Aranyer Din-Ratri – Bengali Film Review
Aranya Din-Ratri – the days & nights spent in remote forest area.
Story of 4 Bengali males shown beautifully by Director Mr. Satyajit Ray ! 4 friends take a break – 3 of them are average looking & tall and one is short and below average to look at. They do not make proper arrangements – just barge into a Government Guest House and bribe the caretaker to let them in by giving him some money. The poor care taker has an ailing wife so since he could not go out to buy stuff for them, the porter boy agrees to buy & carry food stuff for them.
A typical life style of average common men (loser men rather) is shown here – how they just crib about having to butter the boss and please him by attending late night parties, boozing and spending time with cheap rich girls with artificial expressions and revealing outfits.
One the friends was ditched recently by an educated girl (played by Aparna Sen) – who was fashion conscious (wore wigs to look more seducing) as well as very intelligent & observant who had the sense to smell tricky / foolish people from a distance. She had written a 5 paged letter to her boyfriend who in return could barely write half a page – showing that he was not very sound as far as ‘literacy in romanticism’ was concerned.
This the girl understood and washed her hands off the idiot ! (very well done I would say) – the fact that her decision was absolutely right is seen later as the movie proceeds … when the same fellow indulges in intercourse with a ‘dirty, smelly, uncouth drunkard woman’ (played by Simi Garewal) he meets in the forest remote area !! He has sex with her in the open on the thorny weeds !! – so utterly frustrated and sex starved – just anyone would do for such a male – therefore his girlfriend definitely made the right decision to ditch him. A loser man in all respect.
Second fellow was a bit intellectual and adventurous , well read – in the game of “remembering names’ he said Shakespeare and Sharmila Tagore – a lady he meets there, says Cleopatra – in fact each one took the name of the historical/ literary figure he / she either hero worships/identifies – or admires in one way or the other. He meets this quiet & attractive lady and gets drawn towards her – she had a traumatic childhood – the reason of her quietude – Mother had died of fire in front of her and elder brother had committed suicide ! Another loser who knows it all but cannot do anything about it.
Third fellow was decent – playing it safe kinds – the widowed sister-in-law of Sharmila tries to seduce him (missing her husband I guess) – had said Rabindranath Tagore in the game of ‘Remembering names’ by the way. A decent man who could change if he wanted to – loser or winner depended on him.
Fourth fellow – happy go lucky – the fact that he was ugly & short was taken very lightly by him – had no attitude problems – couldn’t have any in fact – compensating on his below average looks – so he turned comical and made things appear funny. A very common Bengali man category since the average height of Bengali men is around 5’3″ and also Bengali men are dark and not very good looking – so they make fun of everything and anything and spend time making merry – with or without any reason.