The Fear of the Unknown of the Bengali Urban Middle Class, 2 Mar 2001

The Stranger (Agantuk) is the last film Satyajit Ray, the great director from Bengal, made. It may come as a surprise to those who know Ray usually from his first film "Pather Panchali". An old lost Uncle (Mama) comes to visit his niece in Calcutta. Not having seen the Uncle for ages, the niece and her husband become suspicious whether he is the "Aashol Mama" (real Uncle). Tension mounts between the Mama and the rest of the household in a mind game that leads to direct and indirect interrogation. Other characters familiar from Ray movies, e.g., Robi Ghosh, appear-- although the performance of Robi Ghosh is nowhere near that in "Days and Nights in the Forest" and "In the Land of the Diamond King", two other movies of Ray.

I don't want to give away the plot; that's for you to judge. The bottom line of the cinema lies in its dialogues. This is not a movie that one would want to watch for its photography, lighting, or even the acting to a certain extent, but for its dialogues, the message it tries to give. The acting of the central character, "The Real Mama", is "the" character that keeps the audience in suspension throughout the entire movie.

The inside message first appeals to Bengalis, but I guess it's true for any culture and peoples. The message Ray tries to portray is the fear of the unknown we all have in ourselves. He uses a very nice Bangla term, "Kupomanduk"; the literal meaning being a frog in a well, i.e., a frog living in the well thinks the well is his world. He has no knowledge of the outside world. He is strangled in the fear of the unknown. To a certain degree, it is true that in "general" we Bengalis have lived in the past and have been narcissists about our culture and language.

The cinema may not impress the international audience who may be expecting more from a Ray film, but it certainly appeals to those who want to learn how empty the mind of the urban educated middle class in a place like Bengal (Bangladesh or West Bengal) can be at times.

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