1-World Festival of Foreign Films
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"Mahanagar"
(The Big City)
1963
Directed by Satyajit Ray

Madhabi Mukherjee gives a beautiful performance as Arati, a housewife who, upon the urging of her bank clerk husband, takes a job selling knitting machines door to door to help support her family and her husband's extended family. Although the families disapprove of the idea, Arati is successful and finds her strength in the work. Focusing in particular on the role of women in this metaphorphosis, Ray tells a story that is both particular to Calcutta and universally recognizable. Fully restored. "Few directors can match Ray's facility for observation or his perceptiveness in registering those tiny moments of conflict when a casual nuance can drop like a bomb" (David Wilson, Monthly Film Bulletin). With Anil Chatterjee, Haradhan Benerjee and Haren Chatterjee. Bengali with English subtitles.
131 minutes.