Mrinal Sen was one of Indian cinema’s most fearless and politically aware filmmakers, known for capturing the anxieties, contradictions and struggles of society.
Along with Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Tapan Sinha, he played a major role in India’s parallel cinema movement. Sen’s films often explored themes of corruption, inequality, middle-class hypocrisy and the failures of systems, while constantly questioning the world around him.
On his birth anniversary today, Filmfare’s Editor-In-Chief Jitesh Pillaai writes about his legacy. In his words:
How does one describe loss? Especially of someone who was never at a loss to describe and portray human frailty. Mrinal Sen was an angry filmmaker railing against the system, the politics of polity, the dynamics and hypocrisy of society and relationships.
His take on politics and the middle class, as seen in his Calcutta trilogy – Calcutta 71 (1972), Interview (1971) and Padatik (1973) – his fantastic juxtapositioning of a famine within a film’s framework in Akaler Sandhaney (1980), his criticism of middle-class mores in Ek Din Pratidin (1979), Kharij (1982) or Ekdin Achanak (1989).
His lens eye took a sharp and sometimes severe look at the existing governments, the corruption, and the state’s inability to provide real-time solutions to the problems of the common man. He railed against an ineffectual system in Kharij, Oka Oori Katha (1977), Akaler Sandhaney.
Working with actors as diverse as Ranjit Mullick, Utpal Dutt, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Dimple Kapadia, and Mithun Chakraborty, Sen’s work was not easy, and one did get lost in the symbolism and expressionism of some of his films, like Genesis (1986).
He provided no easy answers, and his lamentations of loss in Khandhar (1984) did seem indulgent. But the pathbreaking Bhuvan Shome and gems like Ekdin Pratidin revealed his sterling qualities as an erudite and yet sensitive filmmaker ranked alongside greats like Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray.
Mrinal Sen is no more. But his films will live on forever in the minds of anyone who’s acutely aware and sensitive to the environment in which he lives. Sen films need constant revisiting, not only to understand their subtleties but also to jolt us out of our complacency that comes with the passage of time. RIP Mrinalda.
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