Revisiting Aranyer Din Ratri: Even after 55 years, this Satyajit Ray film remains a timeless study of privilege
It took the help of the Satyajit Ray fanboy in Wes Anderson, plus the persistence of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, the team of The Film Foundation and the efforts of Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and the Film Heritage Foundation to restore Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest). It is an important moment for the history of Indian Cinema.
The crucial act of preservation of the film makes for a beautiful opportunity to revisit it once more. A great film endures- over time, place and generations- and opens up new avenues of thought and interrogation. Aranyer Din Ratri, which first released in 1970, is one such film. Even 55 years later, it remains as pointed in its critique of unchecked privilege and bourgeois moralities as ever. (Also read: Sharmila Tagore, Simi Garewal attend Aranyer Din Ratri Cannes screening, hang out with Satyajit Ray fanboy Wes Anderson)
Aranyer Din Ratri opens up like a magic trick. You expect the film to be about something else, and it slowly turns into an entirely different film by the end. The shift occurs with such calculated yet seemingly effortless precision that the viewer is left slightly shaken, slightly pushed from the ground beneath their feet. Ray's masterful mis-en-scene allows the viewer in the opening minutes to form a joyful association with the film's premise. Four friends are on their way to a vacation at Palamau, in Bihar. The first half of the film is all about their boyish ambivalence and willful ignorance; they are here to take a few days off from the stress of their daily urban chores and relax. They break rules, stay at the forest guest house without permission, and drink up till late in the night.
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The shift occurs when these four men chance upon the two ladies who stay at a nearby bungalow. After a brief introduction, the four men are invited to have breakfast the next day and they form a casual bond with one another- which Ray observes with the eye of a strategic chess master. It is Asim (played by the great Soumitra Chatterjee), who vies for the attention of Aparna (Sharmila Tagore, in a performance of unmatched radiance); which picks up the momentum of the film. It does not help that Aparna catches Asim creating a scene one night when he is totally drunk, or sees him taking a bath outside the guest house in just his boxers. Asim is flummoxed; he cannot understand what he must do to win her over. Aparna crushes his pride with great tactility, and gently exposes the callousness with which he inhabits the world.
Ray's direction is masterful in these scenes, as he connects the dots in which Asim and his bunch of friends choose to acknowledge their hollow sense of manly privilege and morality. If the first half feels like an incoming buddy comedy, the second half takes on the propulsive intrigue of a psychological drama. Ray shifts the viewer's attention from a sense of wonder to that of gentle reflection. Suddenly, these men become a little too discomfiting in their relativity. Their goodness hides a classist point of view willfully seeking beauty amid the pain and distress that is caused by their actions.
Aranyer Din Ratri is revelatory in its dissection of identity politics, in showing how the veneer of conservatism transpires behind progressive ideals, and leads on to hypocritical standards of society. It seems like a simple film, but hides a profound secret of human nature beneath the surface. Ray reveals layers within each of these characters, throws them off the hook and sees how they respond to it.
The forest becomes the great leveler, stripping the sophistication of these men to make room for some self-interrogation. What will happen when they go back? (Interestingly, Goutam Ghose made a sequel to Aranyer Din Ratri in Abar Aranye, which is also a great follow-up in this case) Still, Aranyer Din Ratri is not just a story of four men, it points at a larger and much more universal masculinity that is embedded in the socio-cultural fabric. Gorgeously shot and filled with superb performances from the ensemble cast, Aranyer Din Ratri is a deeply intelligent film that remains one of the very best works of Satyajit Ray. The questions it raises are timeless.
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