The Stranger (Satyajit Ray, 1991)

Utpal Dutt and Bikram Bhattacharya in The Stranger

Sudhindra Bose: Dipankar Dey
Anila Bose: Mamata Shankar
Satyaki Bose: Bikram Bhattacharya
Manomohan Mitra: Utpal Dutt
Prithwish Sen Gupta: Dhritiman Chatterjee
Ranjan Rakshit: Rabi Ghosh
Chhandra Rakshit: Subrata Chatterjee
Tridip Mukherjee: Promode Ganguly
Sital Sarkar: Ajit Banerjee

Director: Satyajit Ray
Screenplay: Satyajit Ray
Cinematography: Barun Raha
Production design: Ashok Bose
Film editing: Dulal Dutta
Music: Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray's final film, The Stranger, based on one of his own short stories, ends with a rather sentimentally gratifying gesture on the part of its central character, but even this rather conventional narrative twist doesn't spoil the lovely seriocomic mood cast by the film as a whole. It's the story of a long-lost relative who suddenly, after 35 years without contact, arrives at the home of his one surviving family member, a niece who was 2 years old when he disappeared. Anila Bose and her husband, Sudhindra, are well-to-do residents of Calcutta who can't help being suspicious that the man who arrives on their doorstep may not be who he says he is, her mother's brother, Manomohan. Sudhindra is especially cautious, warning that the man may be planning to filch some of the valuable antiquities they have collected, so Anila dutifully locks some of them away. But almost from the beginning, the "uncle" begins to win Anila and especially her son, Satyaki, over with tales from his travels and unusual insights into the way of the world. Even Sudhindra is disarmed when the man produces his passport but also warns him that passports can be forged. Some curious friends of the Bose family "drop in" to form their own opinion of the stranger, and they, too, are won over. Anila begins to have her doubts, however, when, while reading an Agatha Christie novel in bed, it occurs to her that the long-lost uncle may be there to collect his share of her grandfather's will.  Finally, it falls to another, more deeply skeptical friend to challenge the man and his ideas: his observations on civilization that he has formed from his travels. Their heated debate is the intellectual and dramatic turning point in the story. Ray's typically roving camera keeps the film from becoming stagy: It takes place mostly  in the Bose home, because Ray's doctors had warned him to do most of his filming indoors, but there are also some lovely outdoor scenes, especially toward the end, when Manomohan takes the family to a tribal village where dancers show the family that there is more to Indian culture than their privileged middle-class lives. The Stranger is a fine farewell to an illustrious career.

An Enemy of the People (Satyajit Ray, 1989)

Dhritiman Chatterjee and Soumitra Chatterjee in An Enemy of the People

Dr. Ashok Gupta: Soumitra Chatterjee
Nishith Gupta: Dhritiman Chatterjee
Haridas Bagchi: Dipankar Dey
Maya Gupta: Rama Guha Thakurta
Idrani Gupta: Mamata Shankar
Birish Guha: Subendu Chatterjee
Adhir: Manoj Mitra

Director: Satyajit Ray
Screenplay: Satyajit Ray
Based on a play by Henrik Ibsen
Cinematography: Barun Raha
Music: Satyajit Ray

The phrase "enemy of the people" regained currency recently when the current president of the United States applied it to the news media. It's also the title of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play about the persecution of a truth-teller, so let the irony fall where it may. Writer-director Satyajit Ray's adaptation of Ibsen's play is one of his last films, made three years before his death. His health had been severely weakened by a heart attack in 1983, and his consequent lack of vigor shows in the film's static character: limited camera movements and a restriction to only a few sets, mostly interiors. It's very much a filmed play -- even in the final scene we hear but don't see the crowds outside proclaiming their support of Dr. Gupta. Ray's screenplay follows Ibsen in general outline, while shifting the scene from a Norwegian town to an Indian one. The title character, Dr. Ashok Gupta, is concerned about a sharp increase in diseases that are typically water-borne, such as hepatitis and cholera, so he sends a sample of the town's water, including that from the newly built Hindu temple, for analysis, and his suspicions are confirmed. He writes an article for the local newspaper explaining his findings and suggesting that the temple be closed until necessary water treatment measures are taken. But he is opposed in this by his own brother, Nishith, the equivalent of the town's mayor, who fears that closing the temple will hurt the economy, especially with a festival approaching that is likely to attract religious pilgrims. Nishith enlists a priest from the temple to proclaim the water safe and pressures the newspaper's publisher into killing his brother's article. Dr. Gupta calls a town meeting, but it is taken over by Nishith, who even goes so far as to call his brother's faith into question. Religious fundamentalists attack the Guptas' home and the landlord asks the doctor to move; the doctor's daughter loses her job as a teacher, and his privileges in the local hospital are revoked. Ibsen's play ends with his Dr. Stockmann standing firm, with only his family's support, but Ray softens his film's ending with the off-camera sound of the rallying supporters of Dr. Gupta. It's not really a cop-out ending, however. Ray has shifted the focus of his film from Ibsen's attack on bureaucracy and capitalist privilege to one he believed more relevant to his country: the clash of science and religious fundamentalism. What saves Ray's An Enemy of the People from preachiness and its lack of cinematic finesse is the director's usual involvement in his characters and the deep conviction of his actors, particularly Soumitra Chatterjee, who made his film debut in The World of Apu (1959) and worked with Ray on more than a dozen films over the next three decades.