The Big City (1963)
"Mahanagar" (original title)

Life at home changes when a housewife from a middle-class, conservative family in Calcutta gets a job as a salesperson.

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Narendranath Mitra (from a story by), Satyajit Ray (scenario),

Stars:

Anil Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Jaya Bhaduri

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Anil Chatterjee	...	Subrata Mazumdar
Madhabi Mukherjee	...	Arati Mazumder
Jaya Bhaduri	...	Bani
Haren Chatterjee	...	Priyogopal (Subrata's father)
Sefalika Devi	...	Sarojini (Subrata's Mother) (as Shephalika Devi)
Prasenjit Sarkar	...	Pintu
Haradhan Bannerjee	...	Himangshu Mukherjee (as Haradhan Banerjee)
Vicky Redwood	...	Edith
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bibhuti Banerjee	...	(as Bibhuti Bandyopadhyay)
Manisha Chakraborty
Tapan Chatterjee	...	(as Tapen Chattopadhyay)
Arun Chowdhury
Pritish Dey
Shailen Ganguli
Shyamal Ghoshal

Storyline

Calcutta in the early 1960's. Bhambal supports his wife Arati, his parents, and two children. Money is tight, so Arati goes to work. She's successful and enjoys it, but this untraditional step throws the household into chaos: her in-laws initiate a "cold war" of silence and approbation. When Bhambal loses his job, her working is essential; he loses self respect, and the gulf between them widens. Arati questions whether to keep her daughter in school. At work, her friendship with Edith, a Euro-Indian who smokes, swears, and uses lipstick, brings Arati close to impertinence with her genial boss. Her job is imperiled, she acts impulsively, and who will understand her actions?

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Plot Keywords:

lipstick | money | mother in law daughter in law relationship | eyeglasses | india | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

India

Language:

English Bengali

Release Date:

27 September 1963 (India)

Also Known As:

The Big City: Mahanagar

Filming Locations:

Calcutta, West Bengal, India

Company Credits

Production Co:

R.D.Banshal & Co.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

131 min 122 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Quotes

Arati: [to her husband] You would not recognize me if you saw me at work.

User Reviews

A fascinating dissection of gender roles in the age of modernity.

I loved this film. Madhabi Mukherjee is gorgeous and so engaging, with the virtuosic ability to represent the stresses of a changing Calcutta through a simple glance. Mahanagar is a fascinating dramatic case study of the collision of modernism and traditionalism that produced a sociocultural duality/dichotomy in twentieth-century India's urban landscapes.

We see all sorts of manifestations of duality in Mahanagar. The tension-cum-rivalry of Arati and Subrata is, of course, the most obvious manifestation. However, we also have the duality of the new- generation Arati/Subrata and the old-generation Sarojini/Priyogopal (Subrata's mother and father) and Arati, who wears traditional clothing and speaks Bengali, versus Edith, the English-speaking Anglo-Indian in Western dress. These instances of duality speak directly to the moment in which things began to make a 180-degree shift in India, when women became the breadwinners of the household and traditional gender norms became subsumed by sexual liberation.

With a leading lady as precise as Mukherjee, Ray was able wrap these complex coterminous processes up in a relatively tidy package. Mahanagar is essential viewing.