Pratidwandi: Satyajit Ray at his best article

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I first saw Pratidwandi eight years ago in a film society screening. I missed the beginning and didn‘˜t know what the film was called but I loved whatever I saw. Someone told me the film is called Sidhartha and his city, I had least idea that this is a Satyajit Ray film and that it’s the first of his Calcutta trilogy.

Watched the film from beginning some four years ago and loved it again. Since then I believe it’s the best Ray film. Felt the need to watch the film again to check whether my opinion has changed over time.

I don’t mean to say that Apu Trilogy is not good. I’m also aware that Ray himself thought Charulata was perfect. But I’ve my reasons.

Made in 1972, Pratidwandi is perhaps Ray’s most sophisticated and mature cinematic work. It’s highly stylized. I love the editing and the background score, that Ray composed himself. The dream sequences and flash forwards are brilliant and much ahead of time. Its cinematic style is quite reminiscent of Cuban master Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment.

I still wonder why Pratidwandi hasn’t grown into a cult-movie in India. It’s based on a Sunil Gangopadhyay novel, but believe me Ray’s vision of adaptation is actually comparable to the idea of adding cinematic flesh and blood to the original literary work.

When people in India are beginning to think about making mind-blowing and original films, it’s time to have a look at Pratidwandi.

It’s high time, I should tell you in brief what the film is all about. Sidhartha, a man nearing his thirty, who had to quit his medical studies because of his father’s death, is unemployed and desperately looking for a job. His sister works for a private company and there’re rumors of her affair with her boss. Sidhartha loves his city Calcutta and doesn’t want to leave it for a job, however he’d to as he couldn’t find a job in Calcutta.

Ray opens the film with a dream sequence. We’re introduced to Siddhartha in an interview where we get to know about his academic qualification as well as his ideological leanings.

The film is set in the period of political upheavals. Student unrest and leftist movement mark the outdoor shots. Anger and dissatisfaction is quite visible, interestingly juxtaposed with hippies finding the city beautiful and divine.

Ray brilliantly captures the mood of the city and the generation. Another parallel to Tomas Alia, like the protagonist of Memories of Underdevelopment, Sidhartha too ideologically supports the cause of revolution without offering himself to it. Though throughout the film the rebel-in-him keeps coming in the way of his compromised but comfortable life.

It’s not only the plot or the story that make Pratidwandi great but Ray’s unique and original style of depiction. His flash backs, flash forwards and dream sequences are one of the best in the history of cinema and certainly the best in Indian cinema.

I especially love the sequence where Siddhartha meets his sister’s boss. And in the beginning of the film when he’s crossing the road, Ray’s cut to his medical lecture, followed by Purnendu Bose and Soumendu Roy's superb composition of Sidhartha that shouts cinematically “Sidhartha on the crossroads.

Film is full of fragmented close ups, tracks and unsteady shots. Amidst all the cinematic portrayal of the missing balance in life, Ray adds another masterly touch. Siddhartha’s childhood memories of a singing bird haunts him all the while. The scene in which after getting drunk probably for the first time in his life, he goes to a Calcutta market looking for the bird however he couldn’t explain the shopkeeper what bird he’s looking for. His efforts to whistle like the bird, ends up being ridiculous.

Every time I watch Pratidwandi, I feel exhilarated. Amidst all the talks of whacky, next generation, mind-blowing, unorthodox India cinema, I feel Pratidwandi is a flash forward. It’s unbelievable why we Indians haven’t realized its true worth.