Mahanagar (1963)
Directed by Satyajit Ray

Film Review

The economic boom that followed the end of the Second World War was to provide the stimulus for one of the greatest social upheavals of the 1950s, the movement towards gender equality.  This was not confined to the West, as this film from acclaimed Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray testifies.  Mahanagar (a.k.a. The Big City in that in that ) shows that female empowerment, driven by economic necessity, was as much a phenomenon in India as it was in other modern capitalist democracies across the world.   However, India was different in that the prevailing gender roles were far more rigidly delineated than was generally the case in the West, and so the mismatch between one's personal aspirations and one's expected role in society was much more pronounced, as this film powerfully demonstrates.

Mahanagar is concerned with a young married woman who, through financial need, is driven to find paid work.  She has an uphill struggle trying to overcome her own low self-esteem and the traditional notions of a woman's place in society, but ultimately she wins the self-confidence and economic independence that set her free and allow her to live a fulfilled life, as a woman, a wife and a mother.  Her ordeal not only enriches her own life, but she emerges stronger, and better equipped to deal with future calamities, in contrast to her husband, who is unable to rise to his feet when Fate lands him an unexpected punch.

Director Satyajit Ray based the film on a short story by Narendranath Mitra and was clearly influenced by the Italian neo-realists (notably Vittorio De Sica) in crafting the film's striking visual design, which emphasises the massive gulf that existed between the lower and upper middle classes in India in the 1950s.   Whilst it may lack the searing poetic touch of many of Ray's other films, Mahanagar does have a near-documentary feel which imbues the story with a harrowing reality, and which the film's superlative performances can only accentuate.  Still very highly regarded today, this film won Ray the Silver Bear for the Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival in 1964.

Heading an impeccable cast is Madhabi Mukherjee, who plays the main female character (Arati) with such subtlety and conviction that much of her dialogue appears superfluous.  Most of what Mukherjee has to say she says not with her mouth but with her carefully controlled facial expressions, particularly her extraordinary expressive eyes.  Mukherjee would give an equally outstanding performance in Ray's next film, Charulata (1964), although the two would then only work together on one further film, Kapurush (1965).  Playing Mukherjee's sister in this film is Jaya Bhaduri, who would go on to become a major star of Bollywood.

Gender equality remains a hot topic more than a century after this film was made, and so it continues to have a profound resonance.  But there are other themes which a spectator can latch onto.  Mahanagar is almost as much a critique of capitalism as it is of gender equality in post-Independence Indian society.  It is the need to make money that is responsible for the erosion of the old values, compelling the wife to overcome the social and psychological barriers to earn an essential family income.  Ironically, it is this same commercial imperative that eventually leads to tensions of a different kind, when Arati is forced to choose between economic well-being and her own moral principles.  In the end, Arati surprises us by showing that she is a slave neither to convention nor to capitalism, that she is a truly liberated woman.

Film Synopsis

In 1950s Calcutta, Subrata Mazumdar is a bank employee who earns barely enough to support his family.  As well as his wife Arati and his young son, Subrata must provide for his sister-in-law and his two elderly parents, who live with him in his cramped city apartment.  With little encouragement from her husband, Arati applies for a position as a door-to-door sales girl and, to her surprise, gets the job.  Although she is at first apprehensive, Arati soon begins to enjoy her work and relishes her new-found independence.  Her stepfather, a retired schoolmaster, resents what he feels is a betrayal of traditional values and refuses to take money from Arati, preferring instead to extort favours from his former pupils.  In time, Subrata also becomes uncomfortable about his wife having to work for a living, so he persuades her to give up her job and devote her time to the family.  Just before Arati hands in her resignation, disaster strikes.  The bank her husband works for has just collapsed, leaving her the family's sole breadwinner...