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Calcutta 71 is a 1972
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
film directed by noted Indian art film director
Mrinal Sen Mrinal Sen (''Beng.'' মৃণাল সেন; 14 May 1923 – 30 December 2018) was an Indian film director, and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Bengali, and few Hindi and Telugu language films. Regarded as one of the finest Ind ...
. This film is considered to be the second film of Mrinal Sen's Calcutta trilogy, the others being ''
Interview An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers.Merriam Webster DictionaryInterview Dictionary definition, Retrieved February 16, 2016 In common parlance, the word "interview" ...
'', and '' Padatik''. The movie Calcutta 71 is a collection of stories depicting the Seventies. The Naxalite activity, starvation of common people, social and political corruption are shown. There are four stories shown in the film.


Plot

The ''first story'' is about a lower-middle-class family staying in a cottage in a slum area. On a rainy night they are forced to leave the cottage & move to another safe shelter. They find many others had already taken shelter before them. The ''second story'' is about another middle-class family of mother & two mature daughters who were unable to cope with the starvation & poverty and succumbed to prostitution. It was based on the timeline of the Famine that engulfed Bengal in 1942 due to the World War II. Their cousin brother Nalinakhya, who lives in Delhi, comes to visit them & meets the hard reality. After seeing all these he leaves to Delhi. This story is an actual short-story by Probodh Kumar Sanyal which is named 'Angar'. The ''third story'' is of a rural middle-class family where the elder son of a family is involved in smuggling rice to the city forsaking his school and education. The boys including him in the train insults rich people's way of life and attitude. One man beats one of the boys severely but as a revenge, the boy pushes that man off from the train to the station. The ''fourth story'' is about the Kolkata's upper class society gossiping and listening to a music concert over drinking cocktails without any exposure to the common people. An upper-class man talks philosophies and says he is very disappointed about the condition of the poor in India. But actually he is a hypocrite, who exploits the poor employees of his factory and makes money by torturing them. This story portrays the elite of the society in a grey manner where they are aware of the misdoing in society while not reacting to rectify the same. In the final scene, the death of truth is represented in the death of a youth chased and killed by the police. There is also an optional story in the prologue which portrays a satirical courtroom drama of a young man vandalizing a statue out of un-employment induced frustration. The court decides the fault to lie within the society itself, however it punishes the man to death.


References


External links

*
On the Mrinal Sen website
1972 films 1972 drama films Bengali-language Indian films Indian drama films Films directed by Mrinal Sen Films set in Kolkata Second Best Feature Film National Film Award winners 1970s Bengali-language films Films based on works by Samaresh Basu {{1970s-Bengali-film-stub