Company Limited (1974)
"Seemabaddha" (original title)

Shyamalendu (Barun Chanda) is a successful executive at a fan company where he is expecting a promotion shortly. His life revolves around his work and socialising with colleagues along with... See full summary »

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Manisankar 'Sankar' Mukherjee (novel), Satyajit Ray (screenplay)

Stars:

Sharmila Tagore, Barun Chanda, Paromita Chowdhury

Cast

Credited cast:
Sharmila Tagore	...	Tutul
Barun Chanda	...	Shyamalendu Chatterjee
Paromita Chowdhury	...	Dolan
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ajoy Banerjee
Haradhan Bannerjee	...	Talukdar
Rahul Bhagat
Tarun Bhattacharya
Rita Deb Burman
Barry Chakraborty
Ratna Chatterjee
Ritun Chatterjee
Harindranath Chattopadhyay	...	Sir Baren Roy
Eric Davis
Dipankar Dey
Dipak Dutta

Storyline

Shyamalendu (Barun Chanda) is a successful executive at a fan company where he is expecting a promotion shortly. His life revolves around his work and socialising with colleagues along with his wife, Dolan (Paromita Chaudhuri). His sister-in-law, Tutul (Sharmila Tagore) comes to stay with them for a few days. She is given a tour of the life they lead - in restaurants, beauty parlours, clubs and race courses. But then crisis strikes in the form of agitation at the factory just before the shipment of a prestigious export order and Shyamalendu is held to blame. With the help of a shady labour officer, Shyamalendu averts the crisis by declaring a lock-out at the factory after staging a false riot. For his 'efficient' handling of the crisis, Shyamalendu is promoted and there is congratulations all around - except from Tutul, who has understood the vacuousness of Shyamalendu's world and has hated it. Shyamalendu is left successful and desolate - at the top.

---

Plot Keywords:

based on novel

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Release Date:

22 November 1974 (USA)

Also Known As:

Company Limited

Filming Locations:

Calcutta, West Bengal, India

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

110 min

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the films of the Calcutta Trilogy, the others being The Adversary and The Middleman.

User Reviews

Good movie but not a masterpiece

This is a good movie, but not one of Ray's best. The acting is pretty good by the main leads and it has a good story; however it loses something in the execution. The direction does not involve the audience and keeps them at a distance.

Its the story of the rapid rise of an educated and street smart person, up the corporate ladder of a successful Britain-based multinational company; and his experience in that position. This is juxtaposed with his personal life. The film concentrates most of its running time with the character's family.

The movie starts with a prologue which provides us with an information overload and forces us to pay attention from the very first minute. This information is essential as the entire movie revolves around it. However the story does not lose anything if people are unable to grasp all the information thrown at them within the first 5 minutes. The story flows smoothly however a key element in the story is not made clear which makes the ending seem pretty melodramatic which it isn't and had this element been conveyed properly, the end would make complete sense. Nevertheless, the Angel DVD's summary of the film clarifies this aspect which is unfortunate and shows a lack of direction from Ray.

This movie should be considered as supplementary to the other and much better Ray films: Jana Aranya (The Middleman) and Mahanagar (The Big City) which also deal with the corporate world and its effect on people's personal lives.

In the end the movie does not leave us very impressed, but hard core Ray fans will watch it anyways. Five stars for a good story, cinematography and the acting.