Ray’s films have aged better”. He also noted that watching many of these films was like “watching the story of a city in flux, in transit”. The panel explored whether these trilogies were emblematic of the directors’ signature styles.
These films, as the speakers noted, also reflected the ethnic diversity of Kolkata, from the Afghan community in Sinha’s Kabuliwala to the Chinese community (who brought India’s first Chinatown to Kolkata) in Sen’s Neel Akasher Neeche and the Anglo-Indians in Ray’s Mahanagar, later represented iconically in Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane. Gupta said these works offered an “ethnographically panoramic metropolitan city view”, capturing the minority cultures that are integral to Kolkata’s urban fabric.
‘The rain in Pather Panchali made me think of the effect that the rain has on the mind, the heart and the city’
“Do we take anything from these movies or are they just sleeping in the archives?” asked Chowdhury
Chowdhury observed that cinema once served as a “conscience-keeper”, resisting dogma and parochialism. “The more we change, the more we remain the same… Do we take anything from these movies or are they just sleeping in the archives?” she said. On similar lines, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury remarked, “That’s what the masters do. They make us question our value systems.”
Roy Chowdhury also touched upon the affective core of these films’ visuals and the ways in which they have inspired his own work: “The rain in Pather Panchali made me think of the effect that the rain has on the mind, the heart, and the city… something I tried to show in Antaheen.”
The four books on sale at the event
The panel concluded with reflections on the enduring relevance of these filmmakers, wandering through the ways in which their narratives remain universal, even as they are rooted in their cultural zeitgeist and anchored in Kolkata, documenting its soul in fresh, experimental languages.
Four books on the filmmakers under consideration, all published by Om Books International, were also present for sale at the event — Ray on Ray: A Son Remembers by Ashoke Nag, Satyajit Ray: The Man Who Knew Too Much by Barun Chanda, At Home with Mrinal Sen by Dipankar Mukhopadhyay and The Cinema of Tapan Sinha: An Introduction by Amitava Nag.
